Living without a home

The number of people we have living without a home is staggering, our communities seem to have more and more homeless people showing up every day, standing on the street corners with their cardboard signs asking for help and saying God Bless You, and being completely ignored by the majority of us.

Homeless Veteran(Source)

We have about 2,400 people living on the street within the same county that Cindy and I live.

There are approximately 10,300 homeless people living in the state of Georgia.

Well over 16,000 are homeless in Detroit, Michigan.

Upwards of 58,000 people are living in Los Angeles County, California without a home.

And on any given night there are well over a half a million people in the United States who are sleeping on the street, and over 100 million homeless people in the world.

The numbers I am using here are examples of homeless people mainly in the United States, I know that our friends who live in outside the U.S. see similar situations, and if you want to share numbers from where you live with your comments I welcome and appreciate your input.

I once saw a man sleeping in the doorway of an office building (before business hours) wrapped in a blanket trying to stay out of the cold wind, another man sitting with his arms wrapped around himself sitting on the side of the road in between shrubs, I swear there was frost on his hat, and people huddled together underneath an underpass trying to stay out of the rain. Scenes like this breaks my heart.

Some of you have seen homeless people showing up on the streets in the early morning hours. I always wonder where did they sleep last night? And what did they have for breakfast?

(Source)

The vast numbers of homeless people need to be fed somehow, they need shelter from the elements, but a whole lot of them never show up at any shelters to receive help.

What can you do to help? I don't have the answer that will fix the whole problem but I think that if each of us provides just one meal for someone living on the street then that will be one less meal that they have to ask for.

Cindy and I have provided meals for people in lieu of giving them money, if you see someone hanging around near a restaurant you are going to, buy an extra burger, fries and a drink, hand it to them on the way out the door.

Just the other day Cindy was at Wienerschnitzel picking up lunch when she saw a young woman and man who were obviously homeless sitting at a table inside counting out change between them, the young woman brought her change to the counter, it was enough to buy one hot dog and a drink, she paid and went back to the table to wait for their food, Cindy told the clerk to add five chili dogs and another drink to their tray, and to not say who paid for it. The looks on the homeless couples faces were priceless when their food arrived, I was really proud of Cindy, and to think that five chili dogs were that valuable to them.

You can feed people without putting yourself into harms way just like Cindy did, or by buying extra food and giving it to someone you see waiting around looking like they need a meal.

Why do we avoid making eye contact with homeless people? The simple answer is they scare you. The aggressive ones especially, but what about the silent ones that just sit and stare, they can be scary also because you don't know what they will do. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute though, sitting there with no home, no food, and no one who cares, I'd stare off into space too.

You have to be choosy, you don't want to approach someone obviously aggressive or high, but for those that you can tell are just down and out, they will gladly accept food in lieu of cash.

If you buy a meal for someone that is a perfect thing to do, if you give someone a little cash don't worry about what they are going to do with it, wouldn't you rather get snookered once than to hold back from someone who is actually hungry?

(Source YouTube) 

I always liked the song, What If Jesus Comes Back Like That by Collin Raye and I think of it often when I see homeless people.

The next time you see a homeless person he most likely won't be Jesus, but I guarantee you this person was born with a name, they have a face, they were once someone's baby, they are somebody's brother or sister, husband or wife, parent, friend, and sad to say a whole lot of them are down and out decorated veterans that we don't recognize anymore, each of them have the same feelings that you do.

These people will be a lot better off if we can give them at least one meal to help curb their hunger, they will also be better off if we simply look them in the eyes and say Hello as we pass by, this means one less person looked down on them today, or even worse refused to look at them at all.

A little bit of compassion goes a long way. If I were in the same situation that they are, homeless and living on the street, I would hope that at least one person looked at me as if I am a human.