Go to any given city on any day of the week and visit the so called lower level of
society. There one can find quite readily
a group known as the hallway people. For those living in a cave or too high on a hill to care less these are the
homeless people.
Their attire usually lacks cleanliness and may smell. The body odor can be offensive. Their food habits of calling on dumpsters and trash cans turn stomachs. Sadly this people is their way of life. Cardboard boxes, empty hallways, and abandonded buildings comprise their living quarters for the most part. A few may go to shelters on cold night nights. Soup kitchens offer some relief from lack of nutrition.
So why even mention these supposedly lower class citizens at all? They seem happy and content in their own little world. Who cares if a couple of John Does or Mary Does dies from exposure? They should know better, right?
Are we so blind a
society we don't wish to acknowledge they even exist? Does being a homeless person mean they have no soul or heart? Because a veteran can't cope in a normal world after serving his country constitute a life on the street? The fact a mother or father has problems with a daughter or son mean the young person must exist on the streets making the best he or she can? After all the parents know what is best for the child. If they can't or won't live by the rules, maybe it's best they learn the hard way. Tell that to the mother receiving the call her son overdosed in a vacant building.
Homeless people are not going away. They are not a scab on the face of society. These are real persons with real feelings and real needs. It is not they who have turned their back on us, but rather we having turned our back on them. Eating pheasant or steak does not make one a better person. Living in a bigger home does not increase inner stature. Possessing a fatter bank account fails to make heaven open its doors any quicker.
It is what we as people do on earth determines where we go from here. For the record, a lot of the haves in 1929 became the have nots after Black Tuesday. Does that make them any lesser of a man or woman? Look into the eyes of a hallway person. It may surprise you what you see.