I thought I would be incapable of showing any feelings towards the homeless bums I saw every day on my way home from work.  Now that I am currently experiencing what they are, nothing could be further from the truth.

I have decided to give up my job for a week, to see how "the other half" lives.  I have been sleeping on the streets: in alleyways, in abandoned cars, on park benches, even in overcrowded homeless shelters or flop-houses.  I have been wearing the same clothes I have had on for a week, and I am in desperate need of a good hair-washing or a bath.

I am not homeless by any means.  I work as a high-powered divorce lawyer.  Yet for my vacation, which is a week, I decided to perform an experiment, to see if I could handle being homeless or see what exactly what it is that these people face on a daily basis.  

Let's put it this way: being homeless is not nice.  It is fraught with many dangers, and people would as soon spit on you or ignore you than to have any contact with you.  Homeless people are treated very badly, and people would rather forget that such a problem even exists, especially right here in their backyard.  

What they fail to remember is this: any number of homeless people could be their friends.  Neighbors.  Co-workers.  Even family members.  God help them if THEY should ever become homeless: I presonally don't think they could even handle it.

I know I couldn't.  And yet I am doing this as a way to help change the way I feel about homeless or destitute people, and it certainly has done that, in more ways than one.

I look at a homeless man or woman, and I see my parents in their faces.  I look at homeless teens or children, and I see my very own.  I even see myself, which is a very frightening thing.  I could be in this exact same spot; I just thank G-d that I'm not!  I don't know why more isn't being done to help people like the people I have seen and mingled with this week.  Programs designed to help are being cut by beaurocratic goverenment workers who just don't give a rat's ass about anything (or anyone) but themselves, and people would rather write them off than to deal with this problem head-on.  It's a travesty!

What's worse is the way homeless Veterans, once proud members of the military, are treated.  They get a very small pension check every month, and it isn't even enough to live on.  Many Veterans, it seems, have come back with emotional/mental problems because of what they saw/experienced in the war, or they have been injured physically.  A lot of them turn to drugs or alcohol as a way of helping soothe their pain; they wold like to forget.  People spit at them, shout obscenities at them, or kick or attack them when they should be kissing their asses as a way of thanking these Veterans for keeping them free.

I know one thing I am going to do when I return to work: I am going to write letters to my Congressmen and Congresswomen and tell them about what I have seen/experienced, and demand that more aid goes to help the homeless right here, in our own backyard.  We should be the richest nation in the world; there should not even BE homeless people living on the streets!  Even children are homeless; something is wrong here!  Very wrong!

~To be continued.~