Home…my house. From the time I can remember, it always was just normal, like something that’s natural…. something that’s just suppose to be….That everybody lived in a HOUSE. This is what I reminisced on when we were finally all loaded up in our little green Pickup truck…my husband and I…..but we had no where to go. It was midnight and we finally finished getting the last load of our belongings from our cute little 1 BR apartment into a nearby storage facility. We had suddenly become a part of the statistics of the homeless population in San Francisco.
In 2005 there were approximately 5,642 people homeless in San Francisco. In the late 60’s there were hardly any. This is a statistic for just one city here in America, San Francisco, CA. What about the homeless statistic in the other 50 states, 100’s of cities and towns in those states. What caused this nationwide trend of people from the comfortable relaxed era of the 60’s to gradually becoming people becoming HOMELESS.
Remembering back when I was a child and being product of the “BabyBoom” generation I grew up in somewhat small town in Pennsylvania. The neighbor up the street, down the street, across the street was your momma, your dad, your friend…. And everybody was your neighbor and everyone lived in their own HOME!….People were peaceable, content, life was simple and people were relaxed… probably because everybody lived in the comfort of their home.
As time passed on, some wondering minds began to capitalize on the contentment, simple and relaxed life of people who lived comfortably in their home. These wondering minds began to come up with technical ideas of processing more things that would speed up and complicate man’s relaxed environment and once he got them hooked on their new found concepts; these wondering minds began taking it to the extreme because of their greed. These innovate technical inventions may have been designed to enhance man’s productivity but because of the concept getting into the hand of greedy “powers that be” they have used it to extract excessive fees and costs. etc. These greedy “powers that be” line their pockets with more money that they take away from the people who once lived a peaceable, contented relaxed life who were accustomed to living in the comfort of their own home. Because of greed the rents are too high….people can’t afford to buy nor rent them and people are NOT AT HOME.
These wondering minds that capitalize on these devices at the expense of the average people are aware of the impact they make on robbing poor people…but they don’t care. They lured people with free cell phones but then lock them in contracts and charge them enormous amounts to “talk”. Once the bill is so high the poor have to make a choice to keep their phone on, or pay their cable bill, or put food on the table. The food wins out and the bill gets behind, the credit gets effected and the spiral decline in their credit takes effect. Trying to keep up with all the face paced and newest technology, the poor get lost it it’s whirlwind. The prices go up and their income goes down. When the lack of money starts effecting the rent/mortgage payments, sooner or later, they’re put out on the streets.
The Homeless are PEOPLE. I can reflect back on when my husband and I were left outdoors and homeless, we were careful not to appear to any one that we were nothing more than any other average person. It was an awful feeling of loneliness not to have a place to rest your body that we could call home. It was an awful feeling not to have a place to be able to privately take a shower in a place we could call home. It was awful having to weather the outdoor climates trying to keep either warm or cool and not having a place we could go for comfort that we could call home.
This situation could happen to any person as we found out ourselves and therefore offer a suggestion for a solution to help homeless “People”. Why won’t the local city governments open the doors of the many vacant idle buildings all around town and house “People” who have become Homeless because of the economical expansion that has caused them to be pushed outside of their financial reach to the point they have been put outdoors of their home. Everyone has a story, everyone situation is different. Everyone who wants and needs to be housed would have shelter. The Homeless are not a numbered statistic… The Homeless are People.