I can't imagine living day to day not knowing if my wife or my kids are going to eat or have a place to lay their head at night.
Last night was my second time serving at a PADS Homeless Shelter. I remembered a few faces from the first night and the slight glimpse into their situation. I also got to meet a couple more last night. As I sat at the registration table, I opened up the logbook that travels from PADS site to PADS site each day and got a glimpse of things like "last known address." It's quite sobering that a person I met last night has laid his head down for the night under a bridge. As I look outside the window while I write this I'm at a loss for words to describe my reaction other than this; I realize a need for me to do more but feel somewhat paralyzed and am not sure why that is. I'm sure many people feel this way.
One gentleman that checked in last night just had foot surgery a couple days ago, foot bandaged up, a plastic grocery bag full of prescription medications. I wonder if he is homeless because he chose medication over paying rent? You hear a lot of comments from the visitors like "if I pay for this-then I can't pay for that." One young woman who was there with her husband and 5-year old little boy asked if the laundry cards (laundromat vouchers) were available yet because they had two-weeks of dirty clothes in their car (home). It's amazing that the little boy was cheerful in spite of circumstances but then-he's only 5. It's easy for many of us to criticize that many of the homeless smoke cigarettes. We sometimes (as I have) comment that if they can afford to buy smokes, they can afford to by some necessities of life. My sometimes rare compassionate side then helps me realize that perhaps the only pleasure some of these people may get to enjoy is smoking. I know-it's easy to criticize still but I try to not get caught up in all that. Maybe for some, smoking makes it easier to skip a meal or two. Who am I to say?
Some visitors just can't make it on $10.00/hr. Do you know anyone that can...on their own anyway? It burns me that the same minimum wage paid to a forklift driver is the same wage paid to a teenager making ice cream cones at the local dairy joint for crying out loud but that is a story for another day. Some people despair because they find a job opportunity but have no transportation.
I read a statistic the other day that 50% of Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless. I'm not sure about that; it seems like a high percentage. I would guess that this stat means some will end up homeless and others displaced (moved in with friends or family).
There are a lot of reasons people are showing up at the shelters and I'm pretty sure there will be even more as Winter digs in. I don't know what else to say other than I know how close to this edge my own kids are and that without family to be there for them; that is the only thing that may one day prevent them from meeting similar fate as those I saw last night.
