What can be done about the homeless?

The amount of homeless in this city is unreal and it’s really been mostly an annoyance… until today.

I was walking home from work and this dude was on the floor with a whole bunch of good samaritans surrounding him. At first I was wondering what the big deal was then when we walked past, I noticed that his head was bleeding and he had gone to the bathroom in his pants that were falling off of him. His eyes were nearly bulging out of his head. No one wants to be like that. It really upset me.

Not more than 10 blocks later, I saw another man hidden in a doorway, preparing to sleep for the night. He had made his “bed” out of boxes, blankets, and laid newspaper out so he wasn’t directly on the concrete. The man was leaning on his elbows reading today’s paper – the paper that was later going to serve as a pillow.

These people don’t choose to live like this. I have a really hard time with it because I feel like there are enough resources to help you get your shit together if you want to… and I am so aggravated by those who are constantly hounding us for money. I just feel like I work my ass off to make a living and when I’m waking up at 6am to go to work, I don’t want to be asked for money while I’m walking there. Maybe this makes me a bitch, I don’t know or care really… but today was very upsetting to me.

What can we do about this? I don’t want this to be about politics, or what politicians or the city or government has done wrong. I want to know how, as a citizen, I can do more than just volunteer to work with those less fortunate. I get that there will always be homeless people, and I’m not trying to ignore that fact and pretend that this can be completely fixed but I know something can be done. I just don’t know what it is.

I kind of had to rant about this, and I apologize, but I suddenly find this whole situation heart wrenching.