Homeless, hopeless, but not helpless...

 

 

"Most did not want it, nor did they expect it. However, they are now homeless..."

There were four of them. They were all asleep, huddled up in a 1998 Mazda. It was sitting in a parking lot, the windows all frosted up. The car was a wreck. On a good day, it would start. Many days, it needed to be jump started as the battery was on it's last legs. Three of the people were young men in their early twenties, and the one was a girl, barely sixteen years old. All were homeless.

The reasons they are homeless is not really important. The uncomfortable fact is this - they are only four young people out of thousands who are currently without permanent shelter. The reasons are as varied as one could imagine. Very few if anyone wants to be homeless. Very few if anyone expects to be homeless. But they are.

The four young people I addressed are living out of a broken down car, staying as close as possible to the local teen drop in shelter. The problem of why they are sleeping in their car is simple - the drop in center is not licensed by the city to have anyone spend the night inside. If young people can not "couch hop", nor find a place at a local shelter, they are stuck with sleeping in car - or worse, outside.

In the middle a harsh and endless winter, sleeping in a car, or outside, is risky and treacherous. Hypothermia, robbery, sexual assault, you name it come with the territory. Sleeping out in the open is a witch's brew of danger. And this is not just about young people spending the night outside of a drop-in center. It is also about adults. It is also about families. It is about people of all ages with mental health issues. These are people that are no better and no worse than us. They have been relegated to this lifestyle by a set of circumstances they did not want nor expect.

I would like to tell you this is getting better, but it is not. Currently, one out of thirty youth in this country do not have a home. The number of homeless teens in our local school district  goes up every semester. Can we help? Absolutely. Can we fix this problem? I don't know. However, I would like to think so.

If you would like to help, please  check with the county you live in. Most have some kind of support services, usually in desperate need of things. The need is always great, but the resources, be they kind and generous, have trouble keeping up. If you would like to help, it is a great cause, if you have some extra to give. These people are us. They deserve better than what they have. A helping hand is all they ask for.