end homelessness

A homeless man I met once compared himself to someone slowly drowning in quicksand. He shared with me that he was not homeless because he could not work, because of debt, drugs or alcohol. “Plenty of people who take drugs and drink live in houses”. For him, it wasn’t about simply giving. He said food would only keep him alive, but he would still be stuck. We need to find a way to treat the causes of homelessness. Only then can we truly put an end to it.

in one week i will officially stop working with the homeless. i have to find a way to stay involvedin the ending homelessness scene in my community, but i’m not sure how.

Abbé Pierre became famous during the extremely cold winter of 1954 in France, when homeless people were dying in the streets. Following the failure of the projected law on lodgings, he gave a well-remembered speech on Radio Luxembourg on February 1, 1954, and asked the Figaro, a conservative newspaper which, as he said, was read by “the powerful,” to publish his call:

“My friends, come help… A woman froze to death tonight at 3:00 AM, on the pavement of Sebastopol Boulevard, clutching the eviction notice which the day before had made her homeless… Each night, more than two thousand succumb to the cold, dying without food, without bread, many almost naked…

“Hear me; in the last three hours, two aid centers have been created…”

There are many initiatives that address this issue, I’ve recently been made aware of the work of Kerry Santo who wants to help homeless people. This project is starting in Scotland and may eventually spread as far as is needed.

More information on her work can be found here:

http://www.modofaccentral.com