You and the World #2

Posted by Aaron Block in English 1 - Dunn on



Hello. This is the second post in my You and the World project. To look at the first one, click here. I feel the information I have gathered since my last post has been very valuable. Homelessness is a problem that reaches into many different sections of life. A Philadelphia man has been taking pictures of the homeless and talking about them on the internet. To look at the website click here. What this man is doing is really important. How many times have you passed by a homeless person in the street and just ignored them? I have done it too many times to count.

people-pass-by-in-the-street-said-lemuel-and-they-dont-see-the-need-they-just-see-a-number
One homeless man, Lemuel, who was quoted on the site was talking about how he is homeless and people ignore him when he asks for money, but then there are people who ask him for change so they can pay the meter to park. I think this reveals the real problem. People are so self-centered that they do not realize the needs of others. When someone needs to pay the meter to park their car, that is all they think about. When they see someone with change they think “Oh, problem solved!” even if they are homeless. We all need to think beyond our own want and needs and think about this community as a whole. To back this up further, I would like to bring up my survey. I did a survey for this project to see how aware people were about the poverty and homelessness that surrounds them. Look at the graph on the right to see the results.chart_1 There were more people that got things wrong but the results were close to even in terms of how many people got questions wrong versus how many people got questions right. Most of the time when someone got a question wrong they thought there was more poverty. This leads me to believe that it is not a problem of awareness, but a problem of caring. Many people know about the poverty problem in Philadelphia but it seems that they shrug it off. I decided to volunteer at a homeless shelter in order to alleviate the amount of people who are hungry and homeless. However, through this whole experience it has become clear to me that this is not enough. I urge people to volunteer at homeless shelters (here is a list of homeless shelters), but also pay attention to what is going on outside on the streets. Homeless people who either choose not to go to homeless shelters for whatever reason or who cannot get into shelters are left out in the cold. We need to take care of them to. We ignore homeless people on the street often. At least most people I see do. I think that the first step to end the homelessness abundance is to recognize that there are homeless people. We should stop averting our eyes when we see a homeless person but look at them in the eye. If they are asking for change stop and say sorry I do not have any as oppose to ignoring them. I have realized all the wrong things I was doing and I am starting to make a change. There are some homeless people like Lemuel, who had a bad habit and now need help rehabilitating. I bet that being homeless does not help in this process. I think for the sake of homeless people, and even for our sake we need to end the over abundance of homeless people.

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