Early this morning, I posted a status update on Facebook:
How come when we see homeless dogs or cats, we all think “poor thing”, we ask our friends who can give them a home, post their photos all over facebook and in ads trying to find them a home … but when faced with homeless PEOPLE we cringe, we don’t want to talk about it, and we make judgments as to why they’re homeless before we even think about helping them find a home. Just my personal random thought of the day.
As I had hoped, it caused some discussion. So I wanted to share pieces of the resulting comment discussion, and encourage more people to respond here on WordPress. It will help bring awareness to an issue that NTYC deals with every day.
-
-
Gloria I love this personal random thought of the day! I hope it gets people thinking!!
-
John When we see homeless dogs and cats, it’s usually as a result of the actions of a human….When we see a homeless human, it’s usually the result of the actions of that same person….
-
Vicky Penn Mostly true but … the barriers of poverty are huge hurdles to overcome, especially generational poverty, as are problems associated with mental illness and physical disability, and all of these are difficult to understand unless you have been there or work with the clients. And in my personal case, we work with homeless youth under age 18 … yet the homeless animals still get more “attention” …
-
Tiffany Vicky I don’t know you, but it’s so true…..I hate when people say, don’t help them because they deserve it or they are just going to use money for drugs etc…we don’t know what happened in others lives, nor should we judge…we never know when we may need help one day..
-
Gloria Tiffany, Vicky was my boss in Texas. I worked for a non profit agency and managed the homeless grant. I loved loved my job and hated to leave, it was what I was put on this earth to do!! She is amazing at what she does, Development Director for the agency, everyone does awesome work and many of the programs supports kids who are homeless!!
-
Tiffany Sounds like they did great work…that’s awesome that you could do something with such great reward…..I hope you find that again…
-
David The other day I saw a homeless man with his little dog. I didn’t know the heck too do!
-
Vicky Penn Not uncommon for a person, even when homeless, to want to keep a pet that has been one of their few steady companions for years, to keep some resemblance of stability in their lives and someone/thing that they feel cares about them at a time when they feel like no one else does
-
Ruth Social Darwinism has once again become very popular and people actually believe they “got where they are on their own”.
-
John Ruth ??? So where you are, isn’t a result of your hard work?
-
Vicky Penn I believe most people got there on their own. It’s just seldom that they know how to get OUT of there on their own. They haven’t been shown an alternate way of doing things, of living. So do we just leave them, and all suffer the consequences, or do we try to help them?
-
Gloria WOW!!! Look at all this talk about homelessness!! Awesome, I challenge everyone on this feed to volunteer in someway to volunteer at an agency near you to support a/any homeless program. It is very rewarding!! Trust me!
-
Gloria P.S. Amen to Vicky’s last post, she knows what she speaks!!
-
Travis When i was a kid I tried to give this homeless guy money, but he wouldn’t take it, so I wondered what was wrong with him. I was eating some food and then I realized he wanted my food so I gave him my food and all the sudden his eyes lid up like he has won a jackpot. haha
-
- Gloria sounded like he wanted to eat instead of go shopping
-
Vicky Penn Oh John I get your question now. Yes I bet Ruth would definitely say that she got where she is as a result of her hard work. She benefited from things that the majority of homeless lack: she knew HOW to do it, she had education, she had good mentors in her life. The knowing how part is hugely lacking for people living in poverty (generational poverty, not so much situational poverty). We have the know how to do it part; they simply do not. And you can’t do what you don’t know how to do.
- Vicky Penn Recommended reading: any book by Ruby Payne. She is one of the leading experts on poverty and what it really means, providing some insights that even people working with people experiencing poverty just do not know because they’ve never experienced it.
Post your comments below. I will try to update this as fully as reasonable if more discussion occurs on Facebook.
