Homeless, not by choice
Richard Gere disguised as a hobo as a social experiment it was a great experience for him . As he say ..
'Yeah I dress up a hobo and no one noticed I felt like a homeless person walked past me and looked in disgust
Only one lady was nice to me and gave me food it was an amazing for me
So many times we forget we cannot appreciate what we have and how lucky we are can help someone let’s do it
That’s why I finished my experiment, I drove around town and handed out food and gave $ 100 to every homeless person I met they were crying out of gratitude. Be the change you want today.'
Richard Gere
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Hello. My name is Duncan Adelaide. I am 22 years old. In high school, I was the class nerd. I had a 4.0, very rarely missed school, and was generally regarded as likely to get somewhere in life. I was in the high school band, drama club, FCCLA, Future Problem Solvers, and in my Junior year served as class representative on the Student Council.
I came from a relatively poor, dysfunctionaly strict and very religious family. My grandfather was head of the local church. He, and my immediate family, are of a sect of Christianity that demands absolute adherence to its doctrine and the shunning of anyone who does not comply.
I am gay.
After this was found out, I spent over a year being kept inside, told and reminded every day that I was “evil” and “not my son anymore” and “unable to be trusted to have any moral compass whatsoever.” I dropped out of the online school I had been put into for that year, to get a job.
I did, and on my 18th birthday was wordlessly sent away, after having spent the previous evening saying my final goodbyes to my brother and sister, who I would no longer be able to have contact with. I have not heard from them since.
I stayed in the same town for a while, in a perpetual state of shock and grief that was only marginally improved when I moved to another state.
But I still had no will to live, and very swiftly this led to having no means to live, either. Soon, winter arrived, and one frigid night with temperatures well below zero, I faced a choice: freeze to death, alone and unremembered, or take methamphetamines and stave off the hypothermia. Meth is one of the most addicting drugs there are.
After six months of drug use, I hitchhiked to another city and checked into a mental hospital. I spent a year on anti-psychotics, recuperating as best I could while staying at a Gospel Mission of all places. But after a year of people once again trying to indoctrinate the soul out of me, I ironically managed to find it, along with my will to live.
I am attending college for a Psychology degree now. I have a 3.8 GPA at the moment. I’ve also started a part-time job, as a cashier at a supermarket.
I'm still staying at a shelter for homeless youth; that hasn't changed yet. I have no credit history, no rental history, and I don't make 2x the rent or have a cosigner, so getting into an apartment in this city is virtually impossible, and being a student makes me ineligible for most federally funded forms of housing assistance. There are some promising leads with a local county program though, at long last, so I won’t be homeless much longer.
But I would like to conclude by saying that the next time you see a homeless person on the streets and feel anger or disgust or whatever negative emotion causes your lack of sympathy, I want you to remember me, and imagine that person as they would have been as a teenager, studying in school, hanging out with friends, all the things you did as a teen. And then, I want you to think of that person's future as well: what would they look like, cleaned up and studying in college or working at the same job you work at? And remember, with respect and some assistance, that teenager could become that college student and/or coworker. With respect and some assistance, that homeless person could become that coworker. The first step is to stop assuming it is their fault. It really isn’t. Even the 20% or so of homeless people who do end up homeless because of poor life choices usually made those choices under duress.
And again, with respect and some assistance, their lives could be turned around. Whether or not you are in any way interested in helping with the assistance end of that, you can (and should) still show respect. Treat people equally regardless of their housing status.
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JB remembers:
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After loosing his lover to AIDS back in the late '80's. Geoff had a big breakdown, lost his job, couldn't pay the mortgage, lost his flat in Earls Court and was housed by the council is a hostel where every day he had to carry all his possessions with him as the hostel was not secure and he shared a dorm with over 20 other guys.
I offered him a job on my escort agency and stated that within just two weeks he could earn enough to put a months deposit and 3 months rent down on a flat - and once in a home, he could move on with the benefits and sorting his life out.
Sadly, for him - he was horrified.
He chose to be homeless after that as I offered him a hand up - a helping hand out of poverty and homelessness yet he chose otherwise.
When I was personally homeless, after my multi millionaire lover dumped me penniless, I did whatever I could to earn money and turned straight to prostitution - knowing it could earn me BIG TIME and that after 6 months or so, i could sort myself out and get a job for real.
Mind you,. I loved the sex work and the money was more than triple what I could have earned in a ' proper job ' so went self employed as a masseur, got a mortgage and invested the money I was making, paid tax, took credit cards, had business accounts and ran my prostitution business, as a business, so it WAS a proper job and one that earned me an absolute fortune and for 15 years, until retiring to buy Hamilton Hall, I was a leading force in the sex industry on London.
Being homeless is not a choice for many. Many wealthy people find themselves on hard times and some are homeless, so don't assume all people who sleep rough are bums.
John Bellamy
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