The Christmas Holidays are approaching and the closer it gets to the season the more I think about the homeless people in our world. I’ve often given thoughts to the reasons people find themselves in a homeless situation and with “no” place to call home. It troubles my soul to think that something happened in that person’s life to cause them to live a life of homelessness and to become a wanderer for the remainder of their life.
Poverty is one of the main reasons for homelessness but there are many other underlying circumstances such as mental illness, uneducated, an abusive situation during childhood or as a married person in a domestic violence situation, living in an impoverished area, no medical insurance or assistance, addictive weaknesses, unemployment, an inability to focus and to handle stress in a job position, low paying job, dysfunctional household, no affordable housing, a house full of children they cannot feed and it drives the person off the deep end and there are many more reasons why a person can become homeless.
I don’t know how many people have actually seen the after effects of a child who has lived in a dysfunctional household where they’ve been beaten, verbally abused, and left to do as they please since birth; I’ve seen many a child in this type situation and what it did to them in their lives. It’s sad and a person can actually see the child deteriorating over the months and the years.
One thing for sure I don’t believe a person becomes homeless because they want to, “There’s a definite reason behind it.” Many people become homeless when mental issues and economic issues collide and the person buckles under the strain and becomes totally dysfunctional and they cannot take care of themselves much less if they have a family. They do not function mentally like a normal person for fears of failure and they need medical assistance and they cannot get it.
When I see a homeless person sitting against a building or sitting on a park bench, I wish there was some way I could take them back to a safe and secure parenting atmosphere where self-esteem and self-confidence was the number one important factor in their life.
When children grow up in poverty, dysfunctional family life, live in ghettos and hang with children who have “no” family bonding and “no-one” cares about them or they’re raised in a foster home where they feel unloved, it’s hard for them to feel loved and wanted and to earn the self-esteem and self-confidence they need to make it through life.
Nurturing and taking time to listen to children when they’re young is one of the most important gifts we can give to them; and without it; they’ll have a chance of becoming victims of homelessness.
Society can turn homelessness around and to at least cut down on the number of homeless people in the world if they step up to the plate and become the parents a child is in dire need of having. Children do not ask to be born into this society, parents choose to bring them into it and it should be of utmost importance to teach children love, security, honesty, respect, esteem, and the will to transition into a normal adult to have the ability to withstand the struggles in daily life.
This Christmas Holiday Season when we see a homeless person let’s stop to give them a smile, a hello, or a kind word, knowing they’re homeless because of issues they have not been able to control. We need to let them know they’re human just like “we” are and they’re deserving of life.
“If you draw out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall your light rise in obscurity.” Isaiah 58:10
Writer of this article is Barbara Kasey Smith and this is based on her own opinion about homelessness.