A New Life

Washington, District of Columbia – capital of America. Every day D.C. draws tourists from all around the nation to see the White House, renowned museums, and beautiful buildings. It is another world that brings an inviting gaze. Presidents, senators, and state representatives reside in a city such as this, and where they do reside, it is indeed beautiful. That is the part of D.C. that America knows. What of the rest? Washington, D.C. is more than the museums and pretty buildings. Just down the road from the streets crowded with men and women who have cameras in one hand and children’s hands in another is a whole new world.

Homelessness, sickness, starvation – that is what the tourists do not see. I have been to Washington, D.C. countless times throughout my life and I have never seen the pain of it until last month: the people on the streets without shoes or coats, the crowded churches serving free meals, and teenagers wearing ragged clothes and lugging about small, torn suitcases. Also, I have seen the attempts to help: free breakfasts every morning, lunches delivered throughout the city, Sunday dinners served at local churches after a mandatory service, and donated clothing folded and boxed up and sent away to those who need it. Nevertheless, there is always someone who cannot get the meal, who does not receive the clothes, who is reduced to sitting outside a McDonald’s all day just to get enough money for a 99c hamburger. Despite all that people do for those in D.C., I wish for more.

I do not know if a place like this could ever become ideal, but it could become better. The work that so many people have put in has already helped; imagine if that many more did the same. I met people so much less fortunate than I that I fell in love with immediately; now gone, I do not know if they are well, sick, in a worse or better condition than March, or even dead or alive. It’s a scary thought. I want the best for these people just as much as friends here.

So many people envy America, wishing they could be here, but America’s own capital holds a community of people hardly more, if at all, fortunate than themselves. I hope that over the years D.C. will improve. There should be food for everyone, and more than one meal every other day. Everyone in D.C. should have clothes, and perhaps I could go even as far as hoping for a different set than the day before. It is too much to hope that all the homeless people will find somewhere to live in a city as expensive as D.C., but perhaps one cannot hope too much. I see clean streets and people being more prone to buy Chinese for the hungry man outside the door.

I read a book called Under the Overpass just after my trip to D.C. The book was about two college students who gave up their lives for nearly six months and experienced being homeless. They learned firsthand what it was like to live on the streets. One city they went to was D.C. Few people bought them food or gave them money. Only one person, in all the months they were “homeless,” bought them a meal. D.C. could use more people like that one person.

So many people are unaware of the desperation in their own capital. I can only hope that one by one, people will see, learn, and do what they can to help. Money, time, and talent can all help, and everyone has a bit of at least one of those to share. Perhaps people who visit the forgotten part of D.C. more will dream of a better environment for the homeless and hungry, too.