The Holidays and The Homeless

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With the up-coming holiday season just around around the corner, and the early arrival of “Black Friday”, we should all take a step back and acknowledge the plight of the fast growing homeless population.

 Many of us, (myself included) have thought of the homeless population as a plight confined to Urban areas.  That may have been true in the past, but with the financial disaster that has been our “state of the union” for the past year and a half, it has completely changed the geography and the face of the homeless in America.

The new face of the homeless belongs not to drug addicts, the mentally ill or drifters.  It also belongs to family’s.  And, this population is growing at an alarming rate.  Family’s who used to own homes that are now in foreclosure, or who used to work at what they thought was a stable job are now living in tents, cars or even abandoned houses.  Nowhere is the plight of the homeless more evident than Detroit.  What used to be a mecca for numerous blue and white collar jobs mostly driven by the big three automakers, now resembles a city in a bombed out war zone.  With it’s 25% unemployment rate, the new estimate puts the homeless population at around 24,000, with 60% of that number being homeless family’s. 

Up until the economic meltdown a year ago, much was being done by many government agencies to end the plight of the homeless.  That too has changed.  The government is no longer attentive to the needs of these citizens.  Funds have dried up or they are being allocated elsewhere ( my guess is Wall Street), leaving individual communities “out in the cold” to deal with it on their own.  Talk about the “Fractured American Dream”.  The homeless are poster children for that statement.

There are resources such as Habitat for Humanity, National Coalition for the Homeless,  and Homeless Shelter Directory.org, but they are too few, they are grossly under-funded and high in demand.  That’s where the rest of us come into the picture. Lend a hand, lend a dollar or lend ourselves to this plight. Especially in light of the holiday season.  We should all ask ourselves, ” Am I my brother’s keeper” ?  Yes, we are.  It could be the best Christmas present we ever give to ourselves or our “brothers”.  Happy Holidays.

By ,

Dianna Reed-Shay

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia