3 Jan 2010 @ 04:55
Last year I bought an old motor home with the intention of donating it to a family in need of shelter. I contacted numerous churches and social service groups (not capitalized intentionally). They all had reasons why they could not do the same thing when I asked them if they could also contribute. Cmon people. I spent $2000.00 on this motor home. Believe it or not that represented my entire savings. Call it an act of faith. So why is it I am wondering why those folks that represent faith institutionalized, can not donate even a parking space in their parking lots for homeless people?
Yep, you guessed it; liability, aka LACK of faith. If it was not so sad I would laugh.
As it turned out, very shortly after I bought it, my youngest son became homeless and he is now living in it.
And so I would like to talk about family dynamics for a minute. The dominos of our lives (life domains) are arranged so that all touch each other and when they start to topple they can cascade woe onto us so deep we have a hell of a time trying to dig out. How do you prevent a minor castastrophe like losing your job from bringing down all your dominos? Today is so different from days past. Families are less interconnected and the communities that we live in share few of the characteristics that I call community that's for sure. You may not agree with my observations but you can put it to a simple test. When your mom and dad fell on tough times financially due to an illness let's say; what did they do? Can you do the same thing today? You're lucky if you answered that you too could borrow a few thousand dollars from your relatives to get you back on your feet. Personally, I don't know anyone who could help me out if I lost my job due to an extended illness. Few of us have the few months worth of savings that we would need to keep us afloat while we scurry about seeking a job, shelter and food. By the way, you can't get an apartment if you don't have a job. If you're living in a tent or a car while you wait for emergency shelter you're in a fast growing community of people who are facing the hard cold facts of life.
Now imagine being very young, let's say 18 or 19. There are many young people out there fighting for survival. Now there is another segment of the population who has never been homeless also needing the resources that they depend upon for survival. This is getting really ugly isn't it? More >
|
