Do You Know Anyone Who Is Homeless?

Do you know anyone who is homeless?

Think about it.

Hard.

I can wait.

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I'll help by supplying the definition of homeless, which may be a little different than you are expection. No, you don't just have to live in a shelter or on the streets. No,  you don't have to push around a grocery cart with your possessions. Or stand on street corners asking for cash.

Homeless is defined as lacking a fixed, regular nighttime residence or living within temporary or transitional living arrangements.

Does that help you to think about people who are homeless?

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According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, a government body – and say THAT name 10 times fast, yeesh – 1.25 million Americans stayed at a shelter at some point in 2020, 1.28 million students experienced some form of homelessness, homeless people have been found to die some 20 to 30 years earlier than their fellow citizens…the bleak statistics go on and on. And those are just the people that USICH caught up with in shelters – that doesn’t count people who live on the streets or crash with friends and family.

I’ll ask you again – do you know anyone who is homeless?

Think carefully.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, in their 2023 State of Homeless report, says there are 24,432 homeless people in Texas. That includes people in shelters, people living rough on the streets, and unhoused people living with loved ones in communities throughout the state. I think, considering we are a border state, that number might be a little low.

Do you have people in your community that have multiple families in their home? They might actually have a multi-generational family…or they might have taken in people who are homeless.

Do you pass people on the street asking for money regularly? Some of them are running cons, sure. But some are truly homeless.

Do you know people who perpetually couch surf? Some of them are lazy SOBs who are kids of your friends, but some are truly homeless.

Do you know anyone who is homeless?

Think.

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Really think.

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You do know.

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You know me.

House Stock photos by Vecteezy