At my internship on Friday, I had a bit of a shock. As I walked in the front door, I saw a boy who looked identical to my little brother. I took a double take and seeing him again made it spookier. This whole encounter got me thinking about how things are more real when they affect you directly. If your family struggles with homelessness then you are more likely to truly understand what the meaning of homelessness really is, what it actually feels like. Seeing someone who so closely resembled a member of my family, someone who I love dearly, in a shelter struck very close to home. It got me to imagine what it would be like to have a sibling runaway, or to be on the streets as a young teenager. Up until this point I had stayed pretty detached from it all, seeing it more as something that happens to others rather than something that could happen to me or the ones that I love.

After coming to this realization, I put together that this idea of it being “other peoples problem” is the mentality that a majority of society puts out about homelessness. They can say they understand, volunteer their time, donate extra food, extra clothes, even money, but they never truly understand the effects and the toll it takes on everyone who is involved. It is not a voluntary action to become homeless; people don’t just one day say hey I’m going to be homeless today. And kids sure don’t runaway from their homes, or end up in foster care just for the hell of it. In fact, a majority of the kids on the streets who are facing homelessness are there because their parents don’t want them or their parents abused them, or they just plain and simple don’t have a family or a house to call home. Before I worked in the shelter, I viewed running away as a kid a kind of glorified action that you did to be a rebel, but that you would always eventually return home. As a kid I ran away once because I was mad at my parents, but never once did it cross my mind that I would never come back or that I would have to find a place other than my bedroom to spend the night.

All the clients at the shelter have a story, a reason for why they are there. Some have families, others have social workers, and some have both or neither. But to comprehend that there are kids out there that aren’t loved and cared about by their own family makes me sick. I know if my little brother ran away I would do everything in my power to get him back. Because that’s what you do for the ones that you love.