This week we were set to discuss the question: What is life like for the hungry, the homeless, and the near-homeless? Since the start of the course watching through videos of faces of the homeless and through the readings such as Nickel and Dimed, I feel as though so many of the stigmas I have had about homelessness have been proven wrong. I have listened to stories of people who have gone to school, have degrees, have families, have had jobs, and after a series of unfortunate events find themselves homeless. Through this I have learned homeless does not mean sleeping on the streets, or being an addict. Homelessness can be living out of your car, or even holding a job but it does not cover the never ending increased expenses life faces us with.

Nickel and Dimed showed me how near impossible it is to live on a minimum wage job. Many of the people that she worked with split apartments or rooms with two to three other people that may not even be family. They relied on these people to help them pay rent and keep a roof over their heads. Others let their coworkers shower at their apartments, or sleep on a couch if they needed to. The whole section talking about this is only referring to housing. You have to consider food, medical care and transportation. It is truly eye opening to actually look into specific cases of homelessness. I think it is something that is so widely generalized that it is difficult for people to see some of the true impacts our society has on people in the lower classes.