This blog post from the Huffington Post provides an interesting insight on a possible solution to homelessness. What Joel John Roberts argues is that the key aspect of solving homelessness is a sense of community. Only three weeks into this course, we have already seen several examples of the importance of a simple human connection. A perfect quote regarding this comes from the film “Taylor’s Campaign” (1997): “we are not just looking for a handout, but are looking for just a hand.”  Though charity and “handouts” help, people do not want to be seen as a project; something to be fixed and then forgotten about. The homeless want to be a part of the community, just like everyone else. The only way to really help these people is to extend our kindness and humanness to them. The program described in the article has made a lot of progress in housing homeless people, yet the author/agency director even acknowledges that it needs to be taken a step further in order to maintain this progress. As Roberts states, “A weekly visit from a case worker, or an open case management office in the building, does not create an intimate, supportive community for a person who has been isolated on the streets for years.” He stresses the importance of a supportive and warm community that can ease homeless back into housed living. People too often forget how easy it is to make a person feel like a human being. Solutions to homelessness need to take a step further and include humanity and caring.