After our last class session and the overwhelming feeling some spoke about, I thought a little more and wanted to blog about some thoughts.  Learning the somewhat intricate nature of homelessness, it’s causes, the personas involved, and what we are actively doing about it.  It is proving to be difficult to know what to do after becoming aware of such a problem in our society that has no easy or discernible answer or solution.  Just being aware of this problem within humanity is a step and being able to recognize all the factors at play helps to better position oneself in a helping and useful way, I also feel that this is not enough.

Volunteering does seem like a great outlet but equally important, is knowing the organization in which I engage with, making sure that my own values and knowledge align  with the organization that is attempting to help the persons I wish to help.  After learning about the restaurant that employs homeless persons for and also feeds them, I felt that model was one of true, genuine, and meaningful change that was very grass roots.  It may take creating programs or businesses that are like minded to that one in order to more properly address this issue.  I can think of a few ways in which I would create a business that has a model or aspect specifically dealing with this issue, and may be a great avenue for further investigation and creation.

One thing is for sure in my mind, cutting government aid and spending on social improvement programs, low income housing, and outreach will not help this problem and it will surely not go away.  Problems arise rather quickly where as solutions take long periods of time to actually start working, and making a statistical change, or decrease in the numbers of homeless persons.