She Said No

Get this.

I asked a friend of mine to come move into our house. She’s pregnant. I can’t stand watching pregnant women freeze.

It is currently 14 degrees. She is in a tent with no heat. Someone has tarped it really nicely however.

She said no.

I have no rules. Like zero rules. As long as you aren’t trying to murder people I’ll let you stay. (I guess that’s a rule.)

I’m telling you this because people often say homeless people don’t go into shelters because they don’t like the rules.

It’s not about the rules. It’s about being stuck in a massive rut. It may be freezing and isolated. But it’s what you know. So you won’t leave it.

We have so far to go in understanding our homeless population. We’ve always had them. But we’ve never cared to try to understand them. Homelessness will never end if we can’t grasp the most basic fundamentals of what it means to be homeless.