19 April 2021 — Compassion Towards Homeless People

As there are often two sides to any subject up for discussion SO there are two ways in which people respond to homeless people. I have seen people who are totally generous and compassion expressing kindness, sympathy and practical help towards the homeless. I have also seen people who walk by not even acknowledging them. These I would say are either people who feel embarrassed and simply don’t know how to react and forget that whatever plight the person is in he or she is still a human being. People who perhaps pity the homeless person and look down on them instead of seeing them as human beings down on their luck.

Many homeless people have told me how grateful they are to be acknowledged and treated as a human being and tell me that my having stopped to talk to them means everything and that i do not have to give them money every time I stop to say hello.

People also have differing opinions about how people become homeless, with some seeing the reason for the person being there as self inflicted through alcohol, drugs etc. Whilst others take the time to enquire what happened to cause the homeless. Often the cause of a person being homeless is their having lost their job or a relationship having broken up.

When one considers how debilitating it must be to have to sit on the pavement or outside a supermarket etc and beg for money for a night at a hostel or for food and that a smile or a kind word costs nothing, I find it hard to understand why people would walk past ignoring a homeless person or allowing their rational minds to convince them that the homeless do not deserve sympathy.