Women on the Street
Have you ever rushed down the street and felt that nagging feeling of
guilt, as you breeze by someone lying in a doorway? Is she alive? Is she ill?
Why do we all rush by without finding out is she's all right?
People sit in train stations, bus stations, parks, doorways,
unmistakably sick, with what, we don't know. All are seemingly alone. Some beg.
Some don't. Some have open sores that ooze and bleed. Some are drunk. Some
talk to themselves or formless others. They have no homes.
Street people make up a small percentage of the homeless population.
Most homeless people blend into the daily flow of urban life. Many families are
homeless. Many babies go from the hospital into the shelter system, never
knowing what it is like to go home. Women are another subgroup of the homeless.
Solutions to homelessness are not easily found. But before we can solve
problems, we must be sensitive enough that we create the will to find the
solutions. Often if we do not feel the problem, if some emotional response is
not made, we are not moved to seek solutions. We are often unmoved to even
recognize the questions. We cannot afford to keep walking by.
"Work is a fundamental condition of human existence," said Karl Marx. In
punch-the-clock and briefcase societies no less than in agricultural or hunting
and gathering societies, it is the organization of work that makes life in
communities possible. Individual life as well as social life is closely tied to
work. In wage labored societies, and perhaps in every other as well, much of an
individual's identity is tied to their job. For most people jobs are a
principal source of both independence and correctness to others. It should come
as no surprise that, in the work force or out, work and jobs are important in
the lives of homeless women.
There are women who want to work and do, and women who want to work and
do not. There are women who cannot work and others who should not work and
still others... [continues]
Have you ever rushed down the street and felt that nagging feeling of
guilt, as you breeze by someone lying in a doorway? Is she alive? Is she ill?
Why do we all rush by without finding out is she's all right?
People sit in train stations, bus stations, parks, doorways,
unmistakably sick, with what, we don't know. All are seemingly alone. Some beg.
Some don't. Some have open sores that ooze and bleed. Some are drunk. Some
talk to themselves or formless others. They have no homes.
Street people make up a small percentage of the homeless population.
Most homeless people blend into the daily flow of urban life. Many families are
homeless. Many babies go from the hospital into the shelter system, never
knowing what it is like to go home. Women are another subgroup of the homeless.
Solutions to homelessness are not easily found. But before we can solve
problems, we must be sensitive enough that we create the will to find the
solutions. Often if we do not feel the problem, if some emotional response is
not made, we are not moved to seek solutions. We are often unmoved to even
recognize the questions. We cannot afford to keep walking by.
"Work is a fundamental condition of human existence," said Karl Marx. In
punch-the-clock and briefcase societies no less than in agricultural or hunting
and gathering societies, it is the organization of work that makes life in
communities possible. Individual life as well as social life is closely tied to
work. In wage labored societies, and perhaps in every other as well, much of an
individual's identity is tied to their job. For most people jobs are a
principal source of both independence and correctness to others. It should come
as no surprise that, in the work force or out, work and jobs are important in
the lives of homeless women.
There are women who want to work and do, and women who want to work and
do not. There are women who cannot work and others who should not work and
still others... [continues]
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