hobos

Hi everybody,

Today I am going to write a more personal post. I had long not cared about the various homeless people that I saw on the streets (I live in nyc, so there are lots of them). Like many people, I believed that those people are there because they are bums and they are lazy. But today I realized something important by putting myself in the shoes of a homeless guy.
I came up with a situation where I could also easily fall into this trap.
Here it is: I am a college student that has a lot of loans (which is actually true =/ ). I get lazy or there is a huge recession, and I am unable to find a job or a place to live (Average rent in manhattan is close to 1000$/month for single room while having roommates). So I am homeless now.

After a a couple months, I finally realize I am ruining my life and want to change things. So, out of desperation, I try to get a job at some local business(grocery store, something related to my engineering degree) . I fill out their application, but leave the address and phone field blank because I have none. So either I have to keep checking in to every place I apply to or get a phone. Both of these things I cannot do because of the obvious lack of money.

So, I go try somewhere easier, lets say McDonalds. I get turned down because of the couple months of not being able to maintain a clean hygiene. Obviously nobody will eat a BigMac that was made or even touched with gloves by a unshaven, long hair, smelley guy. But, I get lucky, some KFC out there dont give a damn on who they hire as long as they are okay with min. wage.

So now I am excited. I will finally come out of this crappy hobo life. I go to my first day of work in completely shoddy clothing and hungry. I am allowed one meal per shift. So i greedily eat that meal and work all day and make (8 hrs * 6.50 = 52 bucks) . I kept this up for two weeks and make 208 dollars minus taxes. Hmmm, that is about 1/5 of average rent in Manhattan or about 1/3 in some shadier parts of nyc. My monthly payment for my loans is around 200 dollars. So not only do I get nowhere, I worked two weeks on a single meal a day (ouch!!).
... I wont finish the story. But damn, its hard to be a hobo.

I realize I got to my theoretical position by my own laziness, but do I really deserve to be stuck homeless just for one bad decision in my whole life.

Think about this the next time you see a hobo. Remember they are people like us. I still do not support charity and welfare (especially random quarters that are thrown at them) but I would like to see something big done for them by whole communities. Dont catch a fish for them, but enable them to be able to catch a fish again by themselves.

Peace,
Shaurav