Homelessness

Jovanna Beltran-Mier, Reporter
February 10, 2022

Over the last couple of years, the number of homeless people has gone up. It’s a problem everywhere, you often see homeless people on the side of the road with a sign asking for help. Should we help them? Often people say to themselves that they are lazy, dirty and that they are no use to anyone. I think we should help them out although we don’t know their story and how they ended up homeless. A lot of them have the potential to be successful in life but yet at times they don’t do anything to help themselves, but Some people become homeless because they had medical conditions, don’t have jobs, kicked out of their home or they are retired veterans etc.   

There are homeless shelters they can go to or they can also go to the police station to ask for help. But why won’t they do this? Mainly because they are involved in drugs and have a difficult time to quit, or they are simply embarrassed to ask for help. They have plenty of resources to get help. As of January 2020 the state of Washington alone has had about 22, 923 homeless people. With a two-year difference this number has most likely increased. In January 2017 around 553, 742 people were homeless in America. There are a whole lot more people that are all around the world, not just in America.   

About a year ago a homeless person came up to my father and I while we were walking around in the Seattle area, they had asked for help. My father looked at this young woman with two babies and asked her if she could tell us her story. Taylor is her name, and she did in fact have two twin babies. After an hour of listening to her story we realized why she is in the position she is. We ended up calling the homeless shelter nearby to see if she could get some help, she did get help and now she has a stable job and she’s doing great mentally and physically and so are her kids.  

Although everyone has their own opinion about homeless people. Whether we should help them or not. At the end of the day people have the choice to either help them out and help the population of homeless people decrease or simply walk away and not help whoever it is.