Why should we even bother with the homeless?

“Homelessness is not a problem. There are economic, starvation, drug, and alcoholic problems which could lead to homelessness. Homelessness, however, is the result of multiple problems.” 

I think it was during January, someone from Messiah College asked me to write something about homelessness. I asked her where my essay would be posted. She said “the toilet booths around the campus.” I thought it was great; therefore, wrote a 500 words short essay about homelessness. The quote above is the sentence I concluded my essay with which I will belabor throughout this journal.

Maybe I am not an expert on Homelessness. I do not care if I am or not. Why? Because what I care is the homelessness not my expertise or title on it. Because I care about homelessness, I would like to jot down some of my thoughts based on my year long observation (strictly less than a year).

From my experiences with the homeless people, I was able to realize what the quote means. There is no one solution to homelessness and we need to take care of each person with love. Since homelessness is not a one simple thing that can be approached in one way, we need many different types of people. We will need economists, social workers, doctors, and so on to cure homelessness. However, there is a something that is most dire to be fixed.

Biggest “problem” I saw from the homelessness is devoid of love. People are scared of the homeless and in some extreme cases, people abominate the homeless. Sometimes, even non-profit organizations treat the homeless like pets they have to train. 

Often times, we call the Bible “The book of love.” Love, indeed, is the gist of the Bible. The Bible teaches us to love each other as Christ did. In my personal opinion, God left us a huge assignment in which we have to apply the lesson from the Bible – homelessness. To make all these jargons simpler, the Bible is saying that it is a Christian duty to help the homeless with love.

I have seen people who say “I don’t feel like I am called to help the homeless.” I believe that you need to be called to be a social worker, doctor, engineer or accountant. You would not be able to be any of those unless you have some sort of talent in each area. But, helping with homelessness is beyond just being called. We call ourselves Christians. If the term Christian means people who live like the Christ, the love, should not loving others (helping the homeless) be part of our daily lives?

From today, I ask you to show your love to the homeless “personally” so that they know you care. They are the ones who need love. You do not need to go to Africa or Central America to find the weak and poor people. Go out now and talk to a homeless person. Buy the person a meal! Build a friendship with the person. I am not asking you to do something extra; I am simply asking you to start living like Christians.

             

Issac Won

The final story from Harrisburg

                                       
                                           Greg reading the newspapers.

             Kyle put his face right in front of Mr. Boyd’s and started to curse at Mr. Boyd in a whispering voice. Mr. Boyd stepped backward and yelled at him saying: “Don’t threaten me.”  Everyone looked at Kyle and Mr. Boyd. Surprisingly, some people did not say anything as if they wished to see them fight.

            The dining room became chaotic as people gathered around us. I was very intimidated by people’s aggressiveness. It took few minutes for everything to be settled down. When people calmed down, we could not find Mr. Boyd. He must have gone out already. Kyle, Greg, Andy and I walked out from the soup kitchen and went to the state library. Again, there were more homeless  people resting inside the library. We went all the way back and sat around a long desk. Greg, by himself, went to the newspaper section and read newspapers and rest of us just chatted. For the most of the part, Kyle led the conversation. He said: “Issac, I advise you that you never go out with an Asian women.” Kyle told  me his "crazy" stories with his Asian ex-girl friends. Even though it sounded bit racist, I would have to admit that he was very funny.

            Around 5pm, Kyle left us for he had to meet his friends. Greg, Andy and I went to Bethesda Mission to see if we can all stay there for a night. Since the Mission serves dinner everyday, we had dinner together. After we ate, we looked for Jacob, the man whom we had the interview with.

            “Hey what are you up to?” Jacob welcomed us.

We asked him if we can stay one night at the shelter to learn more about the homelessness. Jacob peeked at Greg and whispered: “Is he with you guys?” When we said ‘Yes,’ his face became serious and asked only Andy and me to follow him. 

“I know people like him. I know that you guys want to learn about the homelessness, but don’t stick                                                          around with a person like him too much.”

Jacob did not let us to stay because he did not want to make an exception for Greg. We did not tell Greg about what Jacob told us. Like that, we had to say goodbye to Greg.

Few months later….

Greg:


Many students at Messiah College expressed their interest in our ministries. There was one event when 4 other people volunteered to stay a night at the street with me (Andy could not come). Next morning, we went to Grace Methodist church for the breakfast. Fortunately, I was able to meet Greg there. I asked him how he has been doing. During the past few months, he got a job and got laid off again.


Kyle:

Kyle and I are Facebook friends. Shortly after his experience on the streets, he got hired at AT&T. Few days ago, I saw his facebook status saying that he got rehired at Verizon.

 That was our story from Harrisburg. However, there are more stories that not many people know of. I wish that people who read our stories will strive to listen to the stories that homeless people have. 

Issac Won




                                    
   The homeless need people to whom they can rely on. 

Collage

First of all, I would like to apologize for my inconsistency. This past semester has been very hectic. There were some major decisions I had to go through and some of them are still remain undecided. Also, I was kept reminded that my so called occupation is student; therefore, I focused on what I had to do (unfortunately, it caused my inconsistency with the homeless ministry). Thankfully, Andy already mentioned about our “new trip” to Korea.

Before I write about anything, I think I should mention several incidents we have undergone. First, our plan to go to North Carolina has been changed. We ended up going to Toronto, Canada. To be honest, we changed our plan to give a break for us. However, as we “had fun” in Toronto (who doesn’t have fun there right?) we continued to seek to learn more about the homelessness. We slept on the street first night. It was raining and I probably had 1~2hours of sleep. An interesting thing about the homeless in Toronto is that they sleep right at the middle of the streets. No one ever bother them go interrupting the pedestrians. I brought my guitar wanting to try to panhandle, but I ended up just playing and singing for fun in a park right next to the Eaten Center (at least got to interact with some local people including the homeless people).

The second incident occurred on my way back to Guatemala. My flight was from La Guardia airport in New York City. For a cheaper ticket, I had to stay one night at the city. As all college students are, I am very poor so I decided to sleep at the airport. Since I had whole night at the city, I tried to interact with a homeless person whom I met at a subway station. I offered him to buy a meal. We went to a pizza place. As we walked in the restaurant, the worker frowned his face. He was quite rude while we were ordering. I disregarded him and just sat down at a table with the homeless man. I asked him his name and he said his name was Ronnie. Ronnie was born in New York City and he has a house where he lives with his children. As Ronnie finished his pizza, I told him that I am currently trying to grow awareness in my school and asked him if he is willing to have an interview with me.

Ronnie paused for a while and asked me to pay him money. I thought about it for a moment, and finally said no. He mentioned about his family waiting for him at home. I felt really bad saying no to him but I did. As we walked back to the station we met each other, Ronnie asked me how long will the interview be. I said few minutes. He reluctantly agreed to have an interview with me. I pulled out my video camera and asked him questions. After I asked him maybe three questions, he abruptly ran to somewhere else. While he was gone, a big man approached to me and asked me where Ronnie was. I told him he went somewhere else. Ronnie came back shortly. As soon as Ronnie came back, the big guy furtively showed him a bag. I instinctively realized the big guy was a drug dealer. Ronnie shook his head and said “I don’t have enough money. Come to me later.” I was shocked about what I saw. I quickly said good bye to Ronnie and walked away (it was more like me running away).

So, those are the incidents I really wanted to share. Even though I have not posted for few months, I actually kept journaling on my notebook. I would like to post some of my thoughts; however, I should finish writing about our experience in Harrisburg. 

Issac Won

More steps forward

The early birds in Harrisburg are the homeless. But they only catch the left over worms.

 “Hey! Hey! You can’t sleep here!” The security guard yelled at us and walked away. I rubbed my eyes and got up. My mind was blank for a while. I looked back and asked Andy what time it was. “Guess it. It is 12:00 am,” Andy answered with a frustrated tone. I was stunned and began to understand the situation. My thoughts were not coming together. Panicked and baffled, I was thinking “where should we go? It is too late and cold to find another place!” On the other hand, Andy looked placated and he started to wrap up our sleeping stuff.

We walked to the Presbyterian Church with our blankets and made our beds again. The wind was stronger than it was at the parking lot; the wind carried snowflakes so every time the wind hit my blankets, it made noises (which prevented me from sleeping for an hour or so). I opened the bag from Angel and started to eat the snacks. Munching the snacks in the cold gave me mixed feelings. I was very upset and depressed about my current situation. I was kept asking myself the reason I was out on the street. A strong desire to go back home quickly dominated me. Stifling my anger and depression, frankly, was extremely hard.

Andy anxiously walked around our sleeping place. “Andy what are you doing?” I asked curiously. “I need to pee” I paused for a second and burst out laughing. “Just find a place and take care of it” Andy pointed at a blue box and said “I think that is a portable bathroom but it says ‘No trespassing’ on the sign.” Andy ended up going some other place. As I laid my head on the my pillow (which was in fact a rolled sheet of blanket), I felt like Andy and I were completely abandoned by everyone that night. It was a tough night.  

            I opened up my eyes when I heard Andy bustling. Even though I did not have my watch with me, I could tell that it was too early to wake up since I was still very tired and the sun has not risen yet. Andy asked me if I heard a guy telling us that he will buy us Dunkin Donuts and coffee. “No I didn’t,” I replied trying to express my tiredness with my voice. We waited for the guy for about 20 minutes but he did not come back. We were still not sure whether he will come or not; therefore, we decided to go to Dunkin Donuts. Surprisingly, there were many people in the store at that early time. We went inside the store so that we could keep ourselves warm. Andy bought a cup of coffee and I bought one Boston cream donut (probably my favorite kind).We sat down and started reading books. I took out my water bottle (we got it from Angel as well) from my back pack but I could not drink much since it was frozen. After I had water, I looked around and found guys sitting on the other side. They were talking furtively as if they were CIA agents or something. My eyes stopped at the box of donuts and several cups of coffee in front of one of those guys. I whispered to Andy “Andy, I think that guy is it!” but Andy frowned at me telling me not to say anything. Eventually those guys left.

            “I think those guys were dealing drugs,” Andy told me as he was explaining his action. He continued “One guy had a wad of cash. People who would have wad of cash in Dunkin donuts at 5 in the morning would either be wicked rich or dealing drugs. And… they were definitely homeless people.” I could not believe the things we were experiencing. I could only see this kind of things from the movies but now I was seeing them in the reality.

            We came out and walked to Salvation Army to get breakfast. We were supposed to meet Greg there – yesterday, we asked Greg if we can hang out whole day with him. There was already a line of people but Greg was not there yet. We figured that Greg will come for breakfast, thus went inside to get breakfast. Apparently, the cook at Salvation Army got fired so lately, the homeless people have been getting cold meal for their breakfast. When I heard the story, I was expecting cereal at the most. I waited on the line and got a bag of food. I opened the bag to see what was there and could not shut my mouth; there were 5 sandwiches (they looked really good). I had a bite and it tasted just fine. I have heard from the homeless friends that it is impossible to starve in Harrisburg and now I really know why they are saying that.

            Eating a sandwich alone made me thirsty. So I grabbed a bottle of chocolate milk and started to drink it. However, it tasted little different from my expectation of chocolate milk taste. I looked at the bottle and realized that it was outdated. “Well, I wouldn’t die drinking it,” I rationalize myself drinking outdated milk and emptied the bottle. I was beginning to notice that I was preparing myself to see more ingrained cultures among Harrisburg homeless people.

Issac Won

A line of the homeless in front of Salvation Army

The way to Veritas?

            Andy and I got bored and decided to go inside the Hilton hotel to just hang out. One of the most famous hotel branches in the world has been very generous to the homeless in Harrisburg. Homeless go the Hilton hotel when they need to use the bathroom. Andy and I walked into the hotel and sat down on the fancy sofa in the lounge area. Sitting down in a hotel was not too exciting. While I was sitting there, many things popped up in my mind – my college classes, home in Guatemala, and many exciting plans I have. When I came back to the reality from my imagination, I realized that I am not a homeless. I knew it from the beginning; however, this realization at this time made me sad because I couldn’t imagine what it would be like thinking like a homeless. I wanted to believe that they have more exciting things to think about than I have.

            It was uncomfortable to be in Hilton for long time because we did not fit there well with our shabby clothes and dirty back packs. Since we were tired anyways, we decided to go to bed. We made our beds at the parking lot and I laid on our “beds.” Shortly after I covered myself with 4 sheets of blankets, a young, well dressed guy with an old woman walked toward us. He was smoking weed (I did not know until Andy told me later) and the old woman was leaning her head on the guy’s shoulder. When the guy found us about to sleep at the parking lot, he started to tell us the places where we can go to get helps. He introduced his name as John.  He said: “I was a homeless myself as well so I know you situations.” I went to Andy and whispered “That guy thinks that we are homeless.” I was not quite sure if I should have taken as a compliment or what. John told us that there will be a family that will be coming soon to give out food. We wanted to see who this guy was; therefore, we decided to delay our sleeping time.

While we were waiting for the family, we were able to talk to John more. According to John, he worked his a- - off to get out of the homeless situation. He had lots of complains about the shelters in Harrisburg. John said: “If you don’t have any problems, you can’t go anywhere.” John told us that shelters in the city have programs for drug addicts and others with problems; however, for normal jobless people, they only allow them 10 days to stay. “You can’t get a job in 10 days!” John shouted with a frustration.

Finally, a white van came and parked right in front of us. A Hispanic guy with his friends and children got off from the van and started to hand out chicken soup and snacks. Few minutes after his arrival, many other homeless started to show up. Among those homeless, we found Greg. I was really happy to see him again. Greg and us talked and tried to catch up each other. Greg was hired but got laid off soon after his employment. My Christmas vacation stories from Quebec City and Montreal stopped right at my throat and I swallowed them back.

Greg introduced the Hispanic guy to us. His name was Angel who has been helping the homeless for past 3.5 years individually. He told Andy and me many testimonies such as the donation of the white van and God providing food to give out every week. Everyone there looked so happy. I could tell that Angel’s family and the homeless have built a stong bond between them from the way of their interaction with each other. Angel’s children were playing around with the homeless and Angel was joking around with the homeless. It was really nice to see an individual Christian who has leaped forward with faith and love and provided minor help that the homeless need. It was nothing professional or fancy but a mere action of love.

Everyone was gone and it was eventually bed time. I bent my legs to stay warm and compelled myself to sleep (it was ver cold). Maybe after an hour, I fell asleep. It was a sound sleep and it was quite sweet until the midnight. With a vicious voice a security guard shook us up.

Issac Won

A Christmas decoration on the second street of Harrisburg

That is me! Too many clothes on.. Can't see my face.

Angel in the middle, his wife on the left, and his freind on the right

                                     

The First Step

Andy and I

                                             

            Andy and I decided to make a documentary on the homelessness. Building friendships and attempting to live like them were precious experiences for us. However, as we experienced these “crazy” things we realized that helping the homeless was not a rocket science. Through this documentary, Andy and I want to grow awareness of homelessness among Messiah Students (our college friends), and accentuate the importance of small steps over their bubbles.

            It has been almost a month since last time we went out to the street. With all the supports from our dearest friends (and with the cameras from my friend, Lance Williams), Andy and I headed to Harrisburg. Kevin Manieri, a friend and a part of our ministry, took us to Harrisburg. We put our blankets in trash bags and piled them right next to the Presbyterian Church where we used to sleep with our homeless friends. There was another pile of blankets but icicles were forming around the blankets. I prayed that our bags will be fine. With a worried complexion, Kevin said “see you later then.” Unlike other days, Andy and I were planning to stay out in the street longer so that we can document more parts of the homeless life in Harrisburg. We said goodbye to Kevin and he went back to the campus.

            Andy and I started to walk around the city. We got a paper that has all the locations of organizations where we could get help from. Looking at the paper, Andy suggested me to go to Salvation Army. Salvation Army was about 30 minutes away from the place we were. The wind in the city was very strong and sharp. Even though I wore 4 layers of clothes and a thick jacket on top of it, the wind blew right through those clothes. Just like the saying “misfortunes never come singly,” it snowed the day before we came to the city. The 4 inches of snow on the ground made it tougher to walk around –  embarrassingly I became weary only after 30 minutes of walk.      

            Finally, we arrived at Salvation Army; however, the place was closed. Andy pulled out the information paper and looked through it. After he glanced over the paper, he pointed at Bethesda Mission. Bethesda Mission was about 20 minutes away from Salvation Army. It was not hard to find Bethesda Mission; the building was noticeably big and clean compare to other buildings in the surrounding area. Andy and I went inside the building. There were few homeless people walking around the lounge area. For few minutes, we wandered around aimlessly. One homeless guy noticed that we are new to the place and he came close to us and asked: “Looking for help?” I nodded as a positive answer to his question. He pointed at a skinny and tall white guy who was at the information desk. Andy and I awkwardly went to him. He peeked at us as we were walking toward him. I opened my mouth and asked “We are from Messiah College and we are trying to make a documentary on the homelessness. Could you have an interview with us?”

             The skinny and tall white guy led us to a glass walled room. He told us that his name is Jacob and he is a house supervisor. I held the video camera and taped our interview. Andy asked him the questions we prepared. Jacob talked about 40 minutes. Throughout the interview, he threw lots of statistical information at us as if he was trying to prove that he is a professional Christian social worker. After the interview, we thanked him for his help. Right before Jacob was about to open the door, I asked him if I could interview anyone who used to be a homeless but currently working at Bethesda. Jacob paused for few seconds and said “I will ask Tony.”

            Jacob put us in another room and few minutes later, a big black guy came in. Tony told us about his life stories. One thing I have noticed from him was that Tony was quite thankful to God for His mercy on him. He had a rough life in Philadelphia and he heard about mission organizations in Harrisburg thus he came here. Just like Tony, it seemed like there are many homeless people coming to Harrisburg simply because of the organizations in the city (because there are so many organizations, homeless people get 3 meals everyday) The interview was not too long. Andy and I came out of Bethesda and walked back to the Presbyterian Church. There was no conversation between us for a while. We were both tired. I just simply wanted to sit down and rest but there was no place for us to sit down. The silence did not last long; I told Andy that I would not mind just living in Bethesda. Really, Bethesda was a cozy place especially during the winter.

            By the time we got back to the Presbyterian Church, the sky was getting dark. We looked around the area trying to find the place to sleep over and decided to sleep at the parking lot of a Bank (the homeless people told us that we can sleep there). While I was moving my blankets to the place I decided to sleep, a guy came to me and asked if we had any food. We took him to a pizza restaurant nearby.

            The guy’s name was Mike. He was surprised when we told him that we are from Messiah College; he actually thought that we were homeless. We had a light conversation with him. Mike really appreciated us for buying him a piece of pizza. Like a person who starved, he finished the pizza in an instant. It only cost us 2 dollars to make one man be full and befriend with him. After Mike emptied his plate, we wrapped our conversation and stood up. Before Mike was about to take off, I asked him if he can help us by having an interview with us. Mike hesitated for a second but allowed us to interview him. The interview was quite straight forward. When we asked him how people can help  the homeless, interestingly, he said not having judgmental attitude and providing the need.

            Andy and I were back to the Presbyterian Church again (The Presbyterian Church has become our central location of activities in Harrisburg). When we got back, a familiar face was there – Stanley. Supposedly Stanley has lived the homeless life for a long time. He is very seclusive so that he does not enjoy talking to people. Every time either Andy or I try to talk to him, he would avert his eyes from us. Even among homeless people, he is a mysterious guy; no one really knows exactly how long he has been out on the street.  I greet to Stanley and he greeted back. He was carrying a trash bag stuffed with blankets in it. It was very familiar to me so I looked at it more carefully. It was our bag. Andy and I did not want to take it away from him; therefore, we did not say anything.

            Biggest mystery we had about Stanley was the reason he does not go to the shelters. Unlike other homeless friends, he does not like going to the shelters. Rather than going to the shelters, he would sleep on the street. Andy and I got some more blankets (we got donations from people) and gave them to Stanley. When we handed those blankets, he opened his mouth and said: “Since you guys are helping me, I will tell you something. I am going down to south because there will be a big flood and it will destroy everything. You know in 2012, this city will be gone.” Andy and I looked at each other dumbfounded and did not know what to say.  

Issac Won

                                                 Icicles forming

A pile of blankets

Going to the Pizza restaurants with Mike

  

Our bags of blankets



Not too bad.

            This time, Andy, Chris and I left the campus earlier in an attempt to spend more time with the homeless people. We arrived at Harrisburg around 7pm but even then, some people were sleeping already. I looked around and I have noticed that there were more people than there were in the beginning of the month. Usually, people get money from the government in the beginning of the month; many homeless people are hard to find during that time since they are busy squandering the money.

            I greeted Mr. Boyd and he seemed happy to see me again. Mr. Boyd is from Dominican Republic and currently an American citizen. He is very short, and he always wears a turban on his head.  As soon as I greeted him, Mr. Boyd started to talk about the same thing that he has already told me when I met him first time. While talking to Mr. Boyd, I realized that he had some sort of patterns in his stories. Funny thing was that he ended the conversation with the same sentence that he used last time: “I am Mr. Boyd, and I am an advocate for the homeless people.” As Andy said, Mr. Boyd knew “how to talk the talk.”

            After the conversation with Mr. Boyd, I walked to the guy to whom Andy was talking. The man’s name was Don.  He was a short but big white man. Don had a delightful personality but seemed to like women too much – every time women with short skirts passed by, he whistled and cracked some inappropriate jokes about them.

            Don had a turbulent life. He worked as a painter for a long time but his girl friend who was a drug addict stabbed him in his stomach and he miraculously survived. He raised his shirt and showed us his scar on his stomach and said that the doctor told him not to get any job that stresses him. For past three year, he did not tell anyone in his family and lived a homeless life. I asked him why and he said that he did not want to worry anyone. When he was talking about his family, his voice started to tremble and his eyes turned red. And he continued: “I am going back to my home tomorrow by bus. I need 6 more dollars for the bus ticket. Can you guys help me out?” When Don asked for money, honestly, I was a little suspicious of him but did not say anything and let Andy give him 6 dollars from the donations we got from our friends.

            While we were talking to Don, there were two policemen walking toward us. Don seemed little bit nervous when he saw the policemen and suddenly suggested us to walk around the city. As we were walking around, Don was keep peeking backwards; I looked back and noticed that those two policemen were still stalking us. Don was pointing at the buildings and was mumbling about something but I could not understand what he was saying. He probably was distracted by the policemen.

            We ended up walking around the city for a while and the policemen were gone already. We finally came back to the place where we were originally. Around 10pm, a van from Bethesda mission organization came to provide the homeless food and supplies. Homeless people from all over the city surrounded the van and tried to get whatever they needed. Among the bustling people, a young girl caught my eyes; she was walking in between the homeless people wearing a very thin blouse and was shivering. But people were too busy and no one seemed to care about the girl. Eventually the man who drove the van gave the girl more clothes to wear.

            I got sandwiches from the van and ate with the homeless. During the dinner time, I met an old man whose name was Walter. He graduated from Harrisburg Community College and worked as a mechanic for 20 years. I asked him the reason he is living on the street and he said “I sleep on the street once in a while. I love gambling and unluckily I messed up with my money this month so I have to sleep on the street for now.” In an astonishing manner, I asked him if sleeping outside is uncomfortable and then he replied “No, it is not too bad. I have my blankets and they are comfortable.” Walter’s responses were very shocking to me. And I was sad to witness the ironical situation with the mission organizations in Harrisburg.

            Chris got gloves and a scarf from the van since he did not have them – they are very effective at keep the warmth. After Chris got them, we set up our beds and laid down on our beds. I covered myself with the blankets I brought. It was relatively warm night. Looking at the dark sky, I whispered to myself what Walter said: “It is not too bad.”

Issac Won

Problems...

             “I am excited to see you guys next week.” It was already seven days ago when Greg said good- bye to us. I was very excited that another Saturday has come; I was anxious to see Greg again. However, I had to go to Philadelphia for a conference; therefore, we could not go to Harrisburg until 9:00pm.

            As soon as I got back, I took a quick shower and hopped in Andy’s car. Andy went to Harrisburg last night and he let Greg borrow his sleeping bag for all of his stuff got stolen. Therefore, we bought a sleeping bag for him on the way to Harrisburg. I could not wait to see Greg’s face with smile. The thirty minutes drive to Harrisburg felt longer than it used to be. When we arrived, we looked for Greg. Andy and I walked around for a while, but we could not find him. I was very disappointed and I could tell that Andy was feeling the same way from his complexion. We were hoping that Greg will show up sometime soon but he did not come back no matter how long we have waited.

            While we were waiting for Greg, we talked to Bruce. I met Bruce about a month ago when I first went to Harrisburg with Andy. He is a big and old black man who likes to talk and drink. To be honest, I cannot understand him very well since he slurs a lot. When he talks, he drools but it seems like he does not notice that. It is only my guess, but I think his habit of faltering is caused by the combination of alcohol and some type of disability. Anyways, the conversation we had with Bruce was very helpful for us to learn about him. Bruce has ten children and four grand children and they are all scattered over the US. When he was younger, he was a part of a gang clan in Philadelphia. I could not understand why he had to choose to be a gang member so I asked. After listening to my question, Bruce laughed and said “You gotta be real. Weak people need protection.” I was rather surprised when I heard his answer. I did not have sympathy for those who are involved in gang activities thinking that they are the ones who make horrible decisions. However, Bruce was telling me that in fact they are victims of violence and poverty. I could not believe that the world has gotten that sad.

            Bruce’s stories were quite fascinating and somewhat entertaining; however, it seemed like Andy was more concerned about Greg. He finally asked Bruce where Greg is. Bruce clicked his tongue, and made a gesture that was indicating drugs. I don’t know about Andy, but when I saw that, I could not believe my eyes. Bruce continued, “Do you see that street? If you go to that street and turn at the corner, he will be there.” As soon as I heard it, I wanted to go and check it with my eyes. For a moment, I felt betrayed by Greg. Because I thought he was a right minded person, it shock hit me harder. I asked Bruce if Greg does drug frequently, and Bruce replied: “yes.”

            Andy and I talked to many other people, but we were already enervated. Around 12, we walked toward Andy’s car to get our blankets. On the way, Andy told me that he wants to go back telling me all our works seem meaningless. I was thinking the same way, but I felt like we should stay and be consistent. I told Andy how I felt and he soon agreed. I looked up and saw the dark sky. It was very dark but I could still see the glimpse of stars.

            Since we brought enough blankets, we could sleep relatively comfortably. We woke up at 7 and went to the church called Grace united Methodist church – the church that provides breakfast for the homeless every Sunday. We sat down with a guy named Ryan who is only nineteen years old whose entire family is addicted to marijuana. He escaped from his house to be away from drugs. While we were talking to him, we saw Greg coming in to the church. He greeted to us and sat right next to me. I greeted him back and asked him where he was last night. He said he was at a friend’s house. I did not ask him anymore because I knew that the truth really does not matter.

Whether Greg is right or Bruce is right, the fact that we need to help both does not change. However, from the experience this time, I began to think about what it really means to help the homeless. I realized that something about the homeless ministries in Harrisburg was not right. People do not work and get good meals three times every day. I think such a circumstance like this is only promoting laziness among the homeless. They do not feel the need to manage money wisely; therefore, they squander it in wrong ways. May be I sound arrogant, but after living like the homeless for two days, I realized that it is not too bad to be a homeless in Harrisburg. Nice meals three times every day, no need to work, money from the government to spend for whatever, and pretty comfortable sleeping places (as long as you have enough blankets which most homeless people do have)… why not be a homeless?

Oh! About the sleeping bag! Apparently, Greg’s new blankets are stolen again which means Andy’s sleeping bag is now gone.

Issac Won