What being homeless means?

The word homeless is pretty self-explanatory but it implies more than not having a home. It includes living in a street, couchsurfing, living in a shelter or sometimes living in a car.... However, this is only a definition from a book, it's cold, doesn't explain how it feels.

You are lucky, you wake up in a warm home everyday, go to the kitchen make yourself a coffee or just head to the bathroom for a shower. Your clothes are all setup properly in a closet, and always clean. You get to work and you know where you will sleep tonight, what you will eat. That you'll put your favorite pair of pj, watch some TV and head to bed in a quiet room...

Homeless people survive, they don't always know where they will sleep or have to fight for a spot in a shelter that will ask them to leave at 7am... to come back only at 7pm. That's 12 hours to wander the street, strolling around with all your belongings. There is no dressers to leave your clothes in, they come with you in your backpack. If you're lucky you get to shower that day or even eat. It's an everyday survival worrying about the most fundamental needs a human can have. If it's cold outside, they get the risk of getting frostbite or even die... it's a rough life, those people are stronger than we think, stronger than they might think they are...

They don't have TV, accessible bathrooms, internet or coffee right there in the morning. Its so easy for us to forget that all these things are luxuries, not everyone are lucky to have it. Imagine living everyday not knowing where you will sleep or eat the next day, imagine the stress on a person. So expecting them to go back to a normal life without being slowly transition into it, is almost impossible. It's like putting a person who lives in the jungle all their lives in an apartment in the middle of New York and expect them to adapt.

Their lives aren't easy but with it comes a certain freedom, the freedom from having to deal with all of what makes society a prison. The rules, the expectations, the social media, paying bills etc... maybe instead of seeing them as someone that needs to be put in line, take the time to talk with them and ask what do you need to make all this easier. That's call respecting their dignity...

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