By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny
Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny
This is strictly my Gloria Opinion … I won’t argue it with anyone. I respect your opinions just as you respect mine. This is a subject that touches my very Heart … I wish I could make a difference. I try in my little ways each day … suppose we all did?
All of my friends, followers know I have a Special place in my Heart for homeless people. In a fight … if someone falls down … the other person wins, right? He doesn’t stand there, continually kicking someone who is down. This is what fining homeless people is doing. Only the coldest, meanest would do such a thing … only the cold, heartless would do that to get pleasure from seeing more suffering.
What’s wrong with getting the word out to the homeless … telling them of … safe areas … they can go lay down … even if … it’s out in the open like where they are sleeping now. Have you thought that some of these people are very afraid of dying, being beaten … tortured? Have you? They get out in the open praying to God to protect them, watch over them … well … we are God’s angels … why aren’t they being watched over?
Have you ever thought ‘like a homeless person’ … ‘think of how you would do if you had no choice to be homeless’? I have … I would want to stay as close to people who are there … people who are strong, caring … people who offer comfort through words, food … sometimes, touch. You are thinking … but, they make a mess! My answer is … put more portable toliets in every area … more trash receptacles … maybe a lot of them don’t want to make a mess.
Have you ever been close to being … homeless? Have you felt the fear of … what am I going to do? Where am I going to go? What comes to your mind? Darkness comes to your mind … homeless people live in darkness … no where to go … no one wants them because they might get dirt on their possessions … all they can do is to … exist for what? So, what do they do … live until they die. What do they have to look forward to … a life that punishes them everyday just for being alive?
I say Shame on you … whoever you are to want to come up with an idea to punish a homeless person, fine a homeless person who has nothing but, the rags they wear … do you need a ‘rag’ that bad? I say I wish there was a legal way to make you come out of your comfortable life … make you live as a homeless person in the most real way … for at least 6 months to a year. We have to walk on the many roads in Life to understand them … if you haven’t experienced them … it’s too easy to sit … spout words to do this, do that … and not know the first thing you are talking about.
Have compassion, a big Heart … not anger, hate for people who are only existing until they die … wishing like you or me … for miracles to happen to take them out of a world they never meant to be in. Life can be cruel … you say “well, they are drug addicts, they are this, they are that”. I say … they are human beings like you, like me … God put us on this earth to love, care … help others get to their feet … I don’t think he meant for you to live off money meant to help other people … keep your bellies fat … raise your family, send them to college … all the times looking down on others while you spend money meant to help them. You see … there are some very selfish, ugly people in this world … they do things such as this … everyone sees it, knows it.
When we get older … we realize what life is really about … not being selfish, hoarding possessions. It’s truly about constantly … giving to help someone, putting a hand out to steady someone … pull someone up who is sitting on the ground … grab them before they fall … smile, comfort them when they hurt. Life is about … people … all people, including homeless people who have no choice anymore … why? Because they don’t have money, clothes … a nice home … they have nothing. Each day they risk losing the rest of what they have left … their life.
I tell the whole world what I feel about the homeless … because this is how I believe, feel. I’m passionate about doing things to help them find a little comfort in this cruel life they live in … don’t you realize that we can stand, sit … side by side … never know what the other person is going through? Haven’t you been sitting beside someone who is totally happy, bragging about they have this, have that ……………… you are sitting there with nothing … not even a dollar or two to buy food to eat, something to drink? All you have is your pride wishing you didn’t … so, you could ask for a few dollars to eat on.
What hurts me most is … I have no money to help the homeless. Guess what? The people who would help them, make a difference … are like me … no money to their name to make the difference … people who have money should be making. Let me go back to my world now … I’m not homeless … but, I have nothing … and events just happened to make me have less … just the door in this room I’m in, what my friends do … keeps me safe for the moment. I can’t always depend on them … have you ever stood close to the edge of a cliff … you get closer, closer … praying you never fall off?
The homeless people … fell off the cliff. There are some who try to help them pick up the pieces … but, there aren’t enough of them … many, many more people are needed … people who have resources to help the helpless, homeless people. Even the people who are … just before homeless. I know miracles can happen in our world … I know miracles can happen to each of us … I know miracles can happen in one’s Heart.
This is strictly my Gloria Opinion. I won’t argue my beliefs with anyone … on the homeless people … no one can change my mind. I love, care about all people … homeless, people with homes, poor or rich. I respect your opinions and expect mine to be respected. Sincerely, Gloria Faye Brown Bates
Note by Author:
Photo/article owned, written by me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates
This is exactly how I feel … I read that in a place called Chelmsford … someone wants to fine the homeless for sleeping on the streets. I signed the petition against that. Why would someone want to kick someone who is already down? Why?
Colors of My Life 
I’ve been one of the “hidden homeless” (always somewhere to sleep but always somebody elses’ roof) on a few occasions. Nowhere to call home, even if I was allowed to stay under a roof indefinitely. During one such time I was placed in a hostel, and was sexually attacked by a man who’d befriended me: nobody had bothered to tell me – a woman with a neurological disability who is therefore vulnerable – that I was sharing a building with a registered sex offender. That’s England’s “social care” to the homeless for you.
I don’t get into town much any more, but I have a good nose for genuine cases and would still buy a hot drink for someone sat shivering outside a shop. We can’t judge, because we don’t know why this person is homeless – and who on earth are we to pass judgement anyway? I was brought up to always be kind and to always support the weaker person. Everybody should learn basic compassion because – especially in this day and age – nobody can guarantee that someone else’s “downfall” won’t happen to them.
I am so sorry you had to suffer so much. All you wrote is true … and touches my Heart. I’m sure someone else reading will be touched by your words … can relate to what you went through. We aren’t homeless … truthfully, the front door is how close we are to being homeless … one friend has made it so ‘for now’ we aren’t. Through the years we have talked to homeless people, bought food, motel room for a night when traveling. I have a special place for homeless people … in my Heart. I can understand so much because I wanted to understand, care. You are so right … ‘nobody can guarantee that someone else’s “downfall” won’t happen to them.’ I’m honored you took your time to sit, write to me. Thank you for sharing some of your journey in Life. ❤ Gloria
I’ve been homeless for two months and it was HARD because there was no certainty I would continue to get that support.
Fortunately I was given shelter by a friend and, despite some rough times, I was OK until I got the flat I live in today.
In other words I was lucky.
I helped others over the years and was exploited several times, but I never forgot how it felt to have nothing rather than return to my father’s home as a paying slave.
To this day he has sworn to kill me on sight for my disobedience, so I have known fear, I have known suffering – and I know how it feels to have nothing.
People don’t choose to live on the streets unless they have to and none of them choose to be mistreated and persecuted by those in authority, or beaten and murdered by those who see them as less than dirt.
These people need help and support, not punishment. 😦
Love and huge squishy hugs! 🙂
Prenin.
Prenin, you have known a life of pure suffering. I pray that the rest of your life will be smooth, no grief … no suffering. You are so right …. ‘People don’t choose to live on the streets unless they have to and none of them choose to be mistreated and persecuted by those in authority, or beaten and murdered by those who see them as less than dirt.
These people need help and support, not punishment. :(‘. Prenin, you shared that … when I read it … it brought up feelings I had to express. Love, Gloria