Homeless Elevator Couple Not Forgotten

For the longest time we have heard and read about homeless persons.  Homelessness was big news.   When my husband and I lived in south Florida the plight of homeless persons was always in the news and they could be found everywhere. Many people were trying to help them and many just wanted them gone or at least out of sight.   

Have you noticed that there isn’t that much said about homeless people anymore?  We have them though, and we have many thousands who are on the verge of homelessness.   

 

Last winter a young friend and her family became homeless.  Neither of her parents could find a job nor manage to keep one if they got one.  Consistently, that is.  They ended up losing their trailer when they couldn’t pay the rent and the water and power got cut off.  She said they were going to move in with family.  They still haven’t found a stable home. She changed schools three times last year and is unsure where she will be going this year.  How is she supposed to be okay?   

When my husband and I were on our recent anniversary trip we stayed at a beautiful hotel connected to a river walk by a walkover.  The first morning we went toward the river walk there were two people sleeping in a covered area near the steps.   

 

The next morning there was one person sleeping there.  We pushed the elevator button to go down to walk along the river.  It took the elevator a long time to reach us and when it did there was a young couple in it.   

It was obvious that they had spent the night sleeping in it and I am afraid we woke them up.  We spoke.  It was a small elevator and I had to stand close to the young woman who was pregnant.  I hoped that she didn’t feel like I was invading her personal space.  I already felt like we had walked into their bedroom.   

She looked at me smiled and said, “You smell like baby powder.”   

I looked at her, smiled and answered, “I don’t have on baby powder.  Maybe you smell my soap.”  She smiled again.  She was so beautiful and friendly.  We went on our walk.  As we were returning we passed them again and we all spoke.   

 

I felt so helpless.  I hate a world where people do not have homes or a safe refuge.  I look at the news and see all the refugees from all the wars.  People who can’t go home or if they can there is no home or job to go back to.  Probably, they have lost loved ones.  I want to see them sheltered and safe.   

There are people in every community, town and country who fall into these circumstances.  Many times through no fault of their own.  People who survive natural disasters frequently have not recovered years after them, and what about people in the U.S. who lost their homes during the great foreclosure crisis?   

Recently, on the news they were telling about all these big beautiful hotels that are closed or closing down in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  They are so close to where people lost homes and businesses due to hurricane Sandy--many of whom are still trying to rebuild.   

 

I would like to see all the hotel rooms and all the foreclosed houses filled up with people who do not have a place to call home.  Think how good those beds, bathrooms and mini-fridges in those big hotels would make people feel. They could lock their own doors and hopefully have a greater sense of security.  Can you imagine seeing their children frolicking in the pools?  I know that you could count their smiles!   

I would love to see the businesses around the hotels and homes reopened providing people with year round jobs so that they could pay a reasonable rent.  I would want to see disabled veterans and disabled persons get their benefits if they do not already have them.  These enclaves could become refuges where people could live, work and build communities.   

We are supposed to be a compassionate nation.  A nation that helps people who have had setbacks in their lives, or perhaps never had a chance, become more self-reliant given a hand up.  I do not see that as a description of our nation at the present time, but we could be.  I want us to be.  Do you share my dream?   

    

I cannot get the picture of the young couple we met in the elevator out of my mind.  How does it make you feel?  What can we do about homelessness when there are so many politicians who cut funding to every kind of helping program and by their actions seem to want some of our fellow human-beings to just drop off the face of the earth?   

©Patty F. Cooper, Elizabethton, Tennessee August 18^th, 2014   

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