[joeysteele]

It is a thought provoking video,thank you for putting it on here Ammi.
I was talking to someone who is homeless,I do often anyway,they are people after all we never know how we will end up really.
Even over the winter he was sleeping rough where he was allowed to by the Police that is.

I tried to take him for a meal but even McDonalds wouldn't let him in so I got a takeaway and stayed to eat it with him and then chatted to him.
He would love to have the things I have, he had been successful in his life but a marital breakdown and depression and illness had brought him right down.
Since becoming homeless,he had tried to accept help but something always in time goes wrong and it ends.

So he said, being as he is now, is hard but at least he knows what his day,every day, will be like, he knows what he has at present and the way he lives cannot be changed and taken from him.
He has come to expect that if anything good happens it will soon end and be taken away again and his hopes and expectations dashed again.

I found it really sad but I also left admiring him for his courage,because I would find it near impossible to live as he does,yet he smiles and sings his way through the day.
Maybe most of the odd bits of money thrown at him, do get wasted on alcohol or cigarettes but how he is,if that helps him cope, who am I to judge that from my comfortable existence.

I know it brought a tear to my eyes and even more so when I said I had to head off now but would see him again, we walked out of a shopping centre and he thanked me for talking to him.
As the automatic doors opened at the exit, he smiled and said, ''see I even get doors opened for me''.
When I am in that area,I always look out for him and chat, he is always amused that I immediately shake his hand, he says no one usually wants to shake his hand.

I don't know what the answer is but if there is ever one, it needs to be of a permanent format and also designed to rebuild the dignity of the person and more to the point nurture that dignity long term into the future.