Tour

The other day I gave a tour of the Community of Hope and the other agencies on campus. 18 middle school kids gathered wide-eyed into our resource room. I said a little bit about what we do and then gave the floor to 3 of my homeless clients to talk about their lives.

I had forgotten that I work with such a “scary” population. The kids were clearly nervous at first, seeing these three unkempt guys sitting there watching them. These people I work with no longer seem out of the norm to me. They are more than just homeless people to me but people I care about. It’s crazy to think that just a few months ago I would have been right there with most people in pretending to not see a homeless person or trying to keep my distance.

It was fascinating listening to them talk about how they became homeless and where they had slept the night before and I think some of the kids really took it to heart. I believe some of them were shocked that there were homeless people in their own town. The 3 guys started talking about how it's now illegal to be along side of the road with cardboard signs. A girl spoke up, you could hear the anger in her voice, "That's ridiculous, how is that possibly considered a crime?". She then went on the explain that her mother had held signs as a child in a family of 7 to try to get by.

Red (His nickname from his red beard, which I can only hope to be able to imitate someday) told us a lot about his searching for campsites and what the road is like. “I ain’t gonna lie, there are sometimes when it’s a lot of fun, it’s like, wooyeah.”; He grinned at the kids, “But most of the time it isn’t, you don’t want this kind of life.”


All three of the homeless speakers told about how lonely it is, sleeping out in the desert at night.

The tour was a lot of fun and the kids had fantastic questions. “Why don’t you move in with your family?” was one that stood out for me.