Some of the street homeless apparently hide out in the hedges at the borders of the shopping marts. This particular individual sounded like one of the mentally incapacitated, ie. low IQ, that should be safe in a group home or assisted living apartment complex.
It makes my blood boil that our society has no way to care for such individuals.

I saw an article where several universities were having “homeless awareness” weeks. Students would sit outside on the street corner and pretend they were homeless for as long as they could, up to 5 days.
This brought to mind a couple of students at a dojo I used to attend that decided to be homeless for a day as part of there learn compassion project.
While I applaud the effort that these students are making, they can’t even begin to understand the real struggle. It isn’t just being hungry, never getting enough sleep, and so on. It’s never knowing if it will get any better.
These students never have to live with, accept, the fact that this could be the rest of their life. That the real issues don’t even start until you’ve been out a few weeks. That being homeless isn’t just sitting on corners hoping people drop food in your lap. There’s a lot of work being homeless. Where to sleep, where to find real food, where to pee and poop, how to keep any benefits you might have going without an address. And you’re constantly moving.
I try to be grateful that the youth are making an effort, but I can’t help but be angry knowing that most of them leave with the idea that they have a real idea of what homelessness is and might one day try and make decisions that affect all of us based on that incomplete knowledge.

I finally found another blog of a woman living in her car. Apparently she wrote a book about the experience and is now somewhat of a celebrity on the talk show circuit. Though maybe that is old news, I wasn’t checking dates.

I have found the limits of my battery. It’s dead. Fortunately, I have class tomorrow so I will plug it in during class and get a bit of juice back in it.
Recharging my cell phone was the last straw. : )