One homeless night

Last night my ten year old and myself spent the night at the local homeless shelter. This was to help out and help us to understand homelessness better. This was an open invitation in our community to anyone who would like to support our shelter and gain a better understanding of homelessness. My little boy and myself were the ONLY people who showed up. People put a wall up around themselves and often times would rather ignore the problem than get involved.
I have had many people, social workers, group home workers, youth advocates bad talk this shelter, say that they didn't approve, that it was full of 'crack heads' and 'sex offenders', I had some people not understand how I could take my child there to spend the night in such a 'dangerous' place. I have dropped my 16 year old on this very doorstep in the middle of the night, when he couldn't come home, how could I not try to better understand ?
Well, this saddens my greatly. If people would take the time to see for themselves, instead of turning their heads the other direction. These people are human beings, many with issues and sad stories. In my experience, they all have a story, a health or mental health issue or an addiction, but they are people. Everyone deserves a place to lay their head, everyone deserves a chance for a future. If shelters like this didn't exist these people would be sleeping in the street and in camps in the woods (which I happened to also see last night). At this shelter we visited, they have a safe, clean place to sleep, good nutritious breakfast and supper, support, companionship and additional resources to help get them on their feet.

Last night we eagerly listened to people's stories of their difficult lives that led them to this place, we shared breakfast, companionship, a place to sleep and made some new friends.
If given the opportunity, I strongly recommend the experience to everyone. We will be going back.
Next week I will visit our methadone clinic and needle exchange program.

We took a street walk where most of our homeless panhandle on the streets and we visited some very sad places where people live in the woods. (They set up camp here to sleep, eat, and hide from police)
The following two pictures are two different 'camps' we visited here in our city.