What's the Difference? College Students, Homeless People, & Me

I had dinner with last night. At some point, she told some stories about working with people who worked at her father's restaurant. He would hire women on work release (a noble act to help society). One statement stuck out to me: "I was talking to this woman who was my age, but with two kids, another one on the way, and on work release."

I started thinking about The Beacon, the homeless shelter at which I worked and volunteered once. I remember checking in a high school senior whose parents kicked him out to teach him lesson.

I started thinking about how similar my current job is to my job working at the homeless shelter:

Oversee check in/out of clients
Develop helping relationships
Make proper referrals
Listen
Respond to drugs, alcohol, drunkenness, violence, theft, sneaking in/out, manipulation, threats, favors, suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, suicide, self-cutting, interpersonal conflict, depression, mental illness, social awkwardness, and gossip, among other things
Promote and enforce policies
Confront policy violations

There are a number of differences as well, but the major one is the most obvious: the clientele. That delineation is not age, because, as already stated, the age of men at the homeless shelter dipped as low as 18. And we all know children, too, are homeless.

Family help isn't the main difference either. I have college students who are on their own and I knew men at the shelter who visited with family and received things from them often.

A permanent home doesn't really put a name to the difference. A residence hall is about as permanent a home as a homeless shelter. Your time in both of them is limited somehow. At the shelter, you could generally only stay 90 days before having to leave for a two week period. After that absence, you could stay for 60 days. And then 30 days. In the residence hall, you leave in the summer and after you graduate. Even the men in the homeless shelter had somewhere to go during their absence, be it a tent, a friend's home, a family member's couch, or an abandoned building nobody knew he was sleeping in.

Economic status could be the line separating the two groups. Then again, they both receive money for which they don't work, be that money from the government in the form of food stamps or from family members in the form of gifts and allowances. Both are also in debt, be that debt from a foreclosure or from accruing student loans.

A college student isn't all that different from a person staying the night in a homeless shelter.

I'm not all that different from a college student or a person staying the night in a homeless shelter.

I have student loan debt. I have my addictions. I have my vices. I am a slave to many passions, desires, oppressions, and economic and social mores. I earn some things and feel entitled to others. I mishandle interpersonal conflict. I demand change, completely ignoring the words of those more knowledgeable and experienced, even when they tell me the lack of change is for a good reason.

I can keep highlighting the différance, keep pointing how the differences are not necessarily meaningless, but rather unspeakable, and yet, they are still visible. I'm living in a two-bedroom apartment while others live in a room with 50 beds. Some live on the streets. Some live in dumpsters or worse.

Why that difference? If we're so similar, why do their problems place them on the streets while my problems can be hidden enough that I can be an entry-level professional? Why do some people, including both clienteles, handle stress with drugs, while others use alcohol, eating, television, sports, abuse, sex, possessions, social interaction, technology, books, and/or self-mutilation? Is it God who hard-wired people to do these things? Is it Satan or demons who randomly succeed in tempting certain people with certain things? Is it fate? Chance? Genetics? Evolution?

Maybe there are better questions to ask. What are we doing about these differences? What am I doing about these differences? Is there anything I can do about these differences? Should I be doing anything about these differences?

If I help the college students, am I also helping the homeless? Don't both groups need help? Is it better to help one as opposed to helping the other/Other?

I still receive picture messages from a formerly-homeless man. I call him Romeo. At least, last time I checked he was formerly-homeless. His messages are all chain messages, sometimes addressing faith and sometimes including terribly vulgar pictures. I never read the messages, but I always wonder how he is doing. And I wonder if I'm still a contact in his phone for a reason. If I made a difference. If I'm making a difference. If the differences I experience--privilege--are meaningful and what, if anything, I can and should do about them.

Whatever I do, I will never forget The Beacon. And on some level, I will always help. Helping them is helping myself, since we're not all that different.

I miss you guys.