Throughout much of my life, I was afraid of the homeless and thought they were disgusting. I constantly avoided them, acting like they didn’t exist. Until one day, I was forced to interact with a homeless person while waiting to be picked up from the gym. At first I was terrified, but I quickly realized that he held no ill intentions. He was in his late twenties, and we began talking about sports. Soon after, he told me about how he ended up homeless. He had lost all of his money on sports gambling. At the end of our conversation, I offered him a twenty dollar bill, which was all the money I had on me. He kindly declined. From that interaction, my view on the homeless had completely shifted, and I wanted to help the less fortunate in my community.
