Laurabelle's Blog

Liz Lawley brought my attention to The Homeless Guy's blog. She mentions an audience member who showed her class the Homeless Blogger�s site, and it made them angry—they felt that it should be illegal for him to solicit for funds online, and that if he had a blog, he ought to have a job, and a home. I think those students are missing the point. Sure, the Homeless Guy will accept money if people want to give it, but the Make a Donation button is discreetly placed in a sidebar, a ways down the page. His mission is not to make money but to show people that there is more to homeless people than being homeless.

That reminds me of the mission of Real Change, Seattle's newspaper of the poor and homeless. It comes out every two weeks, and poor and homeless people sell them on the streets (I see them mostly in front of grocery stores and on corners in the U-District). Lately there's evidently been a big push for vendors to get people to read the paper, not just buy it and throw it away. It's all very well to help a homeless guy make an honest buck by buying a newspaper from him, but the real point of Real Change is to be the public voice of the poor and homeless community, and people should listen to that.

I speak from learning-experience. I know so much more about homelessness than I did even a year ago, from reading I Hate My Life, Real Change, and now The Homeless Guy. I know that it's possible to live as a homeless person, even if only barely and not enjoyably. I know how thin the line is between having a home and not having one, and how easy it is to cross it in one direction but so hard in the other. I know how our society persecutes homeless people for not being normal. I know homelessness doesn't just happen to slackers and addicts. I know that our world doesn't have to be this way.

Oh, and the I Hate My Life guy managed to get off the streets. Yippee! Here's hoping that the wealth of information on his site helps others to fake normalness and find a job. (As a hopefully-future reference librarian, this and similar sites are good references to have in mind for homeless people whose only source of information is the library.)