So a personal experience that I had that I will never forget would be when I went down to san Francisco with my youth group for a mission trip. While we were there we mostly dealt with the homeless and got to be in the same mind set as them, we got to walk with them, talk with them, feel how they feel. The area that a good majority of the homeless are in the tenderloin area. The streets are just littered with needles from people doing heroine, and some areas just reek with the smell of human feces. With people pushing around a cart or carrying their stuff trying to find the next place that they will sleep for the night and they will wonder and worry what they will eat sometimes not eating for weeks at a time.
Every once in a while you would run in to a homeless man that is so nice all’s you want to do is give him a warm place to sleep and a really big hug because on the streets it only you, you can’t trust anyone on the streets is what they live by. When they were hungry they would go to one of two places Glide church or St. Anthony’s church they both served food for the homeless and maybe gave them a warm place to sleep if there was room or they were able to offer that kind of housing. More times than not you would run into a crazy high or drunk person trying to give you some of what they got to get you drunk or high. There was a time when the group of people I was with we all created fake names because this lady who looked like she hasn’t showered in 2 or 3 months, and reeked or alcohol. Although this lady looked perfectly normal from far away the closer you got the more you just wanted to turn away and run from her, but you wouldn’t for fear of bringing attention to yourself and having her chase you because of her mental state. Then when you would turn the corner to get to another street you never know what could be there it could be the nicest part of san Francisco or could be a group or transgender trying to get someone to take them home.
Some would have family’s and you would never know it by the way they look and the way they dress. Some dressed like hooker’s others just smelled and wore as many layers as possible for fear that some other person would take them and to have less to carry. You could really tell who had been out on the streets longer just by the way they acted and the way they looked and the vibe that you got off of them they knew that they were on the streets and would probably die on the streets with no one from their family there to give them a proper funeral or to help them when they need it the most.