people shouldn't have to be homeless
it is honestly insane that we let people live on the streets and just accept it as normal
This week has been very long. The weather in Minneapolis has gotten grim and cold again, and that means the unhoused residents of the city are suffering. This matters to me because I love all my neighbors, but it matters extra because my job is to help them. And I am trying really hard, trust me, but it is an uphill battle.
Shelters continue to be full (and also inhumane and terrible).
Hospitals are getting sick of people coming to the ER when they have nowhere else to go and are cracking down.
Bus drivers are feeling much less generous about letting people ride for free.
Cops are cruel, as usual, and refuse to let anyone rest.
I am sad and I am tired. I am so tired of seeing people suffer from having to live in unlivable conditions. I am tired of seeing frostbite, of hearing people tell me stories about having food thrown at them while they were resting on a bench, of holding people’s hands while they cry because they don’t think they can keep living outside, of having to tell people the housing referral they waited years for fell through, of calling the shelter hotline and hearing that every bed is full when it is 30 degrees below zero. And if I am tired, just imagine how it feels to live through it. It is impossible.
I got the idea to draw these today while I was on a run, trying to decompress, so I thought I would put them here. People deserve to have a safe place to live, and that really is the end of it.
I believe that things can be better, and for some reason I believe that they WILL be better. If we don’t believe and work towards that belief it will never happen, so we just gotta keep trying I think.
Thank you for what you do. I get that you have empathy for the people you serve. Thank you, again. Now I am going to put my 2 cents so I wanted to start by being affirming,because what you do matters. I also, had a good experience with more than one police officer when I was in the most dangerous situations in my life and a homeless woman. I was at a shelter where I disagreed with staff at night in a very dangerous area of Ft. Worth, after the busses stopped running and I had no car. I was told to leave at night as a woman in an area where rape was common. The staff told me leave or I will call the cops. I said go ahead. The police let me call my Sunday school teacher and then when I could not get a hold of her got me into another shelter. There are more stories like this. I know that police brutality did not start or end with George Floyd's tragedy. I also know police can be the good guys also.
Thank you for putting all of this into words. Discouragement in the midst of hope and hope in the midst of discouragement is part of the journey! We need to walk together and lift each other up when we are in the sad/angry/discouraged times. In this work we [all] belong to each other.