From the biggest little cities to the little big cities (7x7), I have seen my share of homeless individuals on the streets. Generally, I walk right by or at the most make eye contact and attempt to smile. As a rule, I never give money to panhandlers, but I have offered food and have served at shelters. The urinating, off their meds crazy, or shooting heroin homeless adults are the ones I've most been exposed to. Not the children.
Except in the way that I have certainly had homeless students, but I never saw them in that environment. Those admin or support staff who knew usually didn't share it with the teachers, which seems to defeat the point of being able to address the whole child.
Anyhow, I found myself at a public library this week with the girls. Pulled in a few minutes before their doors opened. As I was unloading, I noticed the young shoeless boy of 8? open the trunk of the car he had just climbed out of to retrieve some clothes. I slowly realized that he had likely slept in the car, and I wanted to shield my girls from seeing what I saw even though in their toddling, they clearly wouldn't have processed it like I did.
We steered clear and HUGable directed us to the bathroom with her "need to go potty NOW!" On our way out, there he was... Sitting on the floor in the hallway to the bathroom. Now wearing flip flops. Looking at us. KISSable babbled at him in her unintelligible words. I grabbed her hand and said, "Say hi to our friend." His look killed me, and I wish I would have followed up with something that... I don't know... Sounded more sincere and was more aligned with my beliefs of helping children rather than my actions of trying to protect my own from the harsh realities that they'll soon enough learn with or without my "protection."
Saw this related post from a respected friend, Pastor Mark, and wanted to x-post.
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