Women on The Street Essay -- essays research papers

Women on the Street     Have you ever rushed down the street and felt that nagging mite ofguilt, as you breeze by someone lying in a doorway? Is she alive? Is she ill?Why do we all rush by without finding out is shes all right?     People sit in train stations, bus stations, parks, doorways,unmistakably sick, with what, we dont know. All be seemingly alone. or so beg. whatsoever dont. Some have open sores that ooze and bleed. Some are drunk. Sometalk to themselves or formless others. They have no homes.     Street people ca-ca up a small percentage of the homeless population.Most homeless people blend into the daily flow of urban behavior. more families arehomeless. Many babies go from the hospital into the shelter system, neverknowing what it is like to go home. Women are another subgroup of the homeless.     Solutions to homelessness are not easily found. But before we open fire solveproblems, w e must be sensitive enough that we create the will to find thesolutions. Often if we do not feel the problem, if some emotional solvent isnot made, we are not moved to seek solutions. We are often unmoved to evenrecognize the questions. We cannot afford to keep walking by.     "Work is a fundamental condition of human existence," said Karl Marx. Inpunch-the-clock and briefcase societies no less than in agricultural or huntingand gathering societies, it is the organization of work that makes life incommunities possible. Individual life as well as social life is closely tied towork. In wage labored societies, and perhaps in every other as well, much of anindividuals identity is tied to their job. For most people jobs are aprincipal source of both independence and correctness to others. It should comeas no surprise that, in the work force or out, work and jobs are important inthe lives of homeless women.     There are women who want to w ork and do, and women who want to work anddo not. There are women who cannot work and others who should not work andstill others who do not want to work. Some work regularly, some intermittentlysome work part-time, some full-time and there are even those who work two jobs.At any given up moment, there is a lot of job-searching, job losing, job changing,and ... ...escould have contained the explosive forces of racial animosity, social classdifferences, competition for resources, overcrowding, individuals who were notalways in witness of their actions, and individuals who wanted to disassociatethemselves from the group. but came against these forces, and born mainly outof shared homelessness and common needs, was a powerful nervous impulse to groupcohesion and solidarity. Most of the time, the impulse to solidarity was strongenough to hold the negative forces in check, there by providing the minimum ofpeace and good order that made social life possible. On many evenings, as thewom en came together in the shelter, there was sufficient good feeling and fellowfeelings, when coupled with their common needs and circumstances, to allow a feel of community to sputter into life. For most women, the loneliness oftheir homeless state was a terrible burden to bear this fragile bit ofcommunity, however small, was precious indeed.     "Homelessness is the impart total of our dreams, policies, intentions,errors, omissions, cruelties, kindness, all of it recorded, in the flesh, in thelife of the streets." (Marin 41).