OK! I'm up on my (environmentally friendly) soapbox again and my subject this time is the Homeless.

First of all I know that being homeless is not just a problem in my town. It is everywhere, men, women, whole famlies are homeless. This is a national shame! I have to say up front, I don't have a solution to the problem but I do have an opinion. No one should have to sleep in the park, under a bridge, or in the 24hr laundromat. This does happen in my town and I am ashamed that it does.

There are organizations that help and we have emergency shelters but I really want to know why we have turned into this throw away nation. It was always a problem with animals, people move and leave them behind or the novelty wears off and they just turn them loose to fend for themselves. But come on folks...these are human beings we are now discarding. Whole famlies in some cases.

Times are hard and the last tax evaluation I did call my town hall and tell them that if my taxes go up again I will be residing in the last cardboard box on the right under the frog bridge. The response to my statement was silence...everything goes up...but not our fixed income and even the working man is lucky to get a 3% raise a year.

When you can't pay the rent you become one of the homeless. A pretty frightening spectre. During the day you can see them walking the streets (this breaks my heart) alot of our homeless also have psychiatric issues. The shelter hours are from 8pm to 8am and those are better hours than most shelters. We all know the cold weather doesn't let up at 8am or hold off till 8pm. Some shelters are only open 9pm to 6am. Where are you going to go to keep warm at that hour?

Our NO FREEZE shelter here just down the street has a couple of bathrooms and even a shower. Can you imagine being denied the necessity of something as basic as a shower...to feel clean is a spirit lifting experience. The shelter asks for donations of paper towels, toilet paper, socks, and underwear.

How sad is this?

What few possessions they have are in plastic garbage bags and luckily, if they are a guest at "No Freeze", they can store their belongings there but again the shelter is only operating from October to April.

What happens May 1st?

Until I can come up with an answer to the problem I will keep donating what I can and saying a prayer for those that are homeless and hope and pray that I am never in that position.