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Homeless Volunteer

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Homeless Volunteer
Tera Penrod
Purpose: To share my experience of being homeless and how it has affected me.
Audience: Readers interested in being enlightened about the homeless at a personal level.

“Better is a poor man whose walk is blameless than a rich man whose ways are perverse.”- PROVERBS 28:6. I learned the truth in this verse while living with relatives in Colorado Springs, Colorado and the time I became homeless. What comes to mind when thinking about homeless people? I remember the first time I saw a homeless person begging at an intersection. He looked scruffy, unkempt, and dirty, which really scared me because I did not know what he would do to me. He just stood there, holding a sign that read, “Out of work,…show more content…
I was now out of job, with nowhere to live, and no means of an income. I finally had to swallow any pride I had left and make the call to my father, who lived in Michigan. After talking and explaining everything (most everything, because what girl wants to tell their father they were raped) to my father, he was displeased. He didn’t have any money to send me, wouldn’t send me money if he did have any, and told me that I chose to move to Colorado, so I needed to work it out for myself. I was more than dumbfounded, and wondered if he even believed me or if he thought I was trying to scheme him for money. Whatever his reasons, I was on my own with no one and nowhere to go. I was officially homeless and horrified. I refused to make signs for begging and didn’t want to be judged as I had judged others. I did have a little bit of money, but not enough for a place to live and decided that I would use some of it for the city transit in search of a new job. Looking for a job was much harder than I anticipated because I didn’t have an address, references or a phone number to be reached at (because it was shut off for lack of payment). These were the reasons I was unable to completely fill out an application or to be hired. I didn’t know of anything else to do except to just be homeless and live like them (or at least how I thought). I knew I had some money left over that I could use for food, and had even thought about staying in a motel for a few nights.
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