As we have mentioned before, we normally do our street outreach early mornings Monday – Friday. We can’t go out every day during the workweek, but we do it as often as we can.
These past few months we’ve gotten in the habit of going out on weekends, early in the morning either Saturday or Sunday.
We just got back from working in Manchester. We went early and got water. We took it to parks and along Elm Street. And as usual we ran into a good amount of suffering and sadness.
There were people who hadn’t eaten in days, sick people, people without footwear. And, yes, some substance abusers, people in the throes of addiction which is one of the major causes of chronic homelessness. Could more be said? Yes, of course, but we’d rather help to protect what dignity these people have left.
It’s sad to see how vulnerable these poor souls are, and it makes us wonder how is it that others could exploit them or abuse them or just plain ignore them.