When we do outreach, we see bad stuff from time to time, and we sometimes can develop a resilience to it. But some things are just too hard to take.
When we see older unhoused homeless folks who’ve been badly beaten by some mentally ill psycho whose living on the streets, it is just too much. It happens. We run across it and the people are just too frightened to speak up. So, it goes unpunished.
The law of the street if you want to survive is to keep your mouth shut. And they do. Imagine the trauma, the fright, the sorrow of being so down that that is what your life has become.
It’s genuinely disturbing and deeply saddening to witness or hear about such cruelty. We see it often and it is heartbreaking!
Acts of violence against vulnerable people, especially the elderly, strike at the very core of humanity. Those who exploit others’ defenselessness don’t just inflict physical harm; they erode the sense of safety that our communities are built on.
We must uphold protections for the vulnerable and ensure that those who pose a danger to our society are held accountable through proper legal and mental health systems. Sometimes, the most powerful form of resistance is refusing to look away, but then again, the most vulnerable in our society (the unhoused homeless) are often cast aside as if they are invisible and no longer human.
Tears were shed for you. You mattered.