Homelessness | Debra R. Borys

I’ve begun posting articles at HubPages. I started it as an experiment in ways to earn more freelance income, but I find myself posting essays from the past that I never quite knew what to do with. Check it out if you like. There are many articles besides mine that you may find interesting.

On a Thursday night in February, at one a.m., the streets around LaSalle and Hubbard look far different than they did when I first started volunteering.

Tonight, among the few vehicles passing by, there are at least three cabs for every car, plenty of parking spaces, and only four people on the street.

Three of them are young black men: one in a new Gap jacket and Nikes sitting on the steps of the furniture store; another leaning against the corner of the darkened Starbucks building, gold chains catching the streetlight beams; and a third walking slowly, hands in his pockets, looking up at every car that passes.

The fourth man is a john cruising by, trying to decide which youth to pick tonight.

via Chicago Street Stories.

Just yesterday in a post on my Self Publishing blog, I posted about putting one foot in front of the other and just keep on going. Then today I found something that I think echoes that sentiment.

The Night Ministry posted a link on Facebook to an article which I then quoted on my novel website which I am now mentioning here. Those are the most recent steps that show one “flutter of a butterfly” can affect the universe.

The butterfly started with Chicago Tribune reporter Erin Meyer who did a story that was published in Sunday’s paper on Young homeless gays wander streets of Boystown. In it, she interviews a homeless young man whose feet were aching because he only had “worn-out gym shoes” to wear.

On Monday, part of the article was reposted by the Trib’s website Redeye Chicago and was seen through their Twitter posting by a woman who then asked them how she could give that homeless young man a pair of shoes.

I know exactly where she’s coming from. When I was volunteering in Chicago, one of the youth I was tutoring in essay writing for his GED had a pair of shoes that were literally destroying his feet. They had sores and were painful and he actually had to have a doctor look at them.

Even though it was against policy for a volunteer to buy things or give money to one of the youth, I said screw that shit and took him to DSW Warehouse and let him pick out a pair. They weren’t high end super-star named athletic flyers, but they were sturdy and comfortable, and fit right.

The woman in the article was pointed in the direction of The Night Ministry so they could help her do the same thing. In addition, a short article about the woman was posted at Trib Nation which included information about how to contact the Night Ministry and led to the Night Ministry posting about it all on Facebook, which led to me posting on my novel site, which led to…. Well, I think you get the picture, right?

One sentence in one article. One person wanting to buy another person a pair of shoes. One blog post after another and another. And I know there are others out there who are going to see, comment on, pass on, act on and move this shoe/foot/butterfly forward.

ONE thing CAN make a difference–you just have to do it.