Reflective Essay On Homelessness

In a world filled with materialism, self obsession, and greed, it is easy for people to forget what truly matters. At the core of human existence, it is undeniable that people cannot survive alone. In order for civilizations to thrive and endure, people must look out not only for their own self, but for other people as well. Today, we live in a world where this problem is undoubtedly apparent, proven by the amount of homeless families and people across the globe. Homelessness is a major social and economic problem that has intrigued my curiosity, and challenged me to discover more. Growing up in a southern Alabama town of less than 10,000 residents, I was not truly aware of the issue of homelessness. Homelessness was only a subject which I had seen in the news and in movies. However, when I became a peer helper as a junior in high school, my perception soon changed. I became part of a peer mentoring program, in which I counseled underprivileged and troubled middle school students. Through this program I discovered that homelessness was not a problem rooted in major cities, for it lied even in a town as small my own. After my knowledge of this issue became clear, I went to my school’s social worker for the facts and to extend my knowledge of the issue. The question which I was then inspired to answer, was why I had …show more content…
Extremely unsatisfied with this answer, I decided that I had to contribute to the spreading of awareness for homelessness. So, after talking with the main sponsor of National Honor Society at my school, we decided to organize an event for supporting the cause. The event came to be a Friday night on the coldest week of January, in which all members of NHS came out with cardboard boxes and sleeping bags, to experience what one night of being homeless truly felt