AS Your Voice

  The Silent Struggle of Our Unhoused Neighbors | AS Your Voice | It’s easy to walk past a tent city or avert our eyes from someone sleeping on a park bench. We might offer a fleeting thought, perhaps even a dollar, but how often do we truly pause to consider the intricate web of circumstances that leads someone to that point? I remember a particularly cold winter morning last year. As I hurried to grab my coffee, bundled in layers, I saw a woman trying to start a small, sputtering fire in a discarded barrel.  Her face was etched with exhaustion, her hands blue with cold. I t hit me then, with a sharp, undeniable pang, how easily we become desensitized to suffering. We rationalize, we categorize, but beneath it all, there's a human story. The narrative of homelessness often falls into tired tropes : mental illness , addiction , personal failure.  While these factors can certainly play a role, they paint an incomplete and often unfair picture.  The truth is far more...