Walking down the streets of San Francisco, or any other mid-large cities in the United States, one is struck by a familiar scenery … a parody of life, so to speak … the glitz and the glamour of the big city wrapped up in sky-scrappers, ritzy stores and over-priced restaurants and coffee shops, and just few steps away sits a man, a woman or even a child begging the bypassers for spare change.
They are America’s 3.5 million homeless citizens … perhaps even more as it is difficult to get accurate figures for reasons which are obvious.
It absolutely boggles my mind how we, as one of the richest and the most developed nations in the world, with endless resources and advancement in everything from technology to medicine, allow millions of our own citizens to sleep in the streets and beg for food.
During my studies in Germany, a classmate of mine from Pakistan had asked me, “Why is America so rich while the rest of the world suffers in poverty?”
Obviously, the “America” he was referring to didn’t include the 3.5 million people standing in endless lines at various shelters and food banks all over the United States looking for a meal or a bed to sleep on. This is America that other part of the world never gets to see. The America they know is rich, powerful and sometimes bullish, but never could they fathom America where people go without food and sleep on streets and park benches.
They are faceless and voiceless, and people pass by them without so much as a glance. They hardly make the news, as our society considers them not to be newsworthy. They are America’s forgotten citizens.
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