On a bench he sleeps-unwashed, cold and lonely. He thinks and feels, wishes and dreams a does everyone else-he is human. How can the darkness of homelessness lay disregarded when it is so visible?

We are only human, and have disasters in our own lives that make us forget the outside world. Too self absorbed, the issues that befuddle the community become blind sponts; unspoken in hope that the pains will disappear by themselves. But all things need water to grow and without joint effort the homeless population will only intensify. Within the community, homeless people have also been stereotyped. Television portrays homeless men as dirty, mental cases clutching a crumpled brown bag to dress their vodka handles, while laying roadside humming drunken jumble. If the media continues to fill young minds with these images, the growing abhorrence and intolerance will not aid the recovery of the homeless either. In some cases, the lack of care for the homeless population is caused by pure hate. Differences can make others scared and intolerant. Diversity builds walls between humans of all kinds for reasons that can be overcome. The walls, composed of destruction, segregate and help nothing-especially the causes of the boundaries themselves. Homelessness will hang stagnant above our heads if as a whole, we do not ceaselessly nurture the issue at hand.

In all truth, any of us could become homeless in seconds. Drugs, alcohol and mistakes are not the only causes of a down-and-out lifestyle. Fire shreds lives daily; we use it so carelessly and often. Credit card companies call, waving endless money we don't have in our faces; and we easily accept. Fire and debt can happen to the wealthiest man and the poorest soul. Tragedy does not victimize. If homelessness can happen to us all, shouldn't we care more? We bury ourselves in the problems in our lives and often feel so consumed that we don't bother to look at the world areound us-the world we create through our effort or lack there of. We must step out of our won life circumstances and help with a full heart so that we can curb and slowly conclude the crisis of homelessness. By helping human kind we also personally gain because those who help will be helped in turn and recovery will be ensured by this endless circle. It may seem sometimes that what life hands to us is too heavy and we cannot focus on other issues, but by only focusing on personal problems we are not involved enough with our wold to receive help when we truly need it-like so many of our homeless today. The state of our planet depends on our every action and is constantly altered. To help homelessness we must do more than donate sporadic cash to the curbside man's chipped mug.

The media inflicts poor judgement in all places and the crisis of homelessness is no exception. In television shows on end the homeless are exposed as the lowest form of poverty and as a disgrace to the community. Through image and conversation the shows teach us how to judge and react to the homeless. Using the false images and story plots of on-screen life we form stereotypes and automatically assume that every victim of this tragedy is an ungrateful, deserving participant with stolen money for a next fix in a shabby pocket. To overcome judgments bombarding the spaces of our minds with garbage we must see the vulnerability of the human race. Catastrophe can strike any life at any time causeing the so-called disgrace- homelessness. Communally, we must agree that the media is exatly what it is- THE MEDIA. It was never proclaimed reality; the media is not life, it is entertainment and plots thick with drama attract consumers. Life is what we choose to participate in when we wake each morning-some of us, from a bed. We must fight as a whole for those without, so that they may have a bed as well because we are human and vulnerable. Many argue that most homeless have dug their own graves through addiction and carelessness but even so- we could have prevented it by helping them to see daylight before the collapsed completely. If we are too late to show sunlight, we can still strive to get one more off of the streets. By acknowledging our vulnerability and ignoring the media's output of stereotypes, actions will travel and stereotyping should slowly dissipate along with homelessness.

We are human and bear the rights to doubt and hold fear- but not of each other. To fear on another we slowly corrupt society and separate. Hate and fear are emotions that florish if left dormant and we must, again, come back to the mutual vulnerability all humans share. It is easier to hate and fear than accept and love. It is easier to separate for common reasons than it is to merge and cultivate complete dirrerences. In the end, we are still humans. If we fear those less fortunate than us, vulnerability must be evident. The homeless, the black, the Iranian- all have flet hate for being considered unequal and we portray them as the enemy for being angry at our hate. We hate for lack of a better emotion; truly we are confused because they don't share our circumstances and we do not know how to react to them so we put them on a lower level. Pushing them away takes then fron eyesight and erases the fear that anyone could too, be in those cirumstances. Some see only that the homeless put themselves in the position of being feared. Bud don't we create the fear for ourselves by hating then for mirroring our own vulnerability? By tossing aside differences hate would not exist and we could help anyone and everyone by understanding our vulnerability as a whole.

Homelessness is ignored because it is evident. The unkempt man on the park bench in the cold of winter represents an emotion humankind shares- vulnerability. Seeing human weakness inflicts the comfortable with hate towards those who are eevidence of our mutual naked truths. Putting distance between the evidence of our humanity and ourselves creates a reassurance. But pushing aside the issue of homelessness only creates more human segregation. By recognizing our differences and mutual vulnerability while aiding in other ways as well, we can help to end the homelessness in our world.