Why Should We Help the Homeless?

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"At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished… it’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back." – Denzel Washington

Many reasons exist for why the homeless need our help.

Here are the 6 most compelling reasons why we should help the homeless:

6) WE SHOULD HELP THE HOMELESS BECAUSE THE HOMELESS LACK FOOD AND WARMTH

The first reason why we should help the homeless is they lack food and warmth. They have little or no food, blankets, or clothing. By not having these, they suffer. All that we would need to do to eliminate this suffering is help. Preventing their suffering would be at little to no cost to us.

lacking food causes suffering

I don't know if you've ever been so broke that not even a single slice of bread existed for you to eat. But chances are that you haven't. Most people in current times don't suffer from starvation for any more than a few hours. This is unfortunately not true for the homeless though.

For many of the homeless, starvation is a familiar friend. They starve while holding up their "please help" signs while you and I drive by them each day. For us to ignore their pleas for help is unhonorable, if not shameful. Realistically, you and I have thrown away enough this week to feed them for an entire day. We can prevent their starvation by just donating leftovers, and yet we don't. The homeless are people who are sometimes so broke that they see eating out of a trash can as a viable solution to ending their extreme hunger. We can easily provide them with a sickening alternative to their next meal. All it would from us is to toss them a couple of dollars when they beg for it.

lacking blankets and clothing causes suffering as well

And to top it off, many of the homeless get very cold at night. They lack decent sleep because shivers shake them like earthquakes. It wouldn't take much from us, but an extra blanket or two. I don't know about you but I know many people who have a linen closet with extra blankets that they don't use right now. We don't think about these things because we're safe and warm each night. But the homeless wish they had an extra blanket or coat, every night they sleep.

Lacking necessities causes the homeless needless suffering. It's something that you or I could prevent with literally no considerable deprivation to ourselves. All it would take is to make an extra sandwich while preparing lunch for work tomorrow morning. Then, if we see someone who looks like they could use it, just wave it out of the driver-side window. Even easier, we could grab an extra blanket and leave it in our car. Maybe today, two days from now, we'll eventually see someone outside on the streets who looks like they could use it. then we could just pull over and ask them if they want it. Preventing the needless suffering of the homeless is no more difficult than that.

So we should help the homeless because they lack food and warmth.

5) WE SHOULD HELP THE HOMELESS BECAUSE THEY CAN'T HELP THEMSELVES

Another reason why we should help the homeless is that they can't help themselves. Despite popular belief, the homeless can't get jobs. In addition, these are usually people who have no friends or family to reach out to when they need help. If they did, they probably wouldn't be homeless in the first place.

the homeless can't get jobs

It is a common misconception that the homeless are in their situation due to their own doing. More often than not, a person does not choose to be homeless. Being homeless is a result of not being able to hold down a job.

This is usually due to unfortunate circumstances that are beyond the homeless person's control. Over half of homeless people are mentally ill. A third of them struggle with drug or alcohol abuse. Research indicates that drug and alcohol abuse among the homeless is often more of a result of the situation of the homelessness, rather than the cause of homelessness itself. Thus, people who are homeless most likely used drugs due to their dire situation. They're less likely to be out on the streets due to their addiction.

Furthermore, the mentally ill use substances in an attempt to self-medicate. Mental illness causes an array of unhappy chemicals that the mentally ill seek to escape. So the mentally ill are also homeless often, not as a result of their addiction, but as an attempt to solve other problems. Homelessness instead is an additional problem. So self-medicating for a mental illness is another reason why the homeless can't work.

Not only that, but the mental illness itself makes it difficult to hold down a job. Severe depression, for example, makes it almost impossible to get out of bed for work. Battling with visual hallucinations and scary voices as do some homeless people, also make it difficult to maintain employment. With no steady income to purchase what they need, the homeless sometimes freeze and starve. We should help the homeless, then, because they can't work.

the homeless also have no family or friends to reach out to

In addition, the homeless probably wouldn't be sleeping on a park bench if they had caring family members or friends to help. With no family or friends to help, they rely on you and me.

Therefore, we should help the homeless because they need us to.

4) WE SHOULD HELP THE HOMELESS BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE DON'T

Another reason we should help the homeless is most people don't. Most people think that:

• the homeless can help themselves,
• it is not their responsibility, or
• enough people help them already.

But if they were right in holding these beliefs, then why are there so many homeless people begging? Wouldn't the homeless need not beg if they could help themselves, or if enough people helped them already? And if their suffering, when we could so easily prevent it is not our problem, then why does it seem like it is wrong?

I don't know about you, but I would feel bad eating in front of a homeless man without offering him some food. I know that many of the homeless or starving so it would only be right of me to offer him something off my plate. But why does it require that the homeless be watching me eat to feel bad for not feeding the starving? Maybe I just don't feel bad because I never think about it. But as soon as I do I lose my appetite. I think many people are the same way.

Most people think that the homeless can help themselves

Furthermore, reasons exist to believe that most homeless people cannot help themselves. Most suffer from mental illness. Their mental illness prevents them from working. Most rely on governmental assistance. That barely provides enough food to get them through the month. So the homeless ask for our help because they need it. There's no doubt about that.

Most people think that enough people help the homeless already

In addition, even if the homeless were taken care of by everyone else, what would give us the right to not take part in the helping? If everyone else waits for everyone else, the homeless never get help.

Most people think that it is not their problem to help the homeless

I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit overweight. I didn't get that way by handing out the extra food I shouldn't eat to people who need it. There's an inevitable sense of guilt in knowing that. There's an inevitable sense of guilt in knowing that you get fat while others starve. All it takes is tossing an extra chicken wing in their direction.

So we should help the homeless because most people don't.

Then, of course, there's a reality that a homeless person can beg for change for hours and get nothing. Meanwhile, people like you and me are walking right past them to go into the convenience store. We're buying needless one-leader Pepsis and peppered beef jerky sticks even though we probably just ate a couple of hours ago. How hard would it be to toss them and extra beef jerky stick on the way out? The homeless need our help and people are not helping. So it's truly up to you and me to help them.

Thus, we should help the homeless because other people don't.

3) WE SHOULD HELP THE HOMELESS BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO

Next, we should help the homeless because it's the right thing to do. The right thing to do in times when people suffer is to help. Homeless people often suffer due to a lack of necessities. So if we can prevent the suffering of the homeless by helping them, then we should.

homelessness causes suffering

Being hungry hurts. When you're homeless and don't have a dime to your name, starvation can be a terrible experience. So can shivering so hard that you can't even sleep. Lacking proper winter gear and blankets can make life tough. The homeless are cold often because they live and sleep outside. So homeless people suffer due to lacking food and warmth.

If we can prevent suffering by helping then we should

If all it takes to prevent the suffering of another human being is a sandwich and its winter, why not scavenge our homes for something we can spare? If they need something that is that easy for us to give, we have an ethical responsibility to give it.

Helping the homeless prevents suffering

So the reason why we should help the homeless is that it prevents suffering. If we can prevent the needless suffering of other human beings then we should.

Thus, we should help the homeless because it's the right thing to do.

2) WE SHOULD HELP THE HOMELESS BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD TO HELP

Another reason we should help the homeless, besides the fact that they need it, is it feels good to help. Studies show that helping others makes a person feel good. Helping other people creates feel-good emotions in our brains.

Helping the homeless increases feel-good chemicals in the brain

Human beings have been around for a long time. The reason why we are not extinct is that we possess certain characteristics. These characteristics help us as a species survive and make babies.

Helping other people is one of those characteristics. Sometimes people need to be helped. Sometimes the act of helping others makes us look sexy.

The reason we all feel good for helping other people then is because the brain is designed to reward us for helping other people. Its way of rewarding us is by making us feel amazing.

So why not do something good for a homeless woman and take part in the joy that the brain rewards you with?

1) WE SHOULD HELP THE HOMELESS BECAUSE GOD WANTS US TO

We should also help the homeless because God wants us to. Many religions of the world teach us this.

We know this because it says that God wants us to help the needy in many religious texts.

"Don’t forget to do good and to share what you have because God is pleased with these kinds of sacrifices." - Hebrews 13:1

In the Quran, Allah (swt) says: “Help one another in acts of piety and righteousness. And do not assist each other in acts of sinfulness and transgression. And be aware of Allah. Verily, Allah is severe in punishment” (Quran 5:2)

Therefore, we should help the homeless because God wants us to.

FINAL THOUGHTS

While it might be said that we shouldn't help the homeless because better things exist for us to do, better things like solving world hunger, cancer, or world wars to name a few, we should help the homeless because it is the one thing we can do. Helping the homeless is the one thing that we can do right now, today. Is the one thing that we can be successful at doing.

Most don't have the knowledge or the time to acquire the skills necessary to solve big, complicated issues like world hunger, or war in our lifetimes. We only have a little bit of time each day after returning home from our dead-end jobs to make a difference.

If we could just start thinking now about how to end homelessness once and for all, then no longer would people need to suffer from being without a home. It takes only one concerned person to have one good idea to change the world forever. Maybe you could be that person.

summary

There are six reasons why we should help the homeless. We should help the homeless because they lack necessities. The homeless lack food, clothing, and blankets. We should also help the homeless because they can't help themselves. Many of them have a mental illness or substance abuse addiction that prevents them from working. So the reason why the homeless don't help themselves is that they can't.

Not only can the homeless not help themselves, but most people don't help them either. Most think that the homeless should just get a job, that the homeless are not their problem, or that enough people help them already. This is simply inaccurate.

Next, we should help the homeless because it is the right thing to do. The reason is homelessness causes suffering. If there is anything that we can do to prevent suffering, then we should. Thus, we should help the homeless because is right, and not doing so is wrong.

Plus, we should help the homeless because it feels good. One of the greatest joys of doing the right thing is the feeling that we get afterward. So we should also help the homeless because it feels good.

Finally, we should help the homeless because God wants us to. Many religions say this is so. Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism all have religious texts that indicate that God wants us to help the needy. So we should help the homeless because God said so.

conclusion

To eliminate the suffering that is caused by homelessness, we need only to donate a dollar or two to go towards good things like blankets to keep the homeless warm. If every one of us did nothing else in our lifetimes, did nothing else but stopped reading this right now, and found a good homelessness charity to donate a dollar to, we could eliminate the suffering caused by homelessness for the rest of this year.

If you would like to donate a dollar to end the suffering that is caused by homelessness, I recommend doing so to the National Coalition for Homelessness. They're the most reputable organization geared towards ending homelessness that I know of. You can donate that dollar right now by clicking here.

further reading

One of the greatest causes of suffering related to homelessness is hunger. (If you'd like to learn more about why we should feed the homeless read why we should feed the homeless - the most significant reasons.)