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Just did my homeless shelter shift for the month & feeling uncharacteristically earnest so I was thinking about a Thanksgiving tweet and all I can think is how the homeless people are so decent and genuine and still trying so hard when society has let them down so badly …
like the guy who'd been getting up every day at 3 AM to commute to Newark for a maintenance job for some fashion company, then coming every day in time to get a shower at the drop-in center and get to his shelter bed for a few hours' sleep, and he was proudly showing us …
the website of that fashion company, these men's jackets and shirts that retailed for $500, on his half-broken phone where you could only see the image on half the screen, and he was so happy because after 2 weeks without a day off, he now had a holiday …
and he was chatting all the time to this other guest, a much younger guy who had some cognitive issue and couldn't make much sense, but the maintenance dude had taken him under his wing and was just chatting to him and keeping him company …
and maintenance dude kept thanking the volunteers, like the one night we volunteered was this huge thing. So anyway, this all sucks so bad but it's also incredible that anyone has that much courage and generosity, when so much of what we see in the world is so cheap and dark.
And I have no idea why we give power to the people we do. I have no idea why everyone isn't willing to sacrifice just a little so this guy, and all the people like him, can just have a place to live. But I just feel like it's important to remember HOW MUCH they deserve it.
And I just feel like I have to add, I've been doing this for two years now, and you may think that guy is the exception but he absolutely is not the exception. He is pretty typical for the guests we get. They look out for each other and they're just great people who try so hard.
