What Can We Do To Help Homeless People?

We can help them get food and bare necessities like shelter, water, and clothes. Also if they lost their job, try to help them find a new one. Be aware, since sometimes, people spend the money you donate on drugs or alcohol, so donating money isn't always the best idea.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is much we can "do" for homeless people one person at a time. I will give them food or drink....things like that. When I lived in NYC, I would see them frequently. They are not limited to a guy on the street. I saw entire families. I would on occasion give them a few dollars, or if I saw them frequently, like I did with one woman and her children, I brought them clothes that my children grew out of, etc. My children and I help out at a soup kitchen in my area. You can do more than dish out turkey on thanksgiving though. We talk to them, be their friend, let them know that people care.

Maybe the best thing we can do for them is direct them to a place where they might have a chance to do something for themselves like, here we I live, there are social services and a place called "workforce". They help you get a job and begin to get on your feet again. It is heart breaking to see people so down and out. Truly heartbreaking. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just save the world in a blink of an eye?

What you can do to help the homeless people is every chance you get to see a homeless person give a lending hand. Donate a dollar of give them some inspiring word that may realize that the condition that they are in were no for them, the conditions they are forced to live in was not planned in their future God wants all of us to prosper and be very wealthy people physically and spiritually. God is the only one that will help you with your needs all he is waiting for is for you to go and kneel down and ask I'm forgiveness. Homeless people do not deserve to be in the streets. They deserve to be in a home with their families just like us. Something generous that I always do is that every chance I get to meet a homeless person is preach them the word of God and also to ask them if them if they are hungry. And I would actually buy them some food

homelessness is the condition and social category of people who
lack housing, because they cannot afford, or are otherwise unable to
maintain, regular, safe, and adequate shelter.

people who don't have a house or money are homeless... They don't have a house... Get it HOME-less

Tell people the statistics for homeless people....make them aware of how many there are in the world. Volenteer for something at a shelter...stuff like that. Give food.....or...money or...clothes

Well we ain't specifically got ta help em but I suggest we do by givin food, shelter, work, love and peace .Us as youths our duty is to be pure .read this artcle and you'll see how ignorant youths can be:Attacks on the Homeless Rise, With Youths Mostly to Blame
Phil Sears for The New York Times

Warren Messner, 18, has an armful of tattoos early in his 22-year prison term for the beating death of a homeless man.

    

By AMY GREEN
Published: February 15, 2008

CROSS CITY, Fla. — Warren Messner was 15 when he and some friends attacked a homeless man and left him for dead. Mr. Messner jumped on a log laid across the man’s ribs. He does not know why. He was high, does not remember much and wants to forget the rest.
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Phil Sears for The New York Times

“It was just a senseless crime,” Mr. Messner said of the fatal beating of Michael Roberts. Advocates for the homeless have taken note of a rise in such attacks, particularly in Florida.

Michael Roberts

Today Mr. Messner is a baby-faced 18-year-old serving 22 years for second-degree murder. He used to like skipping school and listening to rap music with friends. He imagined he eventually would help his father install flooring. Now he talks to his parents nearly every night from the maximum-security Cross City Correctional Institution.

“It was just a senseless crime.” he said, his eyes down, his shoulders slumped. “I wish it would have never happened. It made no sense. It was stupidity.”

Mr. Messner’s story is not unusual. Nationwide, violence against the homeless is soaring, and overwhelmingly the attackers are teenagers and young adults. In Florida the problem is so severe that the National Coalition for the Homeless is setting up speakers bureaus to address a culture that sees attacking the homeless as a sport. It is the first time the organization has singled out a particular state.

Of more than 142 unprovoked attacks on homeless people in 2007, the most — at least 32 — were in Florida, according to a preliminary count by the coalition and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. Nationwide, such attacks rose about 65 percent from 2005.

In Fort Lauderdale a group of teenagers captured national attention in 2006 when a surveillance camera caught one laughing as he beat a homeless man with a baseball bat. The teenagers attacked three homeless men that night and face a murder trial in one man’s death. A year later in Daytona Beach, a 17-year-old and two 10-year-olds attacked a homeless Army veteran. One 10-year-old dropped a cement block on the man’s face, the police said.

“What could possibly be in the mind of a 10- or 12-year-old that would possess them to pick up a rock and pick up a brick and beat another human being in the head?” said Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust. “It defies any rational thought process, but it’s also why we felt so strongly we had to do something.”

The trust has teamed with the local schools to develop a curriculum for elementary, middle and high schools teaching respect for the homeless.

Advocates for the homeless blame a society that they say shuns the homeless through laws that criminalize sleeping in parks, camping and begging.

“I think it reflects a lack of respect for the homeless that has reached such extreme proportions that homeless people aren’t viewed as people,” said Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.

Troubled by news photos showing those two 10-year-olds in Daytona Beach in prison suits and handcuffs, the National Coalition for the Homeless joined with AmeriCorps Vista to open speakers bureaus last fall in Key West, Jacksonville and Tallahassee. Nine more are planned in Florida. The idea is to educate students using speakers who are homeless or once lived on the streets, and the organization wants to open more bureaus nationwide, said Michael Stoops, executive director of the coalition.

The speakers are like George Siletti, who grew up in foster care and lived as a homeless drifter on and off for 25 years, starting at the age of 16. Now 51, Mr. Siletti said he took medication for schizophrenia and depression and lived in subsidized housing in Washington, addressing schools, churches and organizations about homelessness.

“I’ve had bottles thrown at me. I’ve had people spit on me, cursed me out for no reason,” said Mr. Siletti, who was attacked by teenagers in Fort Lauderdale as he and others slept under a bridge in the 1980s. “People seem to pick on the most vulnerable because they really think that they won’t do nothing.”

In Miami, students are learning from a weeklong curriculum and a DVD teaching that families are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population. The curriculum requires younger students to make posters and older students to write essays about what they learned.

Legislation adding the homeless to hate-crime laws has been introduced in Alaska, California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, Ohio and Texas. Bills are also pending in Congress.

Mr. Messner, who is an imposing six feet, 240 pounds in his blue prison suit, talks about his crime with quiet resignation.

He and his friends were looking for a place to smoke marijuana near his home in the Daytona Beach area when they stumbled on Michael Roberts. Mr. Messner joined the attack and remembers hearing Mr. Roberts groan when he jumped on the log, but then Mr. Messner tried to pull his friends away, he said.

“He was making noises,” Mr. Messner said. “He asked one time why we was doing it to him. Why we was messing with him.”

A few days later, Mr. Roberts’s body was found. Mr. Messner agreed to a plea bargain and drew the lightest sentence of the four convicted in the attack.

He does not like prison much. He keeps busy doing yard work, exercising and reading. He likes James Patterson novels and murder mysteries. He has dropped at least 40 pounds and developed a penchant for prison tattoos. One arm reads “thug” while the other reads “life.” His mother’s name, Lori, is on one hand. On one arm is the same cross he wears around his neck, surrounded by the words “hope,” “faith” and “love.”

“I'm not a killer. I know that,” Mr. Messner said. “A lot of people, they see this story and call us killers. I'm not a killer. I regret what I did. I wish I could take it back.”from the website:www.nytimes.com

I was homeless once, shelter, clean clothing, hot food, and a job.

Homeless people are exactly what they sound like - they are people who do not have a living space inside a building either because they can't afford it or other reasons.

Its a person who's poor...or if there living on the streets and have lease money...

You can give them a hot meal or an odd job like cutting the grass or something like that.or maybe money if you see 1 on a street corner

Well I was homeless it was an unlucky life fr a o year old in my mums stomach

Well, I guess since the vast majority of homeless are either alcoholic/drug addicted or are mentally ill (or a combination of all) the best way to combat the homeless issue is better funding for mental health and drug addiction services. Lack of education is also a large factor in the homeless population. It may initially take a lot of money to overhaul our education system, but in the long run it will save untold amounts of money and help to revitalize the economy.