As
mentioned in my previous essay, promoting the well-being of dogs is one my true
passions. But I discovered yet another passion that recently surfaced to my
mind just during the past few weekends. Specifically, last weekend as I drove
back home from school around eleven PM I
got on I-35 North, exited Howard Lane, took a left at the light, and saw six
homeless men under the Howard Lane Bridge. The six men huddled in a circle
laughing while sharing their days’ events, so it seemed. I drove by them with
only a glance in my rearview mirror. As I approached the Metric stoplight, I
took another left and further down that street I saw yet another homeless man
standing on the median between two lanes. The light was still red so I had no
choice but to watch him stand right outside my car. In a way, I felt obligated
to give him something, anything. So I pulled out my wallet, looked under my
armrest holder and collected two dollars and sixty-seven cents. It was only two
dollars or so but it was all I had. I decided to sacrifice my late-night snack
of a fruit parfait from McDonalds and gave him the money instead. The homeless
man took it without hesitation, said “thank you,” smiled, and continued to walk
down the line of cars. My generosity towards homeless individuals was not
always present, though. Years ago, I found myself despising homeless people as
a result of some bad encounters with a few homeless men. I generally disliked
them and found most utterly annoying. Not only would some stare at me pleading
for money with their eyes, but some were quite rude when they received nothing.
In [1]fact,
I recall countless times when I passed by a couple homeless men on Guadalupe
without offering money and I would hear rude phrases from them about how cheap
I was or something similar to that nature. What they probably did not
understand was that I was a college student and I was broke myself. But what I
did not understand at that time was that some homeless people did not have a
choice about their lifestyle and perhaps their bitter attitudes developed from
this fact.
Many times I hear
people say, “Why don’t homeless people go find a job or do something instead of
begging for money?” I cannot deny I used to be one of those individuals.
However, through lots of patience and numerous lectures from my mother about
how some people were just born into this lifestyle, my animosity towards these
individuals faded. I now have a new perspective for the less-fortunate
individuals and I now feel that it is part of my duty and purpose in life to
help the less-fortunate as much as I can. I know it is slightly cliché to say
that I want to cure poverty because it is like saying I want to create world
peace. Both goals are practically impossible to achieve without some kind of
extraordinary powers in which people do not have. My passion is not to find a
cure for poverty, but it is to create opportunities for homeless people to
regain independence to establish a better lifestyle for themselves. I have seen
homeless men and women almost everywhere, from right around the corner of my
house to the huge array in downtown
As
of now, there are many organizations in 
Not
only does this program “promote public awareness about homelessness” to other
My
idea to help serve my community is to create an organization starting in
central
But,
first and foremost, there must be contributions and donations from big
corporations or individuals in order to
open and maintain a large facility with appropriate living conditions for many
people. Once this organization receives sufficient funds to get up and running,
we would begin to recruit volunteers to work. But in order to recruit these
volunteers, the general public would first have to know about it. Therefore,
our second step would be to send the word out to schools, universities, and
companies for potential volunteers. I would want to focus mainly on high
schools and universities because there are always students looking for
volunteer opportunities to help their community and to gain school credit. The
third step I would take to help open 
opportunities
for homeless people is to actually have our volunteers go to places in Austin
that are heavily populated with poor [6]individuals,
primarily in South Austin . These volunteers would spread the word about this
job opportunity for homeless individuals using flyers, posters, or postings in
these specific areas. Later, when homeless individuals come to the
organization’s building, we will assign them with specific jobs that can expand
their knowledge and skills in that particular field. They, of course, would suggest to us what
kind of job they are interested in as well. As mentioned before, once they
begin their job, our organization will follow up and help save their work money
in order to ensure for their future investments. Finally, when these
individuals have worked long enough to excel in their talents and abilities,
they can apply their skills elsewhere and look for other jobs better-suited for
their needs. This way, we are providing them with an opportunity to strengthen their
skills while supplying them a temporary place to sleep and eat. Furthermore, in
order to assist other poor members of society, individuals who previously
participated in this program can spread the word to other homeless individuals.
Therefore, this would help more people get their lives together and the number
of homeless men and women is likely to decrease.
With
the help of our organization we can potentially move homeless people off the
streets and offer them the opportunity to do something beneficial for the
greater good of society and for themselves. We, as a community, have to assist
these individuals because homeless people would in fact be helping us with our
environment and society in return. However, some might question why we should
aid poor individuals when they can simply help themselves. But the truth is -
there are many individual factors that can contribute to a person’s living
situation. It is important to point out that some do not choose to be on the
streets but perhaps living on the streets is their last resort. In fact,
homelessness can occur from a variety of reasons including “chronic or
unexpected health care expenses, release from incarceration, ‘aging out’ of
youth systems such as foster care, [and] divorce or separation.” [7]Furthermore,
it is stated that “50% of
For instance, if the number of people living in poverty continues to rise throughout the years, our streets and city buildings will be swarming with homeless individuals, sitting and gawking at every passerby. Not only can their actions make us feel uncomfortable, but our future children and grandchildren would have to deal with these individuals inhabiting these once playful areas such as public parks and neighborhood streets.
I am confident to say that no one’s idea of a perfect world is a place where homeless people roam aimlessly on our neighborhood streets, begging for money. I believe our society and its individuals have a common desire for our ideal world to be without no pain and suffering and a place where love, compassion, and generosity towards one another is present. What better way to create this ideal world than to help the less-fortunate individuals in our own neighborhood and city? Although we are all busy with our personal lives, “if we observe our own minds at work, we see that behind all these identities is a state of awareness.”[10] I believe that we all acknowledge that poverty exists, but some just choose to ignore it. We, as a society, should contribute some time and effort to this problem even out of our busy schedules, especially since this problem just might affect the well-being of our future generations as mentioned before. This way, people of all races and classes will unite, creating a world where all individuals can potentially have equal opportunities like education. Above all, I realize that there is no way everyone will be saved from poverty and that there is no promise from any organization that their victims will survive independently with sufficient money. But I strongly feel that saving twenty individuals from a group of thousands from starvation is better than saving none at all.
Word Count: 2,186-93 = 2,093
Quotes: 93 words
NEW words = 573 words
Final Word Count: 2,093