What the average person sees, if he notices the homeless at all, is the highly visible face of homelessness. The People sleeping in our public parks, doorways of businesses, and foyers of public buildings. The panhandlers. The drunk and disorderly. The mentally ill. What the average person sees is a stereotype of who the homeless are. Like any stereotype, it is inaccurate, deceiving, and dangerous.

To date that picture has been the one most often portrayed by the media and sold to an American Public that has become increasingly disillusioned by the money spent on, and the progress made, or not made, in dealing with the homeless.

The reality is that the face of homelessness is changing. More elderly and disabled are becoming homeless as they become displaced by rising housing, food, and medical costs. More and more single women and women with children are finding themselves homeless for a variety of reasons: non-existent or poor job skills, domestic violence, etc. Families who are victims of changing and mercurial job markets, or who have been caught in the middle of shifting housing needs as they move from one area of the country to another. The system as it exists is not equipped to handle this reality. Shelters do not provide an answer. Welfare and food stamps, in reality, do not help people, especially women with children or families, get off the street. They only contribute to the problem by engendering social, psychological, and spiritual bondage to a system that is adequate in confronting the problem in the first place.

The reality is that there are not enough programs in place, at the present time, to help the elderly, the disabled, the abused women, the unskilled, the women with children and displaced families. There are more than enough shelters, at least for now, to take care of the men who find themselves homeless for whatever reason, but that too seems to be changing as funding cuts take their toll on shelter funds.

Nor are all the homeless in America unproductive members of our society. Barbara Ehrenreich, in her book "Nickled and Dimed in America" makes the claim that 28% of all homeless people in America have full-time jobs and cannot afford reliable housing. Many working homeless cannot afford first, last and deposits to move into stable homes. They may sleep in their cars or in motels that take advantage of the poor by charging exorbitant rents. Ehrenreich took minimum wage jobs in many places throughout our country

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