Frank

My best friend/current roommate has been a bit out of luck lately. Getting laid off from his job because management was coming up short on work for the end of summer has caused him to go into a mild depressive state which consists of surrounding himself with people he likes, drinking alcohol, and playing a lot of Xbox. All good things in measure and I can't say that I blame him at all. Losing his job was a blow to his self esteem and, now, my wallet. I make plenty of money in my 30-plus-hours-a-week-part-time-job to support us for the time being, but that in itself is making life pretty hard on me. Thirty hours a week in a kitchen is, for lack of a better word, not fun at all.

My buddy's recent unemployment will be fixed shortly, though, because he's a very determined person and already has leads for jobs and interviews. I'm not worried about him, but it makes me consider people who aren't as lucky as him, and suffer extended unemployment with little hope of even rejoining the work force.

This last January I visited San Francisco and witnessed the cities immense population of homeless people, unable to take care of themselves save for begging on the street corners, bus stops with the permeating smell of garbage and piss, or in the subway just to get out of the pouring rain. It really was a tragic eye opener for me. My only experience with homelessness (I'm from a really small town) had been the few I'd seen around downtown Lawrence. I was shocked to see just how many people couldn't afford to take care of themselves with even the barest of necessities.

I was rather disconcerted at how most people going to work, getting their morning Starbucks fix treated the many homeless people around the city. It's not that they treated them bad or anything like that… they mostly just ignored them, passing by the outstretched hand or the opened guitar case. We seem to, as a society, have become dull to the fact that there are people less fortunate than ourselves living right alongside us. They're not in a country halfway across the world in a remote, third-world village; they're here.

I suppose that experience is one of the factors that has led to my ill feelings to some of the more outspoken animal activist groups. I realize that animals aren't always being treated in the most civilized way (just Google Michael Vick) but I think we should try to take a little more action on the well being of human beings. Do I think humans are more important that animals? You bet your ass I do, and I think fretting about animals wearing lipstick seems a little ridiculous in comparison. That isn't to say that I believe animals should be treated this way, just that I think people should be taken care of first and foremost.

You might be wondering what my all encompassing solution to homelessness might be, but I'll tell you the truth. I don't have one. It is a big problem that one simple patch on the dam won't fix. But I think that if we want to talk about equality and civil rights, we should take a closer look at what's happening in our own backyard.