Let Volunteers Spend Time with the Homeless

  There is benefit to having someone always with the homeless, talking to them, sharing time with them, just being with them -- and guiding them. As I think on this, I consider that if they have someone with them all day long, that is much the same as them being back in their homes, with those who care for them being there for them.
   I think of the radio ad, "Give your family everything. Give them your time." If people need time when they are in their own homes, they continue to need it when they fall out of their homes and onto the streets.
   And, I think of what might be a new term: homeless homes. If we were able to provide companionship for them, all day long, it would, in a way, be like giving them homes. They would be in what we could call homes for the homeless.
   Giving them someone to be with them would be no small task. You cannot afford to pay people to come in and spent so much time with them. You can't. Budgets and deficits and too much government spending tell us to not even try.
   Volunteers? This seems the only answer, but a difficult one, at that. You would benefit from all the publicity the homeless situation has received here in the Salt Lake Valley. It would drive up the number of people who want to step in and help.
  But, say we only tried to have but one volunteer per every 10 homeless people, giving the volunteers each three-hour shifts. That is still a lot of volunteers. It would be a project so big, I don't know if we could meet it.
   I think of myself, and how I would not have time to volunteer much, if any.
   But, I also consider on this: Many of the homeless are there because their families asked them to leave. The families were overwhelmed -- overwhelmed and frustrated. In many cases, they did not have the required time to spend with the them. If you are to send them to a place that will provide what the family was not able to provide, you must provide that it be a place that does provide day-long companionship.
   Solving homelessness is as easy as providing them friends. And, it is as hard as that.