Homeless people can see cars and people walking. Homeless people can hear cars going past and people chattering Homeless people can feel cold and lonely Homeless people can smell delicous food Homeless people can taste nothing at all.
Homeless people can see the shoes if people rushing past, the dark night when the streets are asleep. The cold stone floor and the sleevs of their coats as they cling on to them, an endless struggle to keep warm with what little they have. They can hear the curses of teenages, the gossip of women, dogs barking, cars passing. The wind howling and the rain pelting the floor. They can feel the sharp, icy wind of the night, lonliness and wanting to belong, to belong to something more than a busy street. They feel scared, depressed, humiliated, like everything, everyone and all you ever knew has abandoned you, forgotten you or betrayed you. They feel like their entire perspective of life has turned upside down. Worst of all, they can feel the eyes, the eyes of people watching them, judging them, children, teens, adults, women, men. The eyes, judging their appearence, trying to piece together a mental landscape of their situation. They can smell the fumes of buses, the stench of their unwashed belongings, dog feceies, rubbish bins, and most painfully, the fast food resterunt a few metets away. They can tase the vile taste of their unwashed teeth and bad breath. The after tase of the coffee that was kindly offered to them last night.
Shortly before President Roosevelt’s State of the Union address was delivered on January 6, 1941, Eleanor published her first My Day column of the year. The essay anticipated many of the themes the president would address in his speech. Though hope was hard to entertain, she believed that many Americans would nevertheless find a ray of hope by working together toward the attainment of “peace with honor and justice for all.”She then mentioned the goals (or “freedoms,” in Franklin’s speech) for which she thought people would be inspired to fight: “Justice for all, security in certain living standards, a recognition of the dignity and the right of the individual human being, without regard to his race, creed, or color.”
