The other day I went to Minneapolis to voluteer at a homeless shelter and I can honestly say it was one of the most eye opening, life changing, heart touching things I have ever done. I fell it love with the families, the kids, the community, and by the time I had to leave all I wanted to do was pack them all up and bring them home with me. Too, bad I can't do that. Because seeing all of those people living in and with what they had to, it broke my heart. I met a little girl and boy who's father was shot, and killed by their uncle. I met a woman who had been kicked out of her home because she was laid off, and so old that no one would hire her, and this all was in America, the land of oppurtunity; the land of prosperity; the land where this isn't supposed to happen, but it's happening everyday. And that's why I'm sick. I'm sick and disgusted, because while I was working in that homeless shelter I learned that another homeless shelter just about a block away was going to be torn down. Torn down in a neighborhood where their is already a shortage of shelters. Torn down when last year it was so cold that a man froze to death because he had to find refuge underneath a bridge because all of the shelters were full, no not just full, packed, crowded, and they couldn't even fit one more person. He froze. He died. And why? Becasue there wasn't enough shelters. So why were they tearing another shelter down? Why were they going to risk the death of yet another person who couldn't save themselves? Why? Believe me when I say it's all in the name of baseball. Yes, this shelter is being torn down because the Minnesota Twins think they need a new stadium. I find this sick and it breaks my heart because as most people know in almost everyother country in the world Americans are considered selfish, and my whole life I've spent trying to prove them wrong, yet here we are, proving them all right by building a new sports stadium where one already exsists, when we could be using that money to not only build another shelter, but to save lives. But no, we aren't saving lives. No, if anything we're destroying them. We're stealing them. By tearing down this shelter we will not only be losing a building, but losing the housing that many people, families, and childeren call home. And if they can't find a new home, what then? What will happen? I don't even want to think, but at the same time I know I have to, because the only way I know that things will change is by bringing something like this into my world, my life. I've done research on this, and I've found other sources that tell me the destruction of this shelter is not just a rumor, and the pure fact that a homeless shelter was torn down to construct a stadium in Washington, D.C. tells me that if it's happened before, it can happen again. What can we do? How can we prevent one more death? One more, person from suffering in the cold? How? If we won't stand up and help who will? Any Ideas?
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