Tis the Season

Blessings Darlings!

Tis the Season ... to discuss hunger, homelessness, and related issues.

I live kinda rural, so homelessness is relatively hidden in my area.  You don't walk by folks sleeping on grates here, unlike when I hung out in DC.  Which is NOT NOT NOT to say that homelessness is not a problem here.  Many an overgrown, vine covered 'abandoned' house is being lived in here, it's just hard to know.  A roughly put together shelter of scrounged plywood, out in the woods, is going to be pretty invisible.

And certainly even when folks do have homes, many have no utilities.  You might never realized that your neighbor has had their electricity cut off a year or more ago. 

Even among my coworkers, being without running water isn't unusual.  Whether they live in a house that just never has had running water, or their well has gone dry, or the well has been contaminated (welcome to West Virginia, where mining waste is EVERYWHERE), or it has been cut off, it's reality.  Perhaps this is the most 'visible' thing in the area ... if you look for it.  The old people in line in front of you at the dollar store, getting all those paper plates and cups? They don't have water, they can't wash 'regular' stuff (they don't have garbage pick up, either, and will burn these after use).  The folks you see carrying jugs of water from the tap outside the Post Office?  Yes, them, too.

Keep your eyes open.

Frondly, Fern