Homelessness is defined as an individual or family who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. Here in Atlanta, Georgia, homelessness is a serious issue that doesn't seem to be resolving any time soon. Now, as I've gone out locally in the community, I've noticed quite a few things. I've noticed that a lot of the homeless community gathers together as if they are family. I've also noticed that some of them are blindly walking along the streets and enduring everyday life. If it's cold outside and they're shivering on a cemented place in a local park, or if they're in their tent, which is like their home, still enduring embracing the cold. It's amazing to see how the homeless community finds together here locally in the city of Atlanta. 

Now, as you think about Atlanta, Atlanta has been bustling and growing over the past few years. There's always construction, there's always roads and pathways that seem to be a bubbling downtown, urban oasis. But in hidden moments, in hidden places, you normally can see downtown at certain times of the morning, many homeless people walking away from a shelter, walking to find heat with their belongings, leaving their belongings in places to mark their territories, understanding that there are places of refuge that they can go, going to local soup kitchens or waiting to see if there's any more room from the night before, leaving local soup kitchens or places after they've had to go for the next night to try to figure out what's next.

As they walk with their luggage and all of their belongings to destinations they don't even know that they're going to go to, they're in regular day life, and they're in places trying to make sense of everything, but with little of their belongings that they have to go. Whether they're pushing a cart, under an umbrella in a local park just to stay away from everyone, their belongings mean more to them, and they always make sure it's with them. 

Now there are many neighborhoods that you can see the homeless community in Atlanta located, but they haven't gone out to the suburbs just yet. You can see them locally downtown, hidden in various streets, parks, and communities that they are constantly on an everyday basis forced out of. Now, when you go further downtown and see the construction of all the new buildings, you might think that there's not still a homeless community in these prominent places. Well, if you keep driving locally here in Atlanta, you can definitely find one or two hanging along by theirselves, still letting people know they need help. Anytime the homeless people make their own environment on their places, they usually just go with anything that they have, which is honestly not that much.

As you see this younger gentleman here, he's been on the same corner for a few years now. But one thing that I admire about him is that he constantly cleans his clothes and lays them out so that he knows what's his property, but most importantly, that he has access to clean clothes. In my neighborhood, there's a local post office where quite a few homeless people gather, and they do it just for warmth with the little belongings that they have. The bag lady, who's a homeless woman, always looking to check in her things. And the homeless people, they are a community of their own, trying to make sure they can keep their belongings together. Now, the bag lady, she spends at least 10-15 minutes each morning going through her things just to make sure she can fold and have a place to call her own. We definitely have a serious homelessness problem here in Atlanta. 

One of my favorite songs from my childhood is Reach Out and Touch by Diana Ross. There are certain lyrics in the song that resonate with me, but also apply to the current state of homelessness here in Atlanta, Georgia. Try a little kindness and you'll see, its something that comes naturally. We can change things if we start giving. Why don't you reach out and touch somebody's hand….