I will refer to them as houseless people because I think Luna Oi does it or something (not sure though), so I assume it’s preferable to “homeless people” but I don’t know.
Anyway, I recently got a job and so far I am quite content with it. It’s in the province capital and I go there in a bus.
Thing is, now that I’m going outside and touching grass I noticed that there’s a lot of houseless people in the city I work in. There is less than a kilometer from the bus station to my workplace and on the way in and out of the commute I’ve seen 3 people on the same day.
I already give them some money once a day if I see them (well, one of them I didn’t give yet since at the time I didn’t see if they had a cup for putting money in and I didn’t want to stare since I feel like that would be super rude), but I wondered if there is something else I could do to help apart from giving them some money. Are they discriminated against in stores since people assume they have no money and that they entered to steal or some shit?
I want to learn more about their situation and how to help.
Any response is appreciated.
(I think the problem with ‘homeless’ as a category is that it includes houseless people and people who might have somewhere (temporary or semi-temporary) to live. Whereas ‘houseless’ more specifically refers to people who might sleep on the streets, in tents, or in temporary shelters, or a combination of these. I could be wrong – this is just how I’ve made sense of the difference.)