On a given day in
the United States....

We see destitution 
and hopelessness

Can anyone tell us the
true root of this epidemic?

Hey Sir!

Off! Man!

Well,
perhaps not.

But we found
this woman,

And she began
to talk

When pandemic aid ended, 
homelessness began
for a lot of us

Fact: From 2019 to 2021, sheltered
homelessness decreased by 17% 

But it's coming 
back with a vengeance

Fact: More than 100 shelters reported 
increases in early 2023 counts than 2022

We see a man
sitting on a park bench

Some of us fall down
a hole with drugs

Fact: That's 26% of them

Heroin, meth, fentanyl, xylazine....
all ways for us to dull
the pain of our realities

We found a woman
holding a toddler 

For some of us,
it was leave or die

Fact: 38% of domestic violence 
victims become homeless (1998)

So we picked the
lesser of two evils

We saw another man

Cycles. It’s common. My family’s
been poor for generations.

We never had the
opportunities to succeed,
to get out.

And even if we did, 
our responsibilities 
must have weighed down

We found an old woman 
sitting in an abandoned doorway

Whether it’s by nature
or nurture, some of us
have mental illnesses.

Fact: 1/3 of homeless people suffer from one,
and it's most often schizophrenia  

Sometimes we even commit
ourselves...for the bed and hot food

We see a teenage boy, too,
sitting by himself

Some of us never 
had a chance 
to begin with 

Fact: There's an estimated
100,000 displaced children in the US

We’re abandoned or neglected
and there’s nowhere to turn.

Starving children all over
the world? Well, we’re
right here, too.

How would things change
if people start to see us?

If kindness triumphed
over fear and people reached out

If pity and compassion
could become word and action...

If we stopped putting bandaids
over our problems and
prioritized rehabilitation...

If we treated people
like people...

That would be a better
world, don’t you think?