Visiting a Homeless Shelter

La-Toya Mckenith Psychology of Learning When I’m out with my friends, weather we are picking up fast food, or stopping at a red light, and I see a what I assume to be a homeless person asking for change, I’m usually the person that will give them any lose change or singles that I have. Many of my friends hate that I do this, but someone some how I empathize with those people. So naturally when I was asked to do something that I’ve never done before, I chose to visit a homeless shelter. I chose this because although I hand over money to people, I do this and go back to my normal life. I never have in my 22 years of life taken the time out to actually have a conversation with a homeless person. I’ve never taken the time to get their story. So this is what I chose to do. I got one of my friends and we headed to a near by shelter. I admit, on the way there, I felt uneasy. I didn’t know what to expect but I would go through with this. As we entered the shelter, most of the people there seemed standoffish. I figured it was how we were dressed. We did do go dressed flashy by any means but I knew we appeared different. After walking around for a while, and handing out basic toiletries, most of the African Americans came to us; they felt as though they could identify with us most, because of the pigment of our skin. I had several conversations with the homeless people. Most people were homeless because they had some form of addiction, which led them to making bad decisions. Some of them were homeless because they had been arrested and they had nowhere to go at the end of their jail term. A few people were homeless because they had been laid off from their jobs, which resulted in them losing their houses. It was emotional having the homeless telling me their life stories and giving me advice on things not to do in life. I was heart broken when I saw someone picking up a penny from the floor. Every penny counts for the homeless and this made