Imagine that you have a home, a life. You have a job, and all the knick-knacks and bric-a-brac that make your home just a little brighter. Your spouse also has a nice job, and between the both of you, and a good budget plan, you are able to pay your bills, buy food for your family, and occasionally you manage to treat yourself to a show or a good restaurant or maybe purchase something deeply desirable.

Now, imagine that you lose your job, and find yourself unable to find employment elsewhere. Perhaps it is that you cannot find employment in the field to which you are trained and you don't know how to do anything else. Perhaps you are just too old and in a state or city where nobody wishes to hire someone of such advanced years. For whatever reason, you simply cannot find work. You start to get really depressed.

Without the extra income, your spouse is struggling to pay the bills. The rising cost of gas makes things all the more difficult, yet it is necessary to keep fuel in your car so that your spouse can go to work. Soon, you start fighting over the finances. After a while, your spouse decides that they have had enough, and starts the paperwork for divorce.

Unable to support yourself with no income, you lower your standards. You apply for aid, and maybe join a church so that they will help you.Your sinking deeper into depression.

You use whatever aid you get to get drunk, hoping to gain a moment of peace from the now ever-present pain. You lose your house, and with it every possession you had left. You are now homeless, living on the street.

One wrong decision, one wrong move, can easily cascade dramatically, leaving a person in a position where they feel helpless, hopeless, and void of any hope. Being homeless is often the end result of a life that went out of control.

Homeless shelters and acts of charity do nothing to alleviate homelessness. Providing temporary shelter and a meal or two every day is not extremely beneficial, and can in fact be more harmful. Dependency on other people to maintain a person's existence can actually lead to a form of addiction.

It is not the easiest thing to do. Many homeless people feel useless, as though there lives are not worth anything. What use is it to try if you have nothing left to offer?

In past ages, it was possible for a homeless person to find a family of bigs, or gain substance from fishing, and maybe forge trade that would allow them to return to a typical standard of living. Today we only trade bank notes, and it generally takes a lot of them in order to build a new life.

I imagine a community built to provide purpose and accomplishment for homeless people. A community that is built around a fixed center, with a gym in the center. All who live there would have to exercise regularly, with exercise equipment that is designed to provide electricity for the entire community. Gardens would provide vegetables, and small semisuburban farming for providing meat.

There is nothing of that sort today. Religion, tradition, and a economic concerns oft times prove to thwart any attempt to improve the quality of life for homeless people. Yet whenever you stumble across one, remember this: It could be you there, smelling like urine. Not it could have been you, but at any time, it could be you. Think about that.