The work of mercy I will cover is homelessness. There are nearly 100 million people in the world who are homeless and have to ask themselves everyday where they will sleep. Homelessness is the condition of people without a permanent dwelling, such as a house or apartment. People who are homeless are most often unable to acquire and maintain regular, safe, secure and adequate housing. Homelessness can be caused by poverty, unemployment, lack of affordable housing, poor physical or mental health, drug and alcohol abuse and/or family and relationship breakdown. All these factors can cause a person to become homeless.
They can also be the reasons why a person remains homeless. For example, drug and alcohol abuse can be both a cause and result of family instability, mental illness or addictions and domestic violence. Domestic violence is the main cause of homelessness in australia. If you put six Australian women in a room, statistics show that at least one of them will have been a victim of domestic violence. For men its one in twenty. Domestic violence takes the life of one woman a week. 36% of the people – mostly women and children – who accessed homelessness services in Australians did due so to family violence. When a victim decides to leave a violent relationship, it often means leaving the family home.
Her options are usually limited; an abusive partner may control finances and her capacity to work may have been diminished by the abuse. If she’s leaving with children, she needs to find a safe place for them to stay too. I think there can be many ways to put an end to homelessness.
Helping the homeless is a massive step into the solution. You can help by opening a homeless shelter or something small by buying a homeless person a meal. In the Adelaide parklands there are many homeless people. There’s this one guy I’ve seen ever since I can remember so in the recent holidays my sister and I decided to buy him food. We went to a nearby café and bought him a toasties.
My dad told the woman who served us what we were doing. Instantly the woman began crying as we had described the man. She said she knew him and shared his story with us. His wife and 2 kids had died in a car accident and he had gotten very depressed and with many problems occurring he ended up homeless.
This really opened my mind and made me realise that every individual is different and everyone has their own story and reasons. When we gave him the toasties he was so happy and thankful. Using Homelessness, Hunger or Thirst, research and discuss their spiritual aspects. In this section you will need to use a quote/s from the bible and analyse their meaning. You will also explore how we use the words ‘homeless’, ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’ in a spiritual way A, B, C ; DOften when someone joins a church or other religious community, it is said that he or she has found their ‘spiritually home’. There are many different definitions of what spiritually homeless means. The most common one I found is People who wander the streets in search of a place to house their thirst for healing and inner peace.
It’s a state of mind shared by people both inside and outside the church who no longer belong the way they once did. So basically someone who ‘has no home or haven in which to be joined in spirt’. Feeling homeless implies a feeling of vulnerability; feeling spiritually homeless can leave one feeling isolated and vulnerable to the very core of our being. Thoese who are spiritually homeless seek two things.
The first is spiritual direction that can bring meaning or purpose to their lives. The second is healing not simply physical and emotional healing, but wholeness and well being that comes from coping with estrangement which is no longer being close with friends or family and losing your relationship with them.
