A homeless man I befriended to some extent once took me to a shelter in East London. It was scary how many people there were. I stuck out like a sore thumb, and

A homeless man I befriended to some extent once took me to a shelter in East London. It was scary how many people there were. I stuck out like a sore thumb, and felt I drowned in a sea of eyes alternately a million miles blank or like daggers. Perhaps a similarly welcoming feeling to admission to some prisons. My friend introduced a well kempt, multilingual man with an education, an admirable history and sincerity who had simply fallen off the society's radar. The most of them seemed to be just getting by on little more than hope and memory, they were not just the aged, the mentally ill, desperados and addicts. Without an address, it is hard to get back in to society. I learned more in that visit than I cared to about how globalized first world societies treat their poor. Really humbling. It shocked me.