We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation than for bread. – Mother Teresa
Fear of homelessness is common among women, even very successful ones. I know my wife has always had a fear of homelessness that I have never understood, and a particular affinity with any woman she meets who is living on the street. I am sure it is this fear in part that drives her to work with a homeless women’s shelter in Santa Ana where she regularly helps feed over 40 women and collects clothing for them.
But when she asked a friend what homelessness would mean to her, the immediate reply was, “No friends.”
Marti writes: “Fear of poverty and homelessness is complex and based on many meanings. Issues of comfort, safety, and control come into play and would probably be of equal concern to both men and women. However, my friend’s identification of homelessness with loss of friends is, I suspect, at the root of many women’s fears. Women, more so than men, are concerned with social connections. Homelessness for most women is social isolation.
“Mother Teresa often said that it is far easier to serve or love Jesus in strangers and outcasts than it is to serve him in our own families and communities, easier to give a dish of rice to a poor person on the other side of the world or to a complete stranger than to give that “dish of rice” to someone who is starving for love right under our own roof or in our back yard.”
Think of all the lonely people just outside the doors of our own homes. Then think that the greatest gift we can give someone without a home is an integrating friendship. In doing so we will find that these women are a lot more like us than they are different with very similar needs as ours.
The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty. – Mother Teresa
John Fischer The Catch 
I have to leave a book suggestion that will truly change your way of viewing homelessness. It’s Same Kind of Different As Me. If it doesn’t change your life, I’m not sure what will…
I am suspecting that when a woman becomes homeless, it also means she not only has lost or had severed ties with friends, but she certainly has lost friends she can trust.
I can honestly say that I need to get off my tail and do more.
As Christ says “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me” … which coincides with material poverty and/or social or spiritual poverty. The main goal for us should always be to serve 🙂
I have never thought about poverty in the way presented in this article. I taught school for 29 years and crossed paths with many students (grades 4-8) who did not feel loved. When I explored their position more deeply, I was able to understand why they felt that way. Until I read this article, I never thought about their experience as poverty. Thanks for the new perspective! Thanks for writing the article which will challenge me for days as I search for ways to be more loving.
First Comment is a question: How can we get away with being Christian or Moral and placing people with disabilities in institutions?
Second Comment is a poem:
MY NAME IS NOT “THOSE PEOPLE”
Written by Julia K. Dinsmore
Adapted by Gary Lee Parker
My name is not “Those People.”
I am a loving man, a father in pain,
Giving birth to the future, where my child
Have the same chance to thrive as anyone.
My name is not “Inadequate.”
I did not make my wife leave us-
She chose to, and chooses not to pay child support.
Truth is though, there is not a job base
For all their fathers to support their families.
While society turns its head, my child pays the price.
My name is not “Problem and Case to be Managed.”
I’m a capable human being and citizen, not just a client or consumer.
The social service system can never replace
the compassion and concern for loving grandparents, aunts, uncles, mothers, cousins, community-
all the bonded people who need to be
But are not present to bring little ones forward to their potential.
My name is not “Lazy, Dependent Welfare Father.”
If the unwaged work of parenting,
homemaking, and community building were factored
into the gross domestic product,
My work would have untold value. And why is it that mothers or fathers whose
Husbands or Wives support them to stay home and raise children
Are glorified? And why don’t they get called lazy or dependent?*
*Dinsmore, Julia K., My Name is Child of God…Not “Those People:” A first-person look at poverty, Augsburg Books, Minneapolis, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8066-5624-3.
Third Comment is about the 2010 Election Results: Here we go again. The 2010 Election Results look a lot like the 1994 Election Results. Have we really learned anything?