I had never thought about how those homeless people ended up there. I had never once thought to ask, 'Why would a lazy person choose that life?' It seems like a really hard, scary, uncertain life. It seems like the last kind of life a lazy jackass would choose.

The most irritating thing, I found, is when people question "luxury" items like phones, laptops or vehicles. "I just saw a homeless person with a cell phone! Guess he's not really homeless." "Wait a second, how do you blog if you're homeless?" "Why don't you sell your phone and laptop and car and buy food or rent an apartment?". . .

I can understand potentially taking issue with government money being misspent -- if a homeless individual is receiving housing funds for a very specific, designated purpose from an assistance program, and spending them elsewhere. But personal income? It's yours, you've earned it, and if you want to use it to buy a cell phone or a laptop or a book or a necklace or even a goddamn pack of cigarettes because you feel that any of the above will improve the quality of your life or just plain make you feel a little happier or more humanized for a short while, then good for you. I will never be the one to demand to know how much it cost you or look at you askance and mutter about how you wouldn't be homeless if only you didn't buy A, B or C. It's basic respect, and I don't think that basic respect and the right to privacy end when you lose your home. . . .

Sustainability is the key to any lifestyle. Sure, I could sell my phone and my laptop for the price of a few hamburgers. But, then, the hamburgers would soon be gone, and so would my phone and laptop. I would have absolutely no phone, so an employer could contact me. And without a laptop, I would only be able to search and apply for work online during the hours that the public library was open.