why is that people can just walk past homeless people without feeling anything for them?

I don't think that they don't feel anything. Basically after you walk by hundreds of homeless people a day you start to see them all the same way. You may start out giving them money and then you find out that you can't save the world. Sometimes you feed them but it never ends.

I lived in NYC and everyday it was the same on the train, someone singing "lean on me" begging for money. Then the people that sold street news.

It is going to take trillions of dollars to fix the problem. I heard a stat once that 75% of the homeless are mentally ill. Then there are the drug addicts. This is huge problem that feeding one person or giving a dollar to a homeless person cannot fix. I just hope that someday someone will have a real solution to the problem.

I think most people feel something. Also you can become immune to any images if you see them often enough. This I know sadly from my experiences as an Army nurse. I saw so many horrible things on one tour of duty, it became almost normal and the gut wrenching reaction I felt with the first exposure went away after a while. Might be the same sort of thing. I think secondly, some people have the opinon that homeless people choose that life which some actually do and some don't give money or help because they think they will spend it on drink or drugs which again some do. Many are mentally ill and the system has failed them but again not all. I think though people have simply grown used to looking at them.

Sometimes you have to just keep walking because nowadays they are just a bunch of con artists trying to get money for drugs or alcohol. There are homeless shelters & so many programs that are willing to help the homeless people who actually Want Help & want to get Out of that life.The ones you see pan handling on the street usually are not the ones that really want help because if they did, they would be trying to get assistance or using the resources available to the homeless. There are programs that help with shelter, food, clothes, child services, getting a job & community learning center & more. I know this because I was homeless at one time & lived in the Gospel Mission & there are rules, chores, curfew & you have to be clean & sober there. I don't feel sorry for the ones that are pan handling because if they really wanted help they could get it, but they are usually the ones that don't want to follow the rules.

We all feel for them. The more you see of anything, the less you feel. But I know from personal experience that there are quite a few that you just can't help no matter what you try. In my home state, North Carolina, a large percentage of them should be in mental hospitals or drug / alcohol treatment facilities. But the state budget for things such as a Teapot Museum were more important.

Others simply make their choices and even when you help them, they end up back on the streets. Sometimes, all you can do is just make the little piece of earth around you a better place and let the world take care of itself.

There seem to be a variety of reasons. Some of my gal pals and I had coffee and a long conversation about this one day. We all agreed that when Ronald Reagan closed the state mental institutions the homeless population seemed to explode ( at least in our state). We discussed the mentally ill and the drug addicted populations. We also discussed groups of professional pan handlers that grub themselves out to beg and con people and go home in their Beamers at the end of a days haul. Sometimes people are scared of the homeless or mistrusting of them. But for the most part I think people do care.

I walk by them now because I used to be homeless myself & I know that 95% of the ones pan handling are going to spend the money on alcohol or drugs. While I was spending all day applying for general assistance, food stamps, going to clothes closets, standing in line to eat at the mission or salvation army, going to classes so they could place me at a job. I was approved for the homeless assistance program & they paid the deposit & first months rent & deposits for my utilities for the first month. I continued to receive general assistance, food stamps & free bus passes until finally I got a job & they gave me a voucher for $100.00 to buy clothes. I was determined to get off the street while some of my friends preferred to hang out on the streets or parks & get drunk or high all day. I tried to help some of them & let them come over to my apt. to shower, eat & sleep but all they did was take advantage of me & steal from me & it was hard to get them to leave. I ended up getting evicted from that apt. because once they knew I had a place they all kept coming over & bringing other homeless people. The Community Services Agency helped me again & I moved & cut all ties with all my homeless friends. Yes, they are not all like that, but I still see the same homeless people. I know some of the scams they do to get money & I know what they spend their money on... So now when I see them, not only do I keep walking, I run & hide!

because of a self serviant attitude and being judgemental

nobody likes people with no money

if a guy walked up to you with nice jewelry on or pulled up to you in an expensive looking car and asked to talk to you i bet youd stop and talk but a homeless person if they were to do the same thing most people would think there just gonna ask for money

people only wanna build relationships they think they can get somethin out of

people are just selfish that way

because most ppl have a predefined ideal on what homelessness is and they are usually wrong, ie they r druggies/alcoholics scroungers etc, and by saying u grow accustom to it really make u sound bad dont u think, close ur eyes and they will go away. no they wont and one day it may be u and lets hope ppl will stop and not step over u, and im an atheist but im more christian than most christians

do you know what goes on with homeless people, and within them, they have the ability to walk by people and not feel anything for them, when is the last itme you walked by or drove by someone and didn,t feel anything for them?"

and then there is the difference between the sexes, are women the enemy, or is it men who are the enemy??

i know the enemy always feels something for me, dislike, distain, hatred, maliciousness. etc perhaps the homeless are blessed not being felt for. (when i had gasoline thrown on me, by people i knew, sure people feel for the homeless, who needs their feelings it was great to be homeless without neighbors like that, who cares about their feelings,

Because I didn't make them homeless. Because I don't know if they really are homeless (Do you assume someone is homeless because he is dirty and sitting on the sidewalk?) Because I don't know that person's story, what choices they made, why they have gotten where they are. Because I am not you. Because I have a life of my own.