Dear Future President,

           I don't know if you have noticed but there are many homeless people in the U.S. varying from spouses getting divorced and losing everything to former veterans having no money.  To be more specific there are 643,067 homeless people in the U.S. and 238,110 of those people are in families.  Just to give you an understanding of who are going homeless, 25% of the people suffer from mental illness or depression and 12% are former veterans.  Around 1.4 million veterans are at risk of being homeless after deployment.  These men and women are risking their lives to protect our country and their reward is what, losing everything and having to live on the streets?  But what really bugs me is the most is how we see the homeless.  Think about this for a minute and tell yourself what you would do honestly.  Say a former veteran walks up to you on the streets in his military uniform and asks you for a dollar to get something to drink.  You would give the veteran a dollar wouldn't you?  Now lets try this, say a man the same age, weight, height as the veteran with a ripped shirt, torn shorts and no shoes walks up to you and asks for a dollar for something to drink.  You would probably be very curious on what he would actually buy with that dollar, but you didn't think twice when the veteran asked for a dollar.  To me that disgusts me to think that just by a persons looks we judge and characterize people just by what they have and what they wear.  Seventeen percent of the 643,067 homeless people in the U.S. are chronically homeless which means they are people who have been homeless for more than a year and some for even three years.  Have you ever been on vacation and had to stay at a hotel and by the second day you already feel homesick and want to go back to your own home with your own stuff?  Well, imagine you're on vacation for three full years never being able to go to your own house.  I personally would not last even a week in these people's lives to be completely honest, but, I know how hard it is for them and I respect them 110%.   I don't think we, as middle-class to high-class citizens, take into perspective on how hard these people's lives are and that's why I am writing this letter to let people know that this needs to stop immediately.