If you stay up to date on the news, you are probably aware that across the United States, a growing problem is the experience of homelessness. As the wealth gap continues to grow wider, making ends meet day to day is increasingly harder for more and more Americans. Sacrifices are made, spending cut, and priorities readjusted.

Homelessness is not always visible though. There are plenty of people whose experience of homelessness may be hidden from plain sight. If a family is unable to afford rent each month and finds themselves living with relatives, that is a form of homelessness. However, even with these invisible forms of homelessness, the visible signs are becoming more and more glaring.

For me being familiar with Seattle and Washington, D.C., two metropolitan cities that are struggling with affordability right now, people experiencing homelessness are forming encampments for themselves. These small villages of tents and ramshackle structures are seen in parks, under bridges, and alongside freeways. For people experiencing homelessness often times these are the only places they are able to reside because the shelters are full or some of these people do not meet the criteria for a bed in a shelter.

With these encampments becoming larger as if they were an invasive species like ivy, city officials have somehow decided the logical solution is to rip these encampments apart and clear them out. Often these clearances are without much notice and leave the people who have resided there experiencing greater homelessness than they were before.

This is wrong.

The experience of homelessness is not about being invasive or visible. The experience of homelessness is about the people who are living this experience. If you were to talk to people who are enduring homelessness, I would imagine that no one would say they have chosen this experience. They do not want to be seen as needy, or worthless, or burdensome, or unstable, or sick, all things our society has built the experience of homelessness to be judged as.

This semester I have been volunteering weekly at Miriam’s Kitchen which is an organization in the metropolitan D.C. area, only a block away from my college campus, that works to connect people experiencing homelessness with the resources they need.

Going into this experience of volunteering with Miriam’s Kitchen I was a little bit nervous and timid. Before this, I had never done any service that works directly with people experiencing homelessness and my preconceived notions going into Miriam’s Kitchen were most definitely informed by the stereotypes of homelessness that our society has turned into an ideology.

However, over the course of 10 weeks, those notions have been wiped away. What I have seen at Miriam’s Kitchen is an amazing community amongst everyone who comes. They support one another and have meaningful relationships with each other. Even more touching to me is how they have embraced me.

When I started, I feared that I was going to be perceived as a white privileged girl who was only coming each week to get brownie points for doing something good. This is not why I am spending two hours at Miriam’s Kitchen but I knew it was one way I could be seen as.

The other day I spent some time chatting with one guest, Amy who is currently working as a vendor for the newspaper, Street Sense that works to employ people who have experienced homelessness by publishing a newspaper with articles written by those who have experienced homelessness. Amy was making a very colorful sign that she is going to display when she is out selling papers. The sign advertises a new app Street Sense has developed that allows people passing by to send her a donation through the app instead of having to fumble for a few spare dollars, or just hustling by if you have no cash. I think this app is ingenious and I hope that it goes far.

I am one person who can offer a smile to the people I see selling Street Sense but because I don’t usually carry cash I have nothing more to offer. So now I can make a small donation to the vendors I see regularly while I am out.

Hearing stories like Amy and other guests of Miriam’s Kitchen have allowed me to see the experience of homelessness from the people’s perspective. Not the perspective of large rows of tents. I encourage you to try to see the experience of homelessness from the people’s perspective as well.

I know it isn’t easy, I still am intimidated sometimes when I pass by someone seeking a few spare dollars on the street. But when you find a way to get to know these people, with names, stories, likes, dislikes, hopes, fears, and dreams, you will become amazed. If you don’t think you can do this by stopping to chat with someone on the street, then try to make time to volunteer. Being able to get to know these individuals in a sort of organized, structured way, has been helpful to me.

The experience of homelessness is becoming invasive like ivy. But the people who are living this experience are not the invasive ones. They are the brick walls who become strangled by this uninvited ivy.