Terry Ziter describes her experience volunteering at the Brattleboro Overflow Shelter [“A night at the Overflow Shelter,” Voices, Nov. 16]. As she rousts herself from her comfortable bed before her a.m. shift, she muses, “I was never good at night with sick children or nighttime feedings. Why would I choose to do this now?”
After reading Ziter's commentary several times, I have not been able to find her answer.
Given the mainstream discussion sparked by the Occupy Wall Street movement of the incredible disparity of resources between a wealthy few and everyone else the world over (symptoms include increased unemployment, underemployment, and debt for folks in the U.S.), it strikes me as bizarre to see such a monolithic - and inaccurate - portrait of who is homeless in our community.
To read Ziter's article, you might think that all homeless folks are smelly, mentally ill, disgusting addicts with no social connections or meaning in their lives.