It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

We can’t fix everything. But we can choose the kind of world we’re building.

Photo by Jose Thormann on Unsplash.

I live in Austin — a crown jewel of the South.

A city known for its eclectic culture, live music heartbeat, and a steady current of creativity flowing through its streets. It’s a place where cowboy boots meet code, where murals of Willie Nelson and Mexican saints share wall space with the logos of startups.

It’s an odd place — a crossroad of the capital of Texas and a tech hub rubbing shoulders with Silicon Valley. We host international festivals, influence national politics, and hum with the energy of wealth constantly changing hands. But beneath the glamour of rooftop bars and billion-dollar IPOs lies something else. Something we see every single day.

At nearly every intersection in town, a person without a home stands beneath the sun or in the shadow of skyscrapers, holding a cardboard sign and hoping — just hoping — that someone will make eye contact, roll down a window, offer something that feels like humanity.

It’s common, heartbreakingly so, to pull up to a red light and see not one, but four individuals — each claiming a corner, facing a different direction — asking for a gesture of help from the cars whizzing past.