A few weeks ago I was getting some feedback from my supervisor on a proposal I had written. There was a line that said something like, "This project is designed to benefit the homeless."

She made it clear to me that people aren't homeless. People experience homelessness. For some this experience may last one night, one month or a year. For others it will last their whole lifetime.

This begins to hint at the complexity of this issue. How do you categorize such a diverse group? What if you had to categorize people who live in apartments? I can't think of any traits these people might have in common.

However, we do try to simplify this issue be resorting to the stereotypes. The bums we see in movies. The crazy alcoholics asking for change in the subway. These characters speak loudly and choose to be more visible, but they do not begin to represent the entire group.

It is precisely this sort of stereotyping that can to lead to poor understanding of the problem. This in turn causes ignorant decisions to be made that will negatively affect these people.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could change this?