Hello and greetings to all, my name is SJ and I have recently been inducted to the Risen People team by the two current admins to share posts I feel are of relevance to the masses today and that will help each of us develop a better understanding of the world we live through the means of either politics, economics, science, philosophy and arts. I am thoroughly grateful for the opportunity and must say my appreciation of the two current admins, Olympus and Gerard D who are working tirelessly on publishing new content for our viewers and readers to gain access to. I also must thank the viewers and readers as they are a fundamental component of the movement – together as a community we can awaken and build a better world as one! 
This is article is going to be around an issue I feel is one of importance to myself and anyone else wanting to build a freer and just society – homelessness. As a child I always wondered how to change the world for the better and help others. The older I became I noticed in order to change all the problems in the world you must be capable of changing yourself and your attitudes. By starting 
there you can develop more holistic perspectives of the world and challenge existing dogmas. After that, before you fix global issues and claim to be a humanitarian, you must be able to resolve the problems on your doorstep i.e those that occur in your own respective cities and countries. Homelessness is a societal problem that renders individuals in society disabled from participating in usual societal norms and is an injustice in the modern day with such great and vast improvements in technology. The aeroplane may bring us closer together but the division in our hearts grows further if we don’t address the problems.
I felt trying to tackle this problem was definitely a start to fighting for just causes in this world. I have recently begun to start taking part in more events organised by local charities in Belfast to try and give my support and help wherever it is needed. Although, from attending these charities I always noticed the turnouts, in relative proportion to society as a whole and people I would’ve thought wanted to eradicate the problem, was quite small. There seems to be a mist around the issue – somewhat of an uncertainty with animosity from members of society towards homeless people and the view that they either deserve to be homeless, should start working in order to stop being homeless or that they are just dead weight on society who don’t want to contribute. These views are quite blatantly wrong and outrageous, usually coming from an uneducated perspective on the issue. 
Homelessness has many causes – some you will hear for yourself as I release the documentary – such as family break ups, job losses and such. These changes mixed in with current economic turmoil lead to individuals losing their homes and then facing a downward spiral from there as they try migrate from hostel to hostel, paying the expensive fees, running into addiction problems after becoming homeless (contrary to people believing that they are addicts BEFORE being homeless) and so on. My idea is create a short 20-30 minute documentary interviewing some of these very people on the streets to hear their actual stories, their views on modern day society and what barriers they have to face in their lives on the streets and what measures any authorities are taking to better, or sometimes unintentionally worsen, their lives. I am also going to get interviews with some of the homeless charities in Belfast to gain insight into the work they do with homeless people and the models they use and some local politicians to share their parties insights on the issue. 
Overall I am hoping the documentary will provide a case study example, using Belfast, to provide a clearer and more coherent picture of the events leading to homelessness and the honest difficulties faced by the homeless on a daily basis. I hope to give you, the viewer, a better understanding of the issue and clear the mist of social stigma that our modern societies have created. I want to do this as I feel no one deserves to be homeless – people make bad choices but should deserve a second a chance in life. It is not right to brand individuals and portray them as incapable of change. This is not fair but it is occurring in the modern day however we, together as a ever-growing community, can change this but we must unite our efforts as a society – both local and global – and create awareness campaigns but then more importantly, take the fight to the streets. Campaign outside government buildings, write letters to local officials, create petitions and organise rallies. One by one we can remove our social problems and create a free and more just world.
SJ
The Risen People 