An indiscriminate use of the term "homeless" is in this headline from Evansville: Homeless couple arrested after knife fight:
After being treated at the Deaconess Emergency Room, Robin Wheeler, 29, and Wesley Altice, 22, were arrested. They told deputies that they came to Evansville from Chattanooga, Tenn., on a freight train and that they go from town-to-town "flying a sign" (panhandling) for a few days and then leaving. They said they had drunk beer and wine at their tent in the woods behind Walmart when they started to argue.
They aren't "homeless." They're drunken bums.
And I know you won't really know it's the Christmas season until you read a story about the homeless in which we are lectured that Joseph and Mary were homeless when they went to Bethlehem. Here you are, then, from the Star-Ledger of New Jersey:
Two people dressed up as the biblical figures along with clergy members and housing advocates staged a protest on the Statehouse steps, calling for more affordable housing and help for the homeless. They were rebuffed, however, at the transition office of Gov.-elect Chris Christie.
"The same thing that was happening to Mary and Joseph over 2,000 years ago is happening to many families in New Jersey today," said Adam Gordon, a staff attorney from the Fair Share Housing Center.
"They're looking for a place to live, they're looking for a room at the inn and they're being turned away. And you have towns like the town of Bethlehem in New Jersey that are doing things to stop people like Mary and Joseph from coming to live there," he said.
Merry Christmas!
