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# Jessie Bruce: Why Santa Monica should help the homeless with shelters and donations
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/no-one-notices-them-have-you-seen-people-on-the-streets-with-no-homes-or-food-when-some-people-have-a-lot-of-both-and-more/
- Published: 2008-05-27T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:05:36.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless

*By — Jessie Bruce*

Do you know how many adults in the United States have been homeless at some point in their lifetime? Well, 12 million adults have.

Twenty-two percent of the homeless are mentally ill in surveyed cities, and 30 percent are users of substance. A way to help is to have more homeless shelters for all different kinds of homeless people. For instance, there could be one for mentally ill, one for users of substance. Also, we should raise money for them by having a bake sale, lemonade stand, a yard sale … anything you want to do.

Look in your house for clothes you don’t wear and donate them to shelters. Homeless people don’t have homes, but they usually don’t have many clothes, toys, electronics, or food.

So be happy for what you have. Our country is too busy with the war in Iraq and we don’t notice this problem right in front of us.

Think about what I just told you. I hope everyone can help, because this is a real problem. What if you were homeless? You wouldn’t want to be, so get up and try to make a difference. Get more people to notice this problem, because we can’t do this alone.

Owen Leddy and Jessie Bruce are fifth-grade students at Wildwood School, an independent, private K-12 school in Los Angeles. The students are studying how to write editorials and submitted their work to the Santa Monica Daily Press for publication. They school at (310) 397-3134 ext. 4048.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 27, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/052708.pdf?ref=smdp.com)