Homeless - in the words of author Cos Natola. i i i i A number of years ago, I found myself watching a PBS documentary on homelessness in America, and although I do not remember specifically the name of the program, I can never forget the major impression it left on me. The point that hit me the hardest was the one indicating how people who suddenly find themselves without a home are not always down-and-out individuals who seemingly have this kind of living situation "e;coming to them"e;. Often, homeless people are individuals who totally defy the stereotypes typically associated with this undesirable lifestyle. When one thinks of the kind of people that end up living on the streets, we often jump to deemthem drug addicts, or sex trade workers, or people with untreated mental illnesses. Yes, some do fit these descriptions, but many others don't. As the documentary intrigued me more and more, it pushed me to do some further research on this epidemic, and from the many articles I discovered, I read about people who seemed to have it all at one point in their lives, and then, almost freakishly, they literally crashed and burned; succumbing to one terrible twist after another, until finally, they ended up with absolutely nothing, and living out on the streets. My story, HOMELESS, is a portrayal of nine desperate characters who were living together on an empty city lot. Each character had a story to tell, and not a single one of them fit the stereotypical pattern often associated with homeless people. When a pair of radio talk show hosts stumble upon the abandoned city lot that serves as a home to this group of luckless individuals, we discover that there are so many people in today's America who are homeless, that if we plopped them all down in one spot, it would easily form one of the largest cities on the North American continent! This is simply staggering!i I love this story very much. It stirs my emotions each and every time I read a passage from it. Sure, it is my work, and obviously, I feel a certain dedication, or perhaps, even a certain bias to it; but WHY does this tale hit me so hard? Because I feel for the many good, innocent, and lonely people, who because of the constant adversity their lives are plagued with, find themselves in this almost unimaginable state of existence. I hope this story moves my readers as much as it moves me. Cos Natola

Homeless - in the words of author Cos Natola. i i i i A number of years ago, I found myself watching a PBS documentary on homelessness in America, and although I do not remember specifically the name of the program, I can never forget the major impression it left on me. The point that hit me the hardest was the one indicating how people who suddenly find themselves without a home are not always down-and-out individuals who seemingly have this kind of living situation "e;coming to them"e;. Often, homeless people are individuals who totally defy the stereotypes typically associated with this undesirable lifestyle. When one thinks of the kind of people that end up living on the streets, we often jump to deemthem drug addicts, or sex trade workers, or people with untreated mental illnesses. Yes, some do fit these descriptions, but many others don't. As the documentary intrigued me more and more, it pushed me to do some further research on this epidemic, and from the many articles I discovered, I read about people who seemed to have it all at one point in their lives, and then, almost freakishly, they literally crashed and burned; succumbing to one terrible twist after another, until finally, they ended up with absolutely nothing, and living out on the streets. My story, HOMELESS, is a portrayal of nine desperate characters who were living together on an empty city lot. Each character had a story to tell, and not a single one of them fit the stereotypical pattern often associated with homeless people. When a pair of radio talk show hosts stumble upon the abandoned city lot that serves as a home to this group of luckless individuals, we discover that there are so many people in today's America who are homeless, that if we plopped them all down in one spot, it would easily form one of the largest cities on the North American continent! This is simply staggering!i I love this story very much. It stirs my emotions each and every time I read a passage from it. Sure, it is my work, and obviously, I feel a certain dedication, or perhaps, even a certain bias to it; but WHY does this tale hit me so hard? Because I feel for the many good, innocent, and lonely people, who because of the constant adversity their lives are plagued with, find themselves in this almost unimaginable state of existence. I hope this story moves my readers as much as it moves me. Cos Natola