The New York Times carries this story about Ryan Hoffman, a former University of North Carolina lineman who is now living on the streets in Florida.
The story makes much of the fact that football may have injured Hoffman, and set him on the road to homelessness, and that’s a damn shame.
But I took away something else: I took away that every person living on the streets was put on that road by forces greater than they. They got injured — a TBI, perhaps. They got addicted. They lost their job, their home, their hold on mental health. Every last one of them has a back story and if we could hear more about that, we might move quicker to get them the housing and services they need to rejoin society.
Dating Jesus 
I hate to hear myself being so cynical, but I truly believe that a certain segment of our society — and they would object to my use if the word “society” — has shed whatever semblance of empathy they may have been born with. Some if them were not born with empathy gene to begin with. And it takes empathy to be able to see someone who is homeless and believe in your heart, “there but for the grace of God (or luck, or providence, or whatever) go I.”
For example. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6811808