Credit: Flickr / Garry Knight

While it is estimated over 100 million people worldwide are homeless and as many as 1 billion people lacked adequate housing, the city of Houston, Texas has impressively reduced its rate of street-bound citizens by 50% in only four years, with homeless advocates pushing to bring the number to zero.

“We have truly gone from managing homelessness to ending homelessness,” said Marilyn Brown, CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County in a statement. “We are just getting our second wind.”

As reported by Essence, the city of Houston has taken grand steps to alleviate the condition, including a plan in 2012 that added more than 250 new available housing units. More than 1,000 additional units are planned, and the number of homeless shelters has also increased. The efforts have delivered housing to more than 3,600 homeless veterans.

By Alan Adaschik
Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Government is government and business is business, and the two are very different from each other. A business exists solely to earn profits for its owners. On the other hand, a prime function of government is to keep the playing field level between citizens so that no one person or groups of people can take unfair advantage of others.

This being the case, it should be clear that the goals of government and corporations are at cross-purposes with each other. A business earns profits by exploiting its environment and seeking advantage in the market place. In contrast, governments exist to ensure that a business does not wrongfully exploit the environment, take unfair advantage of their competitors or customers, and operates in a manner that is beneficial and positive for all concerned.

God said:

In the world to come, in the world just around the corner, no one will feel like an orphan. Everyone will be loved, and every baby, child, and grown-up will know they are loved and cared for. Hearts will supersede rules and regulations. Love will run through the Universe like the Shining Rays of the Sun.

Everyone who is born to Earth is meant to give love, love in abundance, and love abiding and to receive the same. There is nothing new about this. If you don’t see and feel it, where is this love hiding then?

Everyone on Earth knows what it feels to be an orphan. No matter how old you are, you miss your mother and father. You may not have known all that they meant to you when they were alive on Earth. So is it on Earth that many don’t know what they have when they have it and later find despair on their hands.

You cannot bring your parents back to Earth. And I have told you strongly not to carry regret or guilt or anything that puts you or another down. Unending are the mistakes you see on Earth. Commiserate with yourself no longer. Repenting doesn’t mean to keep on bruising yourself. Repenting means to be done with the past. The good news is: There is a way to transcend all the past that you rue.

You can offer your heart and your understanding in love to all you meet. You can respect and enjoy all the older people who are still on Earth. You can respect and enjoy all the children who are bouncing on Earth and all the teen-agers who are also yourself. You can let go of disapproval.

“Every part of your body has its own consciousness or its own soul.”  These transformative words, spoken by indigenous medicine women, began my journey within to discover the extraordinary healing capacity of the human body.

When this perspective was introduced to me, I was suffering from a severe chronic pain disorder.  I suddenly imagined incorporating this concept into my meditation routine.  I thought, Can my body hear me…can I talk to it to gain its cooperation in healing this condition?