Years ago we had a woman from Lithuania living with us for approximately six months while she was learning the administrative procedures at an American University. At the time, I was the Dean of Student Administrative Services at a University in Utah. While staying with us, she was also trying to learn as much as she could about the American way of life. One Saturday, she went to Salt Lake City with a couple she had befriended. They were planning to do charity work by working in a serving line, serving soup to homeless people. While serving, she noticed that some of the homeless appeared to be healthy, capable men, and she wondered why they did not have a job. As one healthy and young-looking man came to her in the line, she asked him why he didn’t get a job and get off the street and live a normal life. He admitted to her that he liked his life; he slept in shelters at night and got food from soup lines, etc., and made fairly good money begging on street corners. When she returned home that night, she told us how she was very surprised to hear such a story from a perfectly healthy person. I recently read of a similar situation involving homeless people that raised some interesting questions. A certain church provides services to homeless people in their community. These services include free meals, second-hand clothes in their supply area from which clothing can be obtained at no charge, showers on Saturdays, and rides to the local employment office. The church recently got a new pastor. As part of familiarizing himself with his duties, the new pastor began observing the homeless men who come to his church for meals, clothes, and Saturday showers. Over time, he began to notice a pattern. The same men showed up for their free food, clothing, and showers. But these men never seemed to take advantage of the free rides to the local employment office provided by the church. Further, the pastor began to notice the same men standing at various heavily-trafficked street corners around town displaying signs containing such messages as “Homeless—Please Help.” He also noticed several of the men who frequented his church’s homeless center coming out of liquor stores at the end of the day carrying bottles wrapped in brown paper bags. Another interesting thing he noticed was that several of his church’s homeless regulars carried cell phones. Disturbed by what he was seeing, the pastor decided to talk with some of these homeless men. What he learned caused him to seriously question his church’s approach to providing assistance for the homeless. Many of the homeless men were open and straight-forward in explaining that the life they were leading was, for reasons of their own, the life they chose to live. In short, they weren’t trying to get off the streets. They were actually homeless by choice. This was why they refused the free rides offered by the church to the local employment office. Life for them consisted of working the street corners for what they called donations during the day, sleeping at the Waterfront Mission or Salvation Army facilities at night, and getting food and clothing from the pastor’s church. Add in a shower at the church once a week, and they were perfectly content. Several of the men who came to the church were living the life of the homeless as a way to maintain their anonymity. Put simply, they did not want to be part of the system, because anyone in the system can be found, and, for reasons of their own, they did not want to be found. Some were running from the law, some from wives to whom they owed alimony, and some from life in general. There are some people who are so introverted that they, too, become almost anonymous because of their backward and self conscious nature. They may be very fine people if someone could get to know them. They appear to have no friends, and if they are employed, they keep to themselves and only speak when it is necessary to maintain their job. They leave work and go directly home where they stay home until time for work in the morning. Why are there people who do not want to socialize with others? Perhaps they experienced unpleasant and sometimes deforming events in their past that have caused them not to trust their fellow humans. They have learned that people can be cruel and that it is safer and more comfortable to keep to themselves. These people become what many may refer to as anonymous.