The first step in overcoming a problem is the acknowledgement of the existence of the problem in the first place. Unless that problem provides a means for income and you are not held in its diseased grip.
The instant image of a bum fighting to live on the streets is matched with the need for a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. The stench of the booze is drenched in their clothes and most often, the whiskers adorning their faces. How they manage to source the bottle is anyone's guess, but day after day, they line the gutters clenching and dreaming of the life they want to leave in a blaze of high blood/alcohol ratio cindering the flesh and giving reason for the shabby clothes.
Seeing the need for their survival as a means for his own ends, a liquor merchant in Sydney's West has been spotted handing the homeless thick and heavy clothing and blankets for a brace against this harsh winter befalling the Australians. If the act falls short of humanitarian then it moves toward the entrepreneurial. So long as they survive, so shall his business.
Ask not where the money comes from, ask only if it stops.
Written on Wednesday, 9 July 2003