I have a friend I'll call Jessie. I met her at a day program for homeless women.

I have never seen Jessie without a smile, and  I have never heard her speak an unkind word. To anyone.

Jessie  has only one leg. She's an amputee. She gets around in a rickety old wheel chair - the kind without a motor, whose wheels you  propel with your arms.

Jessie never lets me help her with her day program chores. She insists upon wrestling with the trash, mopping the floor, and washing the dishes on her own. 

 Jessie lost her leg to a huge festering abscess. Her infected leg threatened to take her life, so Jessie let the county hospital take her leg instead.

The abscess was caused when Jessie ran out of injectable veins, and began injecting heroin directly into her fat and muscle tissue. 

Jessie sleeps under a bridge at night. She urinates and defecates in bushes.

Jessie has been wearing the same pair of pants since I met her.

Jessie has been addicted to heroin for over twenty years. She will probably  use heroin on a daily basis for the rest of her life.

And I think she deserves a warm bed to sleep in.

Every shelter she's sought help from disagrees. They don't provide beds for drug addicts.

Jessie is a precious and valuable human being, even if she never takes a  drug-free piss.

I know, I know. We don't have enough homeless shelters for people who aren't drug addicts. Why should we provide shelter to people who can't or won't stop shooting up, taking pills,  or drinking?

One reason: because they desperately need it.

People like Jessie are not worthless. I know from experience that they can provide a warm hug, a funny joke, and a sweet story when you most need one. I know that they are often doing so much better and so much more than they appear to be.

I know  it is often far too painful and destructive for family members to let their drug-addicted children or siblings live with them. A shelter for homeless drug addicts would be a form of shelter for their families, too. It would relieve them of the crippling burdens of guilt and fear.

Let's stop thinking in terms of the "deserving" and the "undeserving" homeless.

None of us has the authority to make that kind of judgement.

It may be unobtainable, but let's at least make it a goal to provide safe, dignified shelter for all human beings - whether they are active in their addictions or not.

I know my friend Jessie would thank you for it. I'll bet she'd even take out your trash.