“You want to be sure of getting a spot, you need to be here by four thirty,” the man said. He looked at Clark and said “If you can’t be bothered to work, you might as well try to be on time.”
The look the man gave him made Clark want to cringe. It said that Clark looked perfectly healthy and able to work, so why was he trying to take the spot of people who needed it? Of course, that might have been Clark’s own sense of shame.
Before Clark could argue, the door was shut in his face.
Very accurate portrayal of how the homeless are often perceived and treated. "Why don't you just get a job? You're just being lazy/taking advantage/not really in need." Never mind that a person might be too young to legally do most jobs, might be unable to find a job due to having no address, might have something in their past that makes an employer unwilling to give them a chance, or that there just might not be any jobs available (like when unemployment overall is high, or in regions where it's exceptionally high even in the best of times).
