Josh Henges, a director for TLC for Children and Families, spoke about homelessness at the March 23 PCA lecture in the Black Box Theatre during seminar.

Henges has been working with the homeless for 12 years.

The organization housed 25 youth in Johnson County last year and is planning to house 50 this year. Most funding they received this year goes toward housing.

“The common theme of homelessness is that their parents are terrible. One in a hundred homeless people I met had a functioning household,” Henges said.

In the lecture, Henges told the story of how he learned about homelessness and how he couldn’t grasp it when he was younger; it was unfathomable to him.

At 6, he would go to homeless people and talk to them.

When he was a freshman at the University of Missouri, he met a homeless man that was a part of a group called “the dirty seven,” which is what the “seven patriarchs” of homelessness in Columbia were called.

Henges wanted to sleep in their homeless den with them, but in order to do that he had to lick one of their faces. From then on he became obsessed with homeless people.

He also talked about the inadequacy of the services available to the homeless and addressed what high school students can do to help homeless people.

“There’s homeless youth in this school. You just have to be there for them and suspend your judgment. Understand and be there for them,” Henges said.

Henges also explained the psychology of homeless people and described the systems set up for them.

According to Henges, the system is set up to tell people no and that people shouldn’t serve a system that doesn’t work for them.

Erika Brogna, junior, went to the PCA lecture and liked the presenter. “He was good; I liked how he talked about the homeless,” Brogna said.

Brogna thought it was informative and said she would attend another PCA lecture like this one.