Our Homeless Brothers and Sisters

Why don’t they get a job at McDonald’s?

If only it were that simple. In discussing homelessness with a variety of people, I have repeatedly heard this question asked. As a child, I may have pondered this very question myself. The clear implication of the question is that homelessness is a choice—the homeless either willingly choose to live in squalor or are just too lazy to work.

For some, this assumption is based on myths, misinformation, and a genuine lack of understanding regarding the plight of our nation’s homeless. For others, it is a moral defense for indifference. If the homeless do not work, they do not merit housing and life’s other basic necessities.

Radical individualists who reject the notion that each person has intrinsic dignity and worth, instead preferring some form of social Darwinism, are likely to sympathize with such arguments. If pride, egotism, and selfishness are glorified, and community, solidarity, and agape are scorned, homelessness is only a problem so far as it is a nuisance or eye sore.

Unfortunately, these radical individualist views are shared by a substantial portion of the American population, including far too many members of our nation’s religious communities. From limousine liberals to tax-hating teabaggers, many Americans are obsessed with their individual rights and indifferent to the duties that are needed to create and protect human freedom. Often, the weakest, most vulnerable, neediest members of our society pay the steepest costs of our dereliction of duty.

Homelessness is a complex phenomenon with a variety of causes. On the large scale, only a progressive approach to government based on investment in the American people can minimize long-term homelessness.

Economic policies that focus exclusively on maximizing growth lead to boom and bust cycles, which inevitably ruin the lives of millions of people and leave those in or close to poverty vulnerable to homelessness. Instead of these senseless economic policies, the focus should be on generating consistent growth, properly regulating the market, ensuring living wages, reducing poverty, and increasing opportunity for all members of our society, particularly by improving education. Homelessness may never be eliminated, but through good government it can be reduced.

Even with a more thoughtful, just approach to government, however, the problem of chronic homelessness will have to be addressed. As of right now, the chronically homeless make up roughly ten percent of the homeless population but use over half of all the resources spent on helping the homeless.

This is the primary reason why we have so many people sleeping on the streets in America. If chronic homelessness is addressed, thanks to the generosity of the American people, charities will have the resources and ability to ensure that all people seeking shelter receive it.

When we think of the homeless, we usually think about the chronically homeless, rather than the family that is living paycheck to paycheck that is thrust into homelessness because a parent has become sick or lost their job. By developing strategies and programs that address chronic homelessness, our charities will be freed up to provide assistance and shelter to families and individuals who normally make ends meet but have fallen on hard times.

The chronically homeless are typically not people who enjoy living under freeway overpasses and sleeping in the freezing cold. Often, they are people who cannot take care of themselves and need assistance. Many suffer from mental illnesses or have substance abuse problems.

Some need to be institutionalized, while the majority simply cannot pick themselves up without a helping hand. Providing this assistance, rather than handing out cash should be the solution. These individuals need access to healthcare and medicine, treatment and shelter. They don’t need handouts; they need help.

Without treatment, mental illness can destroy people’s lives, leaving them in a constant state of depression, fear, or confusion. With untreated ailments, they are simply unable to ensure that their basic needs are met. Frequently, they turn to self-medication through drugs or alcohol, joining the other large group among the chronically homeless-- substance abusers.

Anyone who has been around an addict comprehends the debilitating nature of drug addiction and alcoholism. Some will argue that these individuals have brought their suffering upon themselves by making that initial decision to take drugs or drink alcohol, before chemical addiction took hold. Of course, the majority of people who make such claims drink alcohol and a large number have used recreational drugs at some point in their lives. If this is basis for their inaction, it is blatantly hypocritical.

Yet even teetotalers who have never used drugs are in no better position to ignore the plight of homeless substance abusers. Mistakes do not strip the person of their dignity; they do not erase the duties that each member of a community has to one another. If justice flows from charity, indifference and callousness cannot drive public policy and individual action. Room must be made for forgiveness and redemption.

Human worth is not based on one’s knowledge, skills, wealth, or independence, but is universal and intrinsic. Let us remember that, and let us work toward giving each of our fellow citizens, including the ill, addicted, and luckless, the help they need to reach their potential and to live as full members of our community, rather than as dehumanized outsiders struggling to survive in inhumane conditions.