Mahatma Gandhi said, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” According to his observation, the United States of America measures up very poorly.
Who are the most vulnerable members of U.S. society? The people who have hit rock bottom – the homeless. A lot of you have seen clusters of tents and makeshift shelters where the homeless have set up encampments, often under bridges or overpasses. Many of them live out of their vehicles. Some have children, or pets, or both. Not all of them are junkies or winos, contrary to the beliefs of many people. Some just plain made bad decisions, such as investing too much in a doomed enterprise, or marrying the wrong person. Some had a run of rotten luck, some were bankrupted by mounting bills, some lost their homes to disaster, some foolishly frittered away their money, some got swindled out of their hard-earned savings. The homeless come in as many human flavors as those of us who have residences. People have on occasion gone from multi-millionaires to undomiciled vagrants, and not because they were stupid or got addicted to drugs or booze or gambling.
A long-time friend of mine wound up homeless even though he was intelligent and hard-working; fortunately, at the time I lived in a townhouse that had an extra bedroom and was able to provide him with a roof over his head for the last 2 1/2 years of his life. He was one of the lucky ones who had friends willing to look after him. Not everybody has such a safety net in case of a nosedive. Not everyone has friends or family who can provide a place to stay in case the worst happens.
The way this country treats the homeless is in many cases execrable. People steal what few possessions they have, slash their tents, offer them food and then toss it into a trash can. Homeless people are regularly persecuted, rounded up like criminals when they have done nothing wrong and harmed neither people nor property. Many cities have laws against vagrancy, which specifically target the defenseless. Spikes and rocks are placed where the homeless like to sleep, and park benches have armrests in the middle to prevent anybody from stretching out. Some ordinances allow people to keep only what possessions they can fit in a container the size of a large trash can. Some cities will give homeless people bus tickets to another city, along with a direct order to never return on pain of arrest.
Some cities have laws making it illegal to provide the homeless with food, clothes, or other necessities. Good Samaritans still defiantly set up soup kitchens, or roam neighborhoods to pass out socks and hygiene items. Never has the old saw that no good deed goes unpunished been more sadly true.
Churches should be places where the homeless can go for a decent meal and a safe place to sleep. Instead, many of them not only lock their doors, but also set up spikes and automatic water sprayers to deter rough sleeping on their property. Funny, I thought Jesus said that we should care of the unfortunate instead of treating them like vermin.
Whatever happened to compassion for those in need? Whatever happened to loving thy neighbor as thyself? Whatever happened to concern for one’s fellow human beings? How can we be so ice-cold that we have no problem tormenting and persecuting our society’s most vulnerable members?
Shelters are only a partial solution, as many offer only temporary housing and have strict rules about when people must be out and when they can return. People who have jobs may not be able to get back to a shelter until late in the day, when all the beds are taken. Even in shelters they run the risk of theft, harassment and assault.
Gentrification is one factor in homelessness. When affordable housing is torn down to make way for houses that cost $300,000 a pop or more, lower-income people have fewer options. Far too many have joined the ranks of the “perma-rents,” unable to get a mortgage and thus forced to rent apartments or even rooms in a house for their entire lives – even if the monthly mortgage payment is less than what they are shelling out for rent. Without the ability to purchase solid real estate, they cannot provide a solid home or possible cash source for future generations. Meanwhile, companies that own houses and condominiums laugh and oink all the way to the bank.
This is why we need more inexpensive housing – as well as better wages, affordable healthcare, and affordable (if not free) higher education. Far too many people are living paycheck to paycheck, and not because they are spendthrifts but because they make barely enough to squeak by. Millions are literally one broken arm or one speeding ticket from the streets. Nobody should have to live like that. Especially when the 1% are getting fatter and fatter at the expense of the working class, on which they depend, and the planet.
Those who mock the homeless, who automatically assume that anybody without a permanent home is an addict of one sort or another, have no clue about the true lot of those experiencing homelessness. They need to learn what it is truly like, because the mockers could, under the right circumstances, join the mocked.
