Homeless people are human beings.
As such, they must find restroom facilities. They must satisfy their hunger. They must identify places where they can sit
and rest periodically. And, just like
me, they need at least a modest amount of capital to survive, even if hand to
mouth.
Most of my friends, who experience life today without a
place to call home, face tough odds when it comes to landing a job. Earning money is a huge challenge when your
home base is an emergency, night shelter or worse, the hard, mean streets. The countless day-to-day details and
challenges of poverty this deep exhaust my capacity to comprehend.
Like all human beings homeless people make mistakes. By comparison, the mistakes I make seem to be
much more forgiving than the missteps of a person so poor that they have no
place to call home. The social safety net
beneath my feet is so strong and woven so tightly that my missteps don’t affect
me for very long. Such is not the case
with my very poor friends who need a place to live.
Recently, during a Dallas City Council Quality of Life
Committee meeting, we heard harsh words about some of our weakest neighbors
from more than one elected official.
Frustration over “panhandlers” escalated to the extreme counsel that the
city needed to get tough on people who beg for money on our streets. “Break their backs break their spirit —
that’s the only way we’re going to win this battle,” one city council member
demanded of police. Referencing the negative impact the presence of beggars had
on business interests in his district and extremely frustrated, this otherwise,
sensible, measured member of city leadership erupted in anger.
Homelessness frustrates everyone who knows anything about,
including and most especially those who live in its terrible grip.
I would suggest that the person I meet on the street who
begs for pocket change or a meal already has had his/her spirit broken at least
to some extent. I also know that the
remedy to the frustrating reality of people begging on our streets will not be
found by throwing folks in jail.
So, what can we do?
First, we need aggressive, stepped up outreach to
chronically homeless persons who live on our streets. The goal would be to assess vulnerability and
to secure every available benefit for this segment of our community, including
disability income, health care, SNAP (food stamps), shelter and ultimately
permanent supportive housing. This will
require political will, an increase in public funding, and additional case
workers from the public and non-profit sectors who willingly work together to
deliver relief and hope. The return on such
investment for everyone would be substantial.
Second, we must realize that our jails can no longer be
allowed to serve as the public mental health system for the poorest people among
us. Adequate funding for our mental health system would dramatically improve
the “quality of life” all of us experience on our streets. We’re paying today for three decades of
under-investment in these vital services.
Third, we must develop hundreds of additional units of
permanent supportive housing for those who live in shelters and/or on the
streets of our city. No matter how
effectively we may intervene in the lives of people so poor that they are
forced to beg on our streets, without real housing we will not achieve the
outcomes we all desire.
Homelessness frustrates everyone who knows anything about
it. Business owners and merchants, law
enforcement personnel, homeowners in crossroads neighborhoods, drivers stopped
at traffic lights at busy, urban intersections, couples out for an evening
downtown—all share concern and some aggravation at the presence of homeless
persons who beg for assistance. However,
none are more frustrated than those who know homelessness as a personal,
defining experience and reality.
Rather than breaking human backs and human spirits, the
better approach would involve us in straightening and strengthening backs and
restoring spirits as a community distinguished by its radical care for all of
its members.
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