"A homeless crisis, and it's a scandal"

[bloodyjack]

http://www.startribune.com/stories/357/5137660.html

"One died on the railroad tracks on his 51st birthday, unable or unwilling to get out of the way of a coming train. Another was strangled, her body found beneath a bridge. A third, dying of cancer, spent the last weeks of his life in a rocking chair in a drop-in center so he would be close to his friends at the end.

"The one whose death I reported was the one a passerby saw sitting helplessly amid a roaring blaze, moaning as his homemade tent went up in flames, his arms stretched over his head.

"His name was Robin Sam.

(...)

"'We do a pretty good job of hiding our homeless citizens,' says Smith. 'The problem is, "Out of sight, out of mind." The public would be absolutely shocked if the shelters were to take all the kids and all the single parents and the unaccompanied youths and turn them out on the streets. Then these women and kids would be all over the place. I'm not in favor of doing that, of course. But it might give people a shot of reality.'"

AND THEN THE RESPONSE TO READERS' LETTERS (this is a very good read)

"Many people say Christians are under siege this Christmas from godless types who want to give us a black eye. I don't buy it for one simple reason: No one knows how to give us Christians a bigger black eye than the people who call themselves Christians.

"This week, a number of my fellow Christians took time from worship to criticize a column I wrote about the homeless. They didn't write to tell me about their concern for the 8,000 homeless in Minnesota or the fact that half of them are women and kids or that 100 of them died this year.

"No, they wrote to say that even though we will always have the poor with us, as Jesus said, that doesn't mean those poor buggers shouldn't get out of the way of our SUVs.

"'These homeless are bums, nothing but leeches on society,' wrote a guy who signed himself Trav. 'If we could push a button and make the homeless die and disappear without repercussions, nearly everybody would do it. I would. Good riddance.'"


EDIT: Okay, it looks as though you need a subscription to read the response to readers' letters. So I guess you can PM me if you want me to send you the article in its entirety.

[Cooley Hurd]

1. "If we could push a button and make the homeless die..."

*sigh*:grr:

[Skittles]

3. he said most people would do it

surely all republicans (oh - I forgot - "compassionate conservatives") - would. :puke:

[bloodyjack]

4. "WITHOUT REPERCUSSIONS"

kind of gives you an insight into what qualifies as a potential 'repercussion' in the minds of these people :(

[tom_paine]

17. The plans of ALL Nazis, not just the Bushevik Kinder and Gentler Variant

Don't kid yourselves. Once the Busheviks can remove the "repercussions" from our Law Enforcement (when attacking Enemies of the State only, NOT Party Members, of course!)

they will be coming for us. And if they can make us Free Americans die "without repercusiions" many will line up to do so, just as the did in the 60s throughout Bush Country.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. The fellow had it spot on

when he said the people who give Christians a black eye are those who call themselves Christians and then don't practice the teachings. I don't know of anyone homeless in my county, but then its a small county and there's always someone willing to take someone in. Sure, some homeless people are folks who choose that way of life, but most are poor schnucks who have fallen on hard times. Don't tell me that a little child has 'chosen' to be homeless. Don't tell me that a returning veteran, shell-shocked and disabled, is a 'bum'. The way a society is judged is not by its military might or its shining cities, but on how it treats the least of its citizens. And those SUV-SOBs may think they will always have it cozy, but do they know for sure? If this economy tanks, they may very well be the next ones out on the streets.

[carnie_sf]

13. One can only hope nt

[Telly Savalas]

22. Mental illness is a big factor too.

The push for deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the last few decades has exacerbated the problem.

Did the issue of homelessness get mentioned even once in the campaign this fall?

The fact that homelessness is such a problem in the U.S. is infuriatingly ridiculous. If these motherfuckers can squander billions dropping bombs on Iraqi children. then surely they can spare some cash to make sure every American has a roof over their head.

[sweetheart]

5. Architecture for homelessness

In a past life, i became homeless when a roommate situation broke
up in acrimony, in tandem with job problems. I recall, that all i
really needed was a place to bathe, leave my stuff and ideally have
a telephone and address drop.

It does strike me, that i could easily design, with the help of a
building architect a special kind of apartment building for the
homeless getting back on their feet. One that had microapartments
the size of a bathroom, and even ubermicroapartments the size of a
closet. One of the chief problems of being homeless, or living in
one's car, is not having bathing facilities, a telephone number to
get jobs with, and an address to get jobs with. Without these
things, getting un-homeless is profoundly difficult.

Were one able to rent an address, phone, bathroom, for minimum cash,
it would surely help people get off their feet, and be a profitable
establishment as well. Perhaps homeless shelters are supposed to be
this, but i don't really mean large communal facilities, or religious
charity. When i was in that situation, i wanted to be by my lonesome,
to get my life together, and not be stuck in a room with others... as
another thing one looses as a homeless, is private space, even 2
square meters of it.

Why is it, when they build low income housing schemes, that there is
no provision for such transitory housing?

[AngryOldDem]

19. Transitory Housing

While I can't speak in general, I know that in my city groups such as St. Vincent de Paul and Salvation Army buy properties that they then fix up and then give to clients on a year- or two-year basis. These clients are given everything they need to set up housekeeping, and are followed closely by case management to make sure they are making the transition smoothly.

These are modest houses, but quite sufficient to meet needs. You are right that homeless shelters, in addition to providing emergency shelter, are also places that can provide "a sense of place" for homeless people -- an address that they can use for job applications, mailings, phone numbers for messages, etc. But homeless shelters cannot and should not be forced to do a job that they are not equipped, either financially or physically, to do. But that is quickly becoming the case. Shelters are becoming "permanent housing" for far too many people, and the numbers grow yearly.

You are also exactly right that the only thing homeless people who are in the transtion from a shelter to more permanent housing need are just the basics. Namely, a safe roof over their heads.

The Bush administration has cut Section 8 housing funds drastically, which has hurt chances at affordable housing for many poor people. Also, many "projects" are being razed, with no alternatives immediately in the offing.

I sometimes deal with the working poor in my relatively affluent area who have to live in places that cost them almost their entire salaries in rent because they cannot find anything cheaper and the waiting list for subsidized housing is more than a year in my county. I was thinking about that today -- I know where some of these places are, and what they are charging in rent is criminal. But if the alternative is living in your car or on the street, what can you do but pray you don't have an unexpected financial emergency crop up?

The way we treat our homeless in this country is shameful. Perhaps that is by design, but we can and MUST do better.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. sad kick

[iconoclastic cat]

7. Bypass the subscription: Use BugMeNot.com!

http://www.bugmenot.com/

Use U/P: cypherpunk

[bloodyjack]

14. Ah, thank you.

[izzie]

8. I was shocked at how many of these people work daily

I just read an item on this and many are women with children that just do not make enough to rent a place.I think it said 30% but I do not recall where it was from. I pulled it up on Google.It was a study from some place and seemed to be correct for what they were doing.I used to see these people in Alaska and sort of got interested in it. Sleeping on the street in Alaska in the winter sort of made me interested in it all in a sort of second hand way. Their are always items in paper around here, in Maine, about it also.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

15. In my locality (Fairfax County, VA)

The majority of the homeless are employed in some form or another. However, here in one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S., the living wage is around $24/hour. For all those living on the margins, all it takes is one sick child, a workplace accident, or a broken transmission to start the chain of events that lead to homelessness. When I volunteered in a family shelter here (for which there is a year waiting list), the main reasons people were left homeless were chronic mental illness of some sort, domestic violence, or some catastrophic event (e.g., a rental house burns down, the breadwinner is injured doing day labor at a construction site and the employer won't pay, a father molests a child and because the home is in his name 6 children and the mother must move).


http://www.timescommunity.com/site/tab5.cfm?newsid=13467972&BRD=2553&PAG=461&dept_id=511691&rfi=6

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8017-2004Dec17.html

[xchrom]

9. the character of america on parade

different venue from our fav topic -- bush/iraq.
but the same thing -- brutal amerca dealing with it's most indefensible citizens.
and getting worse every year since reagan made it ok to come out as a whining, me-first society.

[acmavm]

10. People like this put my immortal soul (yes, this is what I believe) in

jeopardy because sitting here I realize that if I could push a button to make people like that smart ass punk disappear, I would.

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. With all the churches in this country

If every church took in one homeless person or family there would be no need for people to live of the streets.

I was on a task force that studied the homeless problem in my community a couple of years ago and when I presented this idea to the church folks, you had to see them hemming and hawing about how this was not the mission of their church and it simply wouldn't be possible. I just wanted to ask, then wtf is your mission?

[AngryOldDem]

20. That is sad, but rest assured

Many churches and faith-based organizations are stepping up.

And I would have had the same reponse as yours if churches told me that it is not their responsibility and mission to help the poor. Matthew 25 comes immediately to mind.

ON EDIT: Not only churches can get involved with this effort. Groups like county Democratic parties can get involved too. The Dems in my county for many years allowed their building to be used as an overflow shelter. But this year, it has become too "inconvenient" for the Dems to do this, so they ended their partnership with the shelter. Luckily, an alternative site was found. I am still ashamed and angry at the Dems backing out on this, for whatever reason.

The moral here? It's not always the churches that fall down on their stated commitments to social action and justice -- that is a sin committed by most everyone in some way, shape, or form.

[DoYouEverWonder]

21. In my community we have over 200 churches

Out of those 200+ churches only 21 have come forward to participate in this type of sheltering program. Maybe sheltering isn't an option for every church, but every church should have some sort of outreach program for homeless people. It seems that some of the biggest churches, especially of the B denomination, are the ones that do the least.

[KG]

12. let's face - america is becoming a mean and heartless place,

not even close to being the greatest country on the planet.

[MadHound]

18. America has always been a mean and heartless place friend,

The only thing that is changing now is that the thin flimsy veneer is slipping away.

After all, this is the country that had child labor, slavery, brutal labor conditions, jim crow, and on and on, ad nauseum. It is the nature of laisse faire capitalism, which we are drifting back into. It is only for the past sixty years that we've had some sort of social safety net. But even that has now been mostly ripped away, what with Clinton and his welfare "reform". Now Bush is busy dismantling what is left.

[Hobarticus]

16. Interesting point there, Trav...

I think most people here at DU would love to be able to push a button and make inhuman shitheels like YOU disappear.

God bless you, Trav, wherever you are...you need all the help you can get.