‘Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” (BCP 305) These words from the Baptismal Covenant permit no conditions or exclusions. It was a long time ago, but my several years of working with street people, all men, taught me two things. First, they wanted and needed to be recognized as worthy of respect as brothers of equal status before God, no matter what else might separate us. Second, nothing could improve their lives until they had the sustainable basics of food, clothing and shelter.
Homelessness is a problem in urban areas of most any size. The presence of homeless persons in our otherwise dignified downtowns can ruin it for everyone else. They gather in unsightly, unsanitary camps, sleep in doorways, wander in parks, panhandle, smell bad, and relieve themselves in public places. Nobody wants them around. The problem provokes predictable outcries. “I don’t care where they go, I just don’t want them here.” “If they don’t want to sleep on the street they should get a job.” “Those panhandlers make plenty of money.” “They’re nothing but a bunch of lazy drug addicts.” The myth of American self reliance says that all you need to make it is the willingness to do a little hard work. If that’s true, the homeless have demonstrated they’re unwilling – they are morally deficient, the authors of their own problems, and deserve little sympathy. It’s often said that a plurality of hard working Americans are within a paycheck or two of losing it all. For them, the homeless people around them are the worst nightmare of what could happen to anyone, regardless of how hard they work.
The result is a sense of public disgust that strips the homeless of their humanity, and labels them unworthy of dignity or respect. The ardent wish that they just go away is merely a nice way of favoring extermination. It’s not far from former practices of lobotomies and forced sterilization to prevent the least and poorest from reproducing. Of course no one today suggests such a horrible thing, but still the cry goes up: Can’t someone get them out of our sight? So we bulldoze camps, prohibit loitering, close public restrooms, limit access to libraries, and figure out other ways to make being homeless more difficult than it already is.
I don’t have a solution. But I know this. Every human being needs to sleep somewhere, and where they are is where they are going to sleep. Every human being needs to eat, and hunger will drive one to any means at hand. Every human being needs to urinate and defecate, where they are is where it will happen. Every human being needs to bathe and wash clothes if they are to have any chance at being acceptable in public or to employers. If there is no place for that, they will be dirty and smelly.
The causes of homelessness are complex, interrelated, and difficult to address. Before any grand scheme can make progress, the basics of life must be attended. By whom? The tax paying community. Providing the basics of life for the homeless creates a public good that benefits the entire community. The community’s generous investment will create a generous return for everyone’s quality of life, and accrue to the economic well being of individuals. It can’t be just a local community here and there, it has to be wide spread across the country, not because they’re forced to, but because it’s the right (and profitable) thing to do.
It should be a proverbial no-brainer, but it isn’t. The opposition is well stocked with ammunition about the higher priority of other needs directly benefiting hard working tax payers – priorities for which the public is already unwilling to pay. A popular down home comedian made a joke of it, claiming the homeless (bums) got themselves into it, they can get themselves out of it, and his audience cheered.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t so long ago that most communities, however unjust they were in other ways, had a crude understanding of how important it was to meet the basic needs of the most poor among them. County orphanages, poor farms and workhouses existed in most places, often with taxpayer reluctance, and seldom offering more than the bare necessities, along with the Scarlet P of poverty assigned to the residents. Nevertheless, the community understood the need to provide for those of their own who would otherwise be homeless. Places like that began to disappear with the advent of Social Security in 1935, but in the community of my youth two survived until about 1950.
Times have changed. We have an array of welfare and social service programs intended to keep those most in need out of homelessness. Where the systems work, they work well, but homelessness is a serious problem just the same. How it gets addressed is a mystery, at least to me.
Whatever the solutions are, they have to start with recognition of our collective obligation to respect the dignity of every human being, no matter what their condition in life. Homeless persons cannot be denied their dignity as beloved of God and worthy of being treated accordingly. The tax paying community as a whole, not just its voluntary charitable agencies, must boldly make this investment in the future of the community. Because it’s an investment, it needs to be made with generosity of spirit and intent. Funded in good measure, the stability provided will enable many to regain the footing needed to return as “productive members of society.” That kind of investment doesn’t paint anyone with a Scarlet P. Instead, it makes a clear statement that the community has your back, believes you can make it, and intends to lend a hand to help you recover.
Will there be competing demands for public investment? Of course, but it’s not a question of either/or. It’s an issue of both/and.
Will some be homeless anyway? Yes. There are persons whose lives are so disordered that they’re unable to abide by any rules, not even their own. There are some whose condition in life has deprived them of economic and social usefulness to the community. That’s no excuse for punishing the few by denying help to the many.
I’ll end with a prayer based on Psalm 72: Make government an agency of your justice, O God, and give your righteousness to all in authority. May they judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. May the land yield prosperity for the people, and may the government defend the cause of the poor, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.