O P I N I O N
THE SOAPBOX
Stand up. Speak up. It’s your turn.
[Submitted in response to the Nov. 15 Soapbox post: Our leaders need to step up and take care of this mess…]
I could write a thesis (and I just might) on the causes and variables which impact homelessness. However, at this time, I am compelled by conscience to offer an opposing viewpoint so that someone doesn’t take a proverbial flamethrower to people in our community who aren’t doing well.
There are the weak, the weary, the beset, the impaired, and the just plain poor, all struggling to even hope; there is very rarely the one who can but won’t. Most often there are reasons for homelessness, variables and factors which are personal, interpersonal, and systemic. Who chooses homelessness? Who would choose that as a way of life? Let us be reasonable.
When life’s outlook appears beyond hopeless people’s conduct often changes. There are private not-for-profit organizations in place which are either actively working to address homelessness or are preparing to. We are grateful to them as a community, to be sure, for their effective work.
We could also benefit from additional innovative solutions. There have been a number of them already. Here’s is one idea which I can come up with but cannot facilitate: A jobs mobile. There would need to be an area employer or two, likely in regard to a production environment, who would be willing to hire any applicant on the spot. Anyone, in any condition would be hired and employed, provided that they were sober while at work and that there was enough mental functioning to be able to do the work. Basic, simple, low-skilled work that brings a paycheck.
On a daily basis the jobs van would go around and offer people a job. Some would accept it. Others would not for various reasons. Most likely that reason would not be simple laziness. This would have a positive effect, if implemented, to the extent of which it was done well.
We also need mental health services without the stigma. It may need to be called something else. Mentoring, community advisors, whatever. Let’s get rid of the label. Imagine having no family, or family worse than no family. No one to talk to. Think of that, I mean really think of that.
Things are happening. Lives are changing, but then new lives end up in homelessness, so it seems to some as if nothing changes. If you want to win on homelessness you would need systems that are efficient, prompt in meeting need, with adequate infrastructure and support for total follow-through, which did not relax their readiness when the problem appeared to be solved. What I mean is that the number of homeless people in the city would be 5 at the start of the week and 0 at the end of the week, every week. Improvements from that point forward would be related to homelessness prevention.
What I mean is the community value in regard to homelessness is that homelessness is simply not tolerated. Not as some see it, as if the homeless were as potholes to be filled in or graffiti to be turpentined. Rather that human beings act as a result of an ethical and moral imperative to help downed people, to assist people in such a condition and state of affairs reach stability and sustainability, an imperative which we as a community are responsible for.
One final note: As a nation we are not going back to the 1920s to 1930s old bourgeois habit of treating the people as a herd and the homeless as offal. That would be awful. If homelessness exists, it ought to be in plain sight until it rouses one’s conscience to action. These are people.
Beg to differ? Agree to disagree? We welcome thoughtful submissions on topics of interest to the community. Send to carolrobidoux@manchesterinklink.com, subject line: The Soapbox
Scott Daneau lives in Manchester and is a Christian apologetics writer and studies the social sciences.
