One Simple Step To Help The Homeless

I live in an area of Salt Lake City, Utah which has a significant number of homeless people. There are all different types, from young people with tattoos hanging out and smoking to older men and women sullen and depressed and having a hard time getting around. A few days ago I passed an elderly lady sitting on a broken old chair outside a fast food chain. I gave her some peaches from my grocery bag and then went back into my air conditioned, secure flat and sat down to my computer to do work and play on the internet while she continued to bake in the 100˚ F weather. Several months later when winter rolled in a young man died from exposure right outside my complex. If I had even known he was there I could have let him into the entryway or called homeless services, but nobody noticed him until it was too late.

Right before I left Los Angeles mayor Garcetti was trying to address the homeless situation plaguing California, and tried to set up homeless shelters around the city. I was horrified to see the sheer number of people living in these rich, cocaine addled neighborhoods of Venice and Santa Monica who showed up to public input meetings to fight those homeless shelters with more ferocity than any protest overturning Roe vs Wade. When most people in this country talk about the homeless problem they usually mean shipping people out somewhere they don’t have to see them.

The Mormon church headquarters is just down the street from where I live, and they are sitting on over 100 billion dollars of tax-exempt profit and could single-handedly house every single homeless person in the entire country. But they don’t, because, like a lot of us, they justify their compassionless indifference to the suffering of others by accusing them of failing, not trying hard enough, or putting themselves in that situation as if it is acceptable to only give empathy and compassion to those who deserve it.

Lecturing others about the reasons for homelessness to make ourselves feel better about not doing anything is a grievously narcissistic behavior, and a lot of us dislike feeling guilty about not helping those who need it. But the truth is we can’t actually solve homelessness individually, and part of the reason we feel this way is because we can’t actually do anything about it but feel like we are supposed to when in fact it’s completely impossible. As much as I wanted to, I could not take that old lady into my home and take care of her. I only live in a small studio apartment and could not assume the budget for feeding and caring for her needs, certainly also not the logistical and emotional needs that every human also requires. Even if I was able to help her, she is only one person and there are many, many, people who are homeless and need help.

Giving homeless people some of our money and food might make us feel good and help them in the moment, but it does not solve their primary problem, which is an inability to operate within the systems and institutions that make up our society. We have set up our societies and communities to operate in and through a complex system of infrastructure and institution which requires preexisting participation in order to participate. We no longer live as a natural human being hunting wild animals or foraging fruits and vegetables, and if we become homeless we cannot simply take care of ourselves in this environment which now includes businesses, roads, buildings, property, government, laws, etc. Homelessness is a problem of being stuck outside a system in which we must already be participating in order to be part of it. Many people stupidly respond to issues of homelessness by suggesting the homeless get jobs or show ambition, but how can you get a job when you can’t even take a shower ?

Drug abuse and mental illness is also a hugely impassable barrier to resolving homelessness, and because most people regard dug addiction as a choice, even when there is plainly obvious evidence it is not, people suffering from these diseases have no ability to extract themselves from their situation because no person alone can solve addiction or mental health problems on their own. We who believe this is possible want to believe it because the opposite would mean a frightening reality of loss and adversity. Those homeless who suffer from drug addiction and mental illness are in fact experiencing those very things right now, but instead of helping them we condemn them to a life of impoverishment and illness simply to gratify our own ego.

Nobody should have to suffer homelessness and chronic drug addiction and mental illness, even if they have made mistakes and gotten themselves into the situation. We are not relieved of our duty to help others just because others have made mistakes. Drug addiction and mental illness are actually consequences of abuse, neglect, and economic disenfranchisement anyway, and many of the kids and adults who are homeless are there because of abusive parents who beat and harassed them, or signed up for the military and have traumatic PTSD because of their service, or economically disenfranchised who struggled to get jobs or leave abusive relationships. Mental illness can also be caused by an inability to afford healthy diet or exposure to toxic chemicals so rampant in our food and industrial supply. Simply letting these people suffer because we feel bad about it is a horrific way to treat others.

The good news is that resolving homelessness is a lot easier than you may have ever thought, and only requires one, very simple step we can all do, and that is simply to elect representatives who will implement Housing First policies.

Since homelessness is a problem of social and economic institutions, it cannot be solved by ordinary citizens, and needs to be solved by government policies which empower the systems in which we live to make changes so that homeless people have access to those things which are required for participation in this system. Housing First is a program which institutes these solutions and provides the basic needs which are first required to be a functioning member of society and for people to take care of themselves. In our current system housing is used as a reward for overcoming hardship, but housing is actually required to overcome those hardships, so our homeless populations grow instead of shrink. It’s also less expensive to implement Housing First policies than it is to just deal with chronic homelessness. This YouTube video by Second Thought is a great piece on what Housing First is and how it solves homelessness. Better yet, you could help even more by running for office and becoming the elected representative who implements housing first policies in your community. You may have never thought you could be an elected official, but we live in a Democratic society and anyone can be an elected representative as a city council member or mayor or state congressperson.

You as a single person are not responsible for solving the homeless crisis nor taking care of homeless people directly. That is impossible for us to do and not the solution to resolving homelessness in the long run. We need institutional change which smartly addresses the logistical and social barriers that prevent people from caring for their own needs in the system in which we live, and that comes by simply being active in civics and promoting and electing representatives who will implement these policies.