It wasn’t all that long ago that America faced hordes of people wandering the streets looking for food, shelter and a job.
Those “unwashed” looked for any kind of shelter – any kind of job.
Here we are, decades away from the “Great Depression”, watching more and more people hunker down in tent cities, overburdened shelters, alley ways, car parks, under bridges and overpasses, looking for food, shelter and a place to feel safe.
Presumably, we learned something about the causes of poverty and homelessness during those decades of reflection, study, and uncounted, and unread, dissertations on the root causes etc. etc. etc.
Seattle is mid-way through a “Ten Year Plan” to end homelessness. So far it has been a failure. Failure, well, I guess, that depends on whom you ask.
Yes, more shelter space is available and more social services are chasing the same set of challenges as they manage a bigger population of people needing a place to call home.
Most of the experts claim more affordable housing is the answer, combined with support facilities to meet the needs of those in dire circumstances.
Sounds good.
Is that the actually answer? I don’t know.
I keep thinking about a question a lady, with a lifetime of experience with the poor, asked me one day.
“When do you think it is that one becomes homeless?”
She wasn’t talking about the moment someone is actually without shelter. She was talking about that moment when a person integrates the acceptance of “homelessness” into their very core.
I’ve thought a lot about the question, being somewhat embarrassed that I don’t have some sage reply.
I think I have concluded that education is the ultimate answer to this and other societal challenges.
Relevant education to the present crop of lower and middle school students giving them basic skills to avoid seeing themselves as homeless in the future. If they learn how to honor themselves, armed with a quiver of critical thinking skills, they may avoid integrating the “I deserve this” syndrome that brings so much grief to so many.
Comprehending how the system works, and the role they played delivering them to their present situation, challenges many on the streets and in shelters. Excluding those suffering from mental illness, chronic additions, debilitating illnesses, war, and natural calamities you may find many who just don’t have the education to see options. Options that might help them move into a different way of looking at themselves as they run into one barrier after another within the system.
Our schools are not delivering, to the mainstream citizen, critical thinking skills that help one reflect on any given situation analyzing objectively an exit strategy.
Daily headlines point to a population that may be, as a friend in Ireland put it, “Arrogantly ignorant.”
Some chase their ignorance while the schools, administrators, clerics of all stripes; parents and un-invested neighbors allow sub-standard education to take place at the neighborhood school.
I will be attending a graduation ceremony next week where a number of the graduating students are unprepared for the next level of educational challenges.
I know what will happen to those students without some “divine” intervention.
These kids, like those in shelters, deserve better!
Maybe its time to dust off a popular song from “back in the day.”
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,”
lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931)
They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it’s done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it’s done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Say, don’t you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don’t you remember, I’m your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Say, don’t you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Say, don’t you remember, I’m your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?
