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Getting Rid of Homeless People
Preface
I am reluctant to republish my thesis that, if pious talkers actually practiced the love they so fervently preach, then there would be no homelessness in our prosperous society. Instead, I am inclined to lie to appear to be good, and to take care lest I offend someone's religious Faith or quasi-religioius political Ism. Nevertheless, I think it best to be honest from time to time, even if that means saying, "I am a selfish person and I could really care less about homeless people except I'm afraid to be one. Maybe that's why god put them there, to scare us."
No doubt there are many charitable deeds being done by kind individuals and groups on a daily basis, On the other hand, most of us are naturally far more concerned about ourselves than about those who are much less fortunate, so why not admit it? With a strong police force, those who have a lot do not have to worry about those who have hardly anything. We might pity them, but not enough to give them the personal attention that would probably have kept them off the street in the first place; instead, we would rather leave them to impersonal institutions. There are many people who profess charity in church and contribute a few dollars for the sake of appearance but who secretly do not really give a damn about the poor and even think the poor deserve to be poor. Some are bold enough to say so without making excuses such as Homeless people want to be homeless, It is too dangerous to take them into the home; They are mentally ill dope addicts and criminals; and so on.
The ugly fact remains, if the command "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" was actually practiced, involuntary poverty and homelessness would be nearly eradicated in America. But there is a reason for the command, and the reason is not very flattering: the religious call it original sin; it is a reaction to something quite contrary to love, the tendency to hate strangers and even to find enemies to hate in order to love friends. Yet the situation is not hopeless. In fact we have historical records indicating, for example, that unemployment and homelessness were virtually nil in ancient Jewish communities. That is one reason Julian the Apostate admired the Jews and rejected Christianity as the official religion of his empire. Of course Julian had other motives for wooing the Jews with a rebuilt temple, such as the refusal of many "selfish and antisocial" Christians to adulate the caesar and to serve in his legions.
Times have certainly changed. Jews were rendered homeless and forced to wander from persecution to persecution. Now hordes of secular Christians pledge allegiance to flag and nation and its political form even before god. "Under God" was an afterthought inserted during the Cold War to inculcate hatred for the godless impoverished people who would not worship the money-god of the imperalists, and resorted to socialism. Now Christians practice capital punishment; during the last presdiential campaign, the born-again Christian who is now in the White House said Jesus is his hero, and, until a black man questioned his attitude, he bragged with a twinkle in his eye and a broad smile on his face about the number of people executed in his state, and how he would not give them - including another born-again Christian - all he could give under law, another thirty days of life. Pat Robertson said, of the born-again condemned prisoner, "If George Bush executes that poor woman he has no mercy." After the governor made a distinction between being governor and being a Christian, and refused as governor to give her thirty days of life, Robertson campaigned vigorously for him. Who needs a god when the president is in the White House? Of course Christians serve in the military, and gladly kill "cockroaches" in Afghanistan, and think faith-based charity is a good idea. Meanwhile, many of the neighbors we supposedly love are sorely neglected.
Getting Rid of Homeless People
February 16, 2001
We do not have problems anymore, we have "issues." Rather than personally solving real problems with effective action, we convert them into "issues" to be impersonally discussed. The discussions serve to cover up the problem with talk rather than solve it.
One "issue" we would like to sweep under the discussion rug once and for all is homelessness. Rather than bringing homeless people into our homes, we prefer to discuss the "issue" and to delegate the actual decisions to our elected representatives who, in turn, will have the problem addressed accordingly with latex gloves, dangerously inadequate shelters, demeaning make-work workfare, and private charitable organizations. Self-righteous conservatives, who are bound by their private consciences to uphold the Darwinian, Invisible-Hand system that enriches them, would use state revenues to fund faith-based "charities" that serve ironically to perpetuate the very problems they propose to resolve in order to secure their wealth and to protect their family "values" and offspring from radical reform.
If the millions of Americans who profess faith had genuine faith, there would be no homelessness. Let us be honest with ourselves; any truly faithful person would go out into the street right now and bring a homeless person home or help him find or make his own home. But the primary faith today, despite the various illusory differences of religions, is faith not in a humane god but confidence in a cold and calculating, hypocritical superego who will allow more consumption if obeyed. A facsimile thereof is implanted in each person to keep up the semblance of faith as the sheep are being shorn by their real masters.
As is usual with false religion, homelessness exposes its biggest lie, its selfishness. Therefore the primary objective is to keep the real problem, the failure of our society, out of sight; to that end the police force is ultimately indispensable. Never mind the failure represented by the undemocratic republican leaders regardless of their respective political parties. Many if not most of those leaders, sometimes collectively referred to as the power elite, would be in prison if equality under the law prevailed instead of inequality under wealthy men. Of course we should not be too hasty to condemn our idols, those whom we secretly and even openly worship as we capitulate to the Little Capitalist within each of us.
Homelessness is a disgrace to the neighborhood if not to the entire society. We want the eyesore removed. We want the neighborhood cleaned up. We who are proud of our own success usually hold the homeless people themselves responsible for their predicament. Sure, there are exceptions: someone loses his or her job, or working spouse, or affordable housing, and so on, or is injured or is seriously mentally impaired.(1) But on the whole, or so we WRONGLY ASSUME when we sneak a look at those who are hanging out on the streets or at the Homeless Burger franchise, that most homeless people are able-bodied people who are not looking for jobs, who do not want to work, who would rather leech off of those of us who do occupy ourselves with churning out and consuming vast quantities of mostly superfluous trash and junk at our make-work jobs, whether we like it or not, so we can have food and shelter.
Many "liberals" proclaim their sympathy for homeless people when the "issue" is raised. Nonetheless, they are offended by the problem in their own neighborhoods, especially during good times. We can hardly blame them; they do not merely resent what they presume is work-shirking; they fear that, despite the greatly touted, individual free will, "that without the grace of God there go I"; or, even worse, that the grace of God might even place any one of them in such a terrible predicament for his own good, as a test precedent to salvation. So quite decent people are naturally ambivalent in regards to the real problem of homelessness, and they would fain have it dealt with by someone else, namely the authorities.
For example, in New York City, Mayor Rudy Giulani had to deal with the problem. New Yorkers were ambivalent about the good mayor: on the one hand, he was seen as a mean-spirited, obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive character; on the other hand, he was regarded as just the mayor the city needed, the man who had in fact cleaned it up since the dirty days of Mayor David Dinkins, the dapper gentleman's gentleman who was supposedly soft on homelessness.
A few protesters who held a much less than favorable opinion of their mayor gathered in a park so they could for a small fee don latex gloves and throw excrement at his portrait. They reportedly assembled to protest the mayor's effort to punish the Brooklyn Museum for exhibiting Chris Ofilli's "The Holy Virgin Mary", a painting of a brown woman with porno-magazine clippings of vaginas flitting about her head and a big clump of shellacked elephant dung affixed to her. That cause for protest was an artistic pretext; the fundamental protest was against another aspect of the mayor's public hygiene program: his scheme to jail homeless people who refuse to go to shelters and, if they do not get a job, to seize their children.
I too have ambivalent feelings about homelessness and about Rudy Giulani. Since I feel guilty for talking about homelessness rather than actually helping a homeless person today, I will exhibit my guilt and deal with the "issue" by slinging some dung at the mayor and his ilk. I admit that my protestations are mental excretions hurled by a disgruntled ape through the bars of his iron cage in an attempt to besmear the predominant authorities. I confess that the execrations I hurl are confessional to the extent that my hands are unclean and my face is besmirched with contradictions.
Now then, according to the mayor's public-hygiene philosophy, those who refuse society or those who are refused by it are society's refuse to be swept from the corners and cracks and from their children's arms. This clean sweep is for the Public Good, which presumably includes the good of the swept providing it is put in its proper place. Society sanctifies itself by means of this ritual handwashing delegating dirty work to those who wear latex gloves and disposable masks to handle the social offal. Cleanliness is godliness, and the gods in their penthouses are the most remote and godly: the gods are rendered dirt free by their sanitation crew.
Society's political idols who preside over the street-cleaning machine derive a great deal of prestige from such seemingly trivial police actions as putting diapers on horses, enforcing pooper-scooper laws, arresting freelance car-window washers, ticketing unlicensed street vendors, and so on. For good measure, to enhance the prestige of the powers that be, the machine is even brought to bear on jaywalkers. That, in turn, has led to a proposal to place monitors with cattle prods on busy sidewalks to make sure everyone keeps to the right in a city infamous for its liberal left. No matter how rigidly neurotic, no matter how trivial, narrow-minded and mean the various social defenses might be, they appeal to the frightened self-righteous multitude who have their own toilets and a jobs.
If a homeless man loses control and hurts someone, then the homeless must be rounded up yet again and gotten rid of, but if a drug-crazed stockbroker beats his wife to death with a hammer, Wall Street is not questioned. And while private capitalism is openly worshipped on Wall Street, while greed is celebrated throughout the land, the homeless petty thief is jailed; yet the petty thief is simply a capitalist without capital. Once a capitalist has plenty of capital, he can with impunity commit grand theft and even murder by means of defective goods and lies; those domestic crimes are misdemeanors compared to the crimes against humanity powerful Americans encourage and orchestrate in other countries, including mass rape and murder. Indeed, untold innocent millions around the world have been murdered, uprooted and starved, sanctioned to death, during the great American war on homelessness. Of course, the victim's leaders are blamed for the suffering inflicted; however, those leaders may not be assassinated: such is the code of honor between ruling murderers and thieves. In the event someone important is charged with these crimes, he can purchase or extort a presidential pardon.
Those of us who are not living on the street or sleeping in a shelter or confined to a mental hospital or prison, sincerely believe that our reasonable and practical programs to rid ourselves of dirty details truly serve the great ideological idol, the Public Good. We barely suspect that many of the programs are really designed to hide the symptoms of our own disease, to separate us from our own problems. Our idolatry, our worship of the Public Good, often begets even more of the embarrassing particulars we fear. Nor do many people suspect our supposedly impersonal and reasonable practice is actually a ritualized subservience to organized corruption and make-work wage slavery.
For powerful thugs hide like rats in board rooms while their minions infest our political halls. In our mistaken impression that we are working for our own good, we unwittingly work for their further aggrandizement, which constitutes a vast system of organized crime. In fact, many workers do not believe the power elite exist; the power elite are superficially too clean to be seen for what they are. They have expensive suits and clean manicured hands. They live on gentlemen's ranches, on big clean estates with enormous clean bathrooms; they have nice clean airplanes to fly around in. And they are to be pitied in their isolation: sociologists funded by them do feel sorry for them and bemoan their "exclusion"--it seems that many of the homeless in their exclusion are happier than the elite are in theirs. There is nothing so blatantly ironic as a happy panhandler!
But that is enough mudslinging for now. I am literally covered with mud or worse, hence any more would be obscenely redundant. Yet I believe I have in a round about way made my point about homelessness; I unloaded in the process. Homelessness is not just another "issue." Homelessness and the fear of it is a serious problem, a crucial problem, a problem central to the survival of every one of us. There are viable alternatives possible other than service to state-sanctioned organized crime and feel-good membership in the false religions that support the official corruption. If we want to really clean up the neighborhood, we must, like any good housekeeper, start at the top and work our way down.
-X-
(1) Perhaps "mental illness" as officially defined may apparently run as high as 2/3 of a homeless population in a particular neighborhood; however, recent studies indicate the overall fraction is about 1/4. In any case, when speaking of mental illness, we should keep in mind that, although there are some seriously ill people out there who require professional care in institutions, nosology or diagnostic definitions are produced by the psychiatric industry, which is supported by the government; nosology is in fact a method often used to define people in order to control them, in order to imprison them in institutions instead of taking them home. Yes, there is drug and alcohol abuse; however, there is a high incidence of that in the population who have homes (pity the man with a $500 monthly bar tab is afraid a wino might have a drink at the public expense!) And, we should not forget that around 38% of homeless people do have jobs. To view information about the homeless including statistics, go to the National Coalition for the Homeless' site: nch.ari.net
Note to Readers:
If you feel strongly about the problems I have raised herein, please forward this article together with your comments to your representatives, AND to:
Senator Hillary Clinton
UNITES STATES SENATE
Email: senate@clinton.senate.gov
irishma416: This is well written and well thought out. I checked disagree because I think there are other ways to help besides bringing a stranger into my home. I do donate quite a bit of my time, money, and as many material products as I can to shelters and other donation points. I don't have the room to have someone move in with me and frankly don't think I'd risk my family to do so. Perhaps I read you wrong on that point. * Bobbie
tjodray: You know how I feel about this issue my friend. Very well done!
walters: Of course time. money, and materials donated will be very
helpful.
boykev: hmmm. New York before Rudy...New York WITH Rudy...I'll stick with Rudy. It's much cleaner now.
white_lace: awesome writing, and hiting it right where it is. ¤؟¤
derwriter: I have learned first-hand what it is like to be homeless. In our case, I simply did not have enough money to go around, and once it happens, it takes a great deal of perseverence and refusal to become embarrassed over the situation to get past it. Another of my life-changing teachings. Don't think I will write to Hillary, however, about any of it. I consider her to the the Black Queen.
andyk: The ambivalence and insensitivity towards the homeless, as you so eloquently point out in this article, is the largest contributing factor in our seeming inability to stem the tide of people being forced onto our nation's streets. Whoever knows anyone that is living from paycheck to paycheck in this country, including themselves, must recognize that this crisis not only affects them on a societal level, but on a clearly personal one, as well. I hope that well-written and informed articles such as this, will serve to open people's eyes and hearts to this ever-increasing problem.
rorajoey: I'm not surprised that homelessness is an increasing problem, with the price of homes (and everything else!) going up so high. When did society first begin to willingly put themselves into debt for 5 years to buy a vehicle, or for 30 years to buy a home? And what happens when our employer "downsizes" or declares bankruptcy, or simply decides we're no longer fit for employment? I'm saddened by the fact that, in spite of our increasing population, an exponentially decreasing percentage thereof can actually hope to realize "the American dream," no matter how hard they work.
dcoyote: Welfare is not dedicated to the eradication of poverty, nor are government agencies that 'deal' with the homeless. Every one of those 'agencies' are devoted to expanding their budgets and even further entrenching their civil service jobs. Can anyone seriously tell me that welfare workers are trying to put themselves out of work? 'The system' is designed to survive. The entire system is "tax welfare".
mareeroe: I'm not from your Country but homelessness is a problem in our Capital City too. I drive every morning through an area where there are homeless people in doorways and on sidewalks near a homeless shelter and a mental home. I don't do anything except wonder how can they live like that, pity them, and think to myself that they are mostly drug or alcohol dependent or mental patients. Some of them scare me but you have made me think.
jmk444: One area in which I appear to disagree with you is over your inference that people "selfishly" going about their business (working to take care of their families) are somehow directly or indirectly responsible for the homelessness of others. I don't believe that is in any way the case. //// There are indeed many causes of homelessness (various mental illnesses, substance abuse, etc) - skilled, ambitious people who merely lose their jobs can usually find another. Are there are unfortunates who get burned out of their homes or lose their source of income in a strange city - these are the easiest ones to help and the ones most likely to get out of this predicament fastest. The idea of taking an alcoholic, a drug abuser, or someone with mental health problems into our homes is an unrealistic one. All of these people need help, not merely love. They need specialized medical care that can only be administered in an institution. //// Fine writing despite our differences of opinion.
victorbuhagiar: Once I was Malta's representative on the FAO in Rome. Everone agreed people needed help. Action: NIL. I was relieved when the Government appointed someone else.
walters: The inference referred to by my friend jmk444 is his, not mine. And there is some unavoidable truth to it.
erinys: There are several problems that bleed into the "homelessness issue". One is that everywhere in North America, mental health facilities are underfunded and neglected. (This is especially true in the United States, where the military industrial complex demands an unbelievably huge share of the tax-payer's pie...) A great many people become homeless after being turned out of hospitals, live-in clinics, and half-way houses. These places are constantly being closed or down-sized for lack of funding--even when the inmates are blatantly unable to function normally and take care of themselves. Can we take these people into our homes? Don't be absurd! The average citizen, no matter how compassionate and well-meaning, cannot possibly care for a mentally ill person in his or her home: we don't have the time, the medication, or the training. It would be stupid and dangerous for all concerned. Of course, not all the homeless are mentally ill; there are other homelessness-related problems. Drug and alcohol abuse cannot be discounted--this is the sort of personal problem that keeps people out of faith-based shelters, very often, and also keeps them from being able to bootstrap themselves out of homelessless. Again, it isn't the private citizen's job to take a drunk or a drug addict into his home: it's dangerous and stupid for all concerned. Let's face it: junkies and drunks are not trustworthy houseguests. They're liable to steal from you or harm your family; it's not your moral obligation to give them the chance to harm you. In the United States, of course, there are a lot of other problems which are far less common in Canada...especially with the working poor, who are often forced to live out of their cars because they can't find safe or affordable shelter. Decent, safe, low-income housing is in EXTREMELY short supply in the USA! Housing projects in America are a very low priority. They are deliberately built in the places where real estate values are lowest, and then they're poorly maintained, badly policed and always over-crowded. You build a housing project in America, you instantly create a slum within a slum! And even given how depressing, unhygienic and violent these places often are, many people would be grateful for a chance to live there: they can't find a spot. There's not enough room in those slums--much as someone might like to spend a pitiful paycheck from a bad service job on rent, they simply don't get the chance! In Canada, by contrast--most particularly in Vancouver, BC, where I've been living for the last five years--low-income housing projects are a big priority. Not only do they build a lot of them, but the buildings are attractive, well-maintained, and scattered throughout the city in a wide variety of neighborhoods. They are not isolated in the poorest areas or segregated by race, their denizens deliberately kept far away from a proper police presence, decent schools or public parks: on the contrary, they're often built in extremely desirable locations. The nearest to me personally is within a stone's throw of one of the most beautiful green areas in the city, Queen Elizabeth Park, and the surrounding neighborhood is full of upper-middle-class homes and rolling green lawns. A poor person can live there with a little dignity and maybe even a glimmer of hope for the future.
walters: A woman gave up her inexpensive rented house here and moved in with her boyfriend, at his behest, along with her furniture. She was in an accident and could not return to work. Her boyfriend, a wealthy man, kicked her out of the apartment because he was seeing other women. She was flat broke. She wanted to commit suicide, but was worried about her dog. She called her hairdresser to ask her to care for her dog. The hairdresser took both of them in.
trinity: I think the biggest thing is fear..everyone knows it could be them..there is a serious problem with our Mental Health policies and there is a sense of apathy from everyone on that issue..
comebackkenny: When asked, some homeless people admit that they want to be left alone, free food and free clothes. They do not want responsibility, to pay taxes, bathe, or be told where to sleep. One such homeless was thrown out of a public library for odor problems sued the city for $40,000 and won. He is still there.
sekhmet: One of my very best friends, who now works for the screen actors guild in recruiting, was also homeless. He still *serves* (operative word) the homeless. Maybe we should look at helping other people as serving them - then maybe there might be a bit more compassion in the world. Well written, my friend.
tuggy: I almost ended up on the streets with my illness(physical) and no family support. A couple of times I had to go to shelters.
walters: I was homeless three times in my life, once for two years. Believe me, the "homeless people want to be homeless" excuse does not wash with me, though there are some who prefer it.
christine doiron: I agree with what you say about most of the "faithful" not actually being faithful, but just kidding themselves. However, it would be irresponsible to bring any stranger into our home off the street. I wouldn't do this any more than I would pick up a hitchhiker, or walk through Central Park at 2am.
walters: The second time I was homeless was after I was robbed in a hotel room where I was staying over night. I had flown into town with my whole savings in cash, and planned on renting a place the next day. So I was on the street. Alan and Karen, two complete strangers, took me into their luxury condominium, because they overheard me telling my story. They were writers. We wrote a script for Hawaii Five-O. After I got on my feet and got an apartment, they came and asked me to move back in with them.
moongazer: Well written and thought-provoking.
moviegeek: Good article.. though the title could use some re-wording -- my first thought seeing it was that someone was being satirical, the idea of "blowing away" the homeless ;-)
blutwilight: Well written! I've known a few people who would have been homeless without the help of their friends and family. I wrote a story about one of these people. Some people I've known had drug problems while others had mental problems. Some children I've cared for and taken in alot because they didn't have food, electricity, etc in their home. I used to see a 'bag woman' every morning on my way to work. One day I left her a whole bag of food to put in her cart she pushed around. She ran away from it. I hope she went back after I left though. She changed her route after that and I didn't see her anymore. Once a man knocked on the door of where I was working and told me he was hungry and needed money. I told him I didn't have any money and I gave him my lunch I had made for me that day. I went out about an hr later and he had thrown my lunch on the ground without touching it. So many different types of homeless people. Sometimes it's hard to know which ones really need help, but we can do our small part in our little corner of the world.
cathy: very well written, and unfortunately alot of truth here. I think the people who are so comfortable, and smug in their lives don't realize how quickly it can disappear. Many hardworking families are one paycheck away from the streets.
walters: My first experience with homelessness was when I ran away from an abusive home at age 12. I wound up on the streets of a town in the Midwest. I was starving. The Indians on the street helped me get a job with a wrecking crew; based on that job promise, the Indians helped me get a meal card at a restaurant and one-week's credit at a flop-house (one wall of my "room" was taped together newspaper comics). A few weeks later I was stopped by the police at midnight while walking back to the hotel from a second job I got carting cement around to construct a grain silo. I showed them my father's ID which I had taken with me; they did not fall for it as he was three times my age. Hence back home until the time I ran away for good.
andre: Well said. Though politicians won't do much. The homeless are an insignificant voting constituency. The letter should be sent to ALL senators. It's not just a New York problem.what can i do?
WhatCanIDo?: Alot of homeless people have mental illnesses. They need professional help, too bad no one in their right minds would want to take this matter in their own hands. Especially with children. If they ever legalize bud, there would be enough jobs to seriously reduce homeless people, and give them a job.
witchhazelnut: sad, really...I work in social services and the gov't barely pays US a living wage, so you know they'll never fund the homeless issues..
walters: Only once was I harmed by taking in a homeless person; ironically, I became homeless for a few days as a consequence. See my essay "Being Rolled" for my account of that incident as well as a fuller account of the incident above.
tinakrause: Excellent points here, and an excellent article. Makes one definately think.
walters: I accept the National Coalition's definition of homelessness. As I said above, I was once homeless for 2 years: I lived on the streets of Chicago from a bit over age 13 to almost 16--I had no permanent shelter and often slept in parks, libraries, subways, bus depots and train stations. although someone occasionally took me in. I wonder if anyone would be so charitable to accept that as a fair definition of homeless, or does one have to be over 18?
helgar: Awesome, articulate and powerful article. Thanks for raising consciousness about this complex problem. I admit to being of two minds when I run into it, far too frequently, here in Toronto. I will be disposed to be more helpful and less judgmental, in future.Homelessness is a disgrace to the neighborhood!
