Jonathan Kronstadt is a freelance writer working in Washington DC.
Opinion: Sometimes, though nowhere near often enough, I volunteer at Shepherd’s Table, a services facility for homeless people about a mile and a half from where I am fortunate to be housed. Lately, I’ve been doing the breakfast shift, as it gets me out early and seems to be when they need volunteers the most.
Normally, I’m on dish duty, but that morning my job was to stand at the door and tally, which meant I got a good, long look at each of the 120 people who came in. They were young and old, black, brown and white, mostly men but about 15 women, and one teenager who came in with his mum. What they had in common was that they all looked tired. Not sleepy tired, though I’m sure they were that, too; this was a weariness that hung on them like a horse collar. I get tired a lot, but not this kind of tired.
Many of them seemed hyper-aware too, as they must be to survive the dangers that come with living outdoors. Their eyes darted around, even though this was one of the few places they were actually welcome. It was like being a greeter at the world’s saddest Walmart. I’d eke out a “Welcome, enjoy your meal” on the way in, and after realising that “Have a nice day” was an absurd goodbye, I quickly switched to a simple “Take care”.
There are more than half a million homeless people in the United States, and despite what some of our most craven politicians would have you believe, for the vast majority of them, it’s not a lifestyle choice, and it’s not because they’re lazy.
About half have jobs; they just don’t earn enough to afford the skyrocketing cost of housing in the US. As for the other half – try to find a job without a fixed address and see how far you get. Most, if not all, of the negative things people believe about the homeless are untrue. They’re more often victims than perpetrators of crime. They don’t travel to where it’s warm or where public benefits are better so that they can be homeless in greater comfort; most are homeless where they grew up. At most, a third are mentally ill, and about as many have substance abuse problems. Many didn’t start using drugs until they became homeless.
A programme called Housing First addresses homelessness by providing safe, permanent, affordable housing, followed by the services people need to thrive: Healthcare, job training, education, substance abuse treatment and more.
Studies show that wherever it has been tried, it works. It isn’t cheap, but it’s incredibly cost-effective, with significant savings on emergency room visits alone. But it has been tried in only a small handful of cities. Why? Because powerful, moneyed interests and the politicians they have bought make a fortune on overpriced housing, just as they do on underpaid labour and a shrinking social safety net – the threat of homelessness is an invaluable tool in forcing people to overpay for substandard housing and work dangerous, degrading jobs for poverty-line wages. As a result, wealth and income inequality are higher than they have been in nearly a century.
Homelessness is a systemic failure produced by policy decisions our leaders make. An effective solution exists, but we lack the political will to employ it. We avert our eyes, hoping they will just go away. We empower law enforcement to ticket them for camping, destroy their belongings, and push them further from needed services so we don’t have to look at them.
Our approach keeps us from making any substantive progress on what is now a nationwide affordable housing crisis that has teachers, police, firefighters and other essential and non-essential workers in its grip. It perpetuates an immoral status quo that benefits the few on the backs of half a million homeless and tens of millions of low-income Americans.
