Who Do We Want to Be as a Community?

Find the goodness in everyone
and pass it on with kindness.
Dolly Parton

 

We are in the middle of a crisis. Throughout our country, we are seeing a dramatic increase in people who are experiencing homelessness. It is a reality that affects millions of people – those who are living without a home and those who encounter them in their daily lives.

This is a defining issue in our country. How we respond to it will tell us and tell the world who we are as a people.

How did we get here?

In our city and throughout our country, this issue upsets the lives of many people. Most see it as an annoyance to be removed, not a larger problem to be solved. It is easy to understand their dilemma.

People don’t know how to respond, so they don’t want to think about what they may be called to do.

It is easy to turn away and to insist that unhoused people be removed so they do not have to deal with the issue. When confronted with failures of our social and economic systems, we don’t want to acknowledge them.

If people are sleeping on the sidewalk in front of a business, the business owner fears that customers won’t come, and their livelihood is at stake. Strange people wandering in neighborhoods cause residents to fear for the safety of their families. The presence of unhoused people alters the quality of life in a city.

It is easier to see them as an irritation in our lives rather than as people who deserve our consideration.

Can we see them through a different lens

I invite you to consider the consequences in their lives.  Can you see their humanity and realize that they deserve our compassion rather than our judgment?

Here in Asheville, city ordinances place responsibility for this disturbing situation on the people whose presence is upsetting to others.

Like many cities, Asheville has an ordinance against vagrancy. I looked up the definition:

vagrant: “a person who wanders about idly and has no permanent home or employment; an idle person without visible means of support.”

Wow! This definition covers everyone who is homeless and justifies removing them rather than helping them.

Is this how we want to resolve a complex issue that affects thousands of lives – by criminalizing people who are already struggling with overwhelming challenges?

I invite you to consider the consequences in their lives.  Can you see their humanity and consider the difficult citrcumstances that they live with every day? We don’t know the life stories that led them to the streets, and if we did, we would probably have more compassion and less judgment.

Can we see their innate worthiness as human beings?

How did we get to this point?

Many people still see a person without a home as defective in some way. Let’s consider the underlying causes of the increased homelessness in our country.

During the last few years, our economy has suffered because of the restrictions in response to the Covid epidemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdown caused 114 million people to lose their jobs in 2020, and many others lost income due to reduced hours. Many families have not been able to recover and have lost their homes and/or suffered health problems related to the stress of the situation.

The economy has recovered, but that has not impacted everyone equally. Some people have been forced to sell their homes. In order to avoid foreclosure, many have had to accept a lower price than the value of their homes, and that has pushed them into the rental market, with rents going up dramatically in some areas.

Among the homeless population, many crises come together - multiple challenges which most of us do not have, including poverty, physical disability, mental illness and addiction.

In addition, they need to find a way to live without having a safe place to sleep, access to bathrooms and showers, food, clothing, or a way to wash clothes. Just surviving seems like a fulltime job.

Mental health issues are still seen as a personal failure.

People with mental health issues still carry a stigma and are seen as less worthy, rather than as fellow human beings who deserve consideration.

With less or no income, many have suffered from health problems for which they cannot afford health care. Then, the stresses of insecurity in their lives can lead to mental illness for which they cannot afford appropriate treatment.

Today, many unhoused people have some form of mental illness. Living on the street exacerbates existing problems for some people, and it causes mental illness in others.

The stresses of living without a home cause some people to seek temporary relief from challenges they are unable to meet. The lure of a drug can be very appealing. Then people become hooked into the hell of an addiction that takes over their life.

Addiction is an illness, not a character flaw.

Today, with so many addicted people showing up on our streets, it is easy to see them as irresponsible and lazy. Can we decide to see them as having a serious mental illness from which is difficult to recover?

Many people have one or more addictions. We have ­an opioid epidemic in our country, caused, in large part, by the marketing tactics of drug companies that have incentivized doctors to over-prescribe highly addictive opiates. The results are showing up in our communities.

According to an article from PsychCentral, an important reason that the stigma against addiction still exists is the of lack of education around two key principles:

     There are factors beyond a person’s control that lead to substance use.
Brain changes result from substance use that make it difficult to stop.

Having known people who became easily addicted to a pain killer or casual drug use, I have seen the danger of that first use. Among people who are living with overwhelming stress, a little relief seems worth the risk.

How are we willing to respond?

Are we willing to see the innate worthiness of everyone we meet?

 Father Greg Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, an organization that provides services to former gang members and returning ex-offenders, helping them to create successful, productive lives. He asks us to consider:

Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe
at what the poor have to carry, rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.

Are we able to do that?

Here, we are being called to look through a lens of compassion.

You do not need to volunteer with an organization that provides support for unhoused people, but that would expand your understanding of the challenges these people face. The most important gift you can give is to see the humanity of every person you may now be rejecting as not worthy.

You don’t know their stories, and if you did, you might have compassion for them rather than judging them for how they appear to you now.

There are many things that can be done to provide appropriate responses to address this crisis in our communities. That is the subject of my next post. It all has to begin with how we see each other and who we, together, choose to be in this world.

Who do you choose to be?

Here, we are being called to look through a lens of compassion.

We ask you to consider whether you are able to expand your current view of people less fortunate than you are. It is not a requirement, just an opportunity.

We wish you peace on your journey.

     Image by Leroy Skalstad from Pixabay

What are your thoughts? Do these ideas speak to you? Please leave a comment below. Thank you.

Help us to spread messages of kindness. If you know others who might appreciate these ideas, please share below.

We’re grateful that you are on this journey with us.

With love from our hearts to yours,
Pat and Larry