Do people really care about the homeless?

[jpk1313]

looking through the threads I find there are very few about what to do about the homeless, while there are tons about abortion where nothing new is ever said just repeating the same old things mindlessly. And I have come to the conclusion that people (aside from a minority) do not really care. They treat the homeless like they do with the starving people in africa seen on t.v. they give lip service but do nothing about it. The church in fact does nothing about it. We keep them around so we can feel good about ourselves when on rare times we give some handout, but otherwise don’t really care all that much. I think that becuse Jesus said “the poor you will alway have” we have developed a mind set that tells us “there is nothing we can do about it” so we don’t even try. We give out change or meals at a shelter or a bed for the night, but we do nothing to make a fundamental change, becuse we are to self centered to care. we turn blind eyes to them becuse they have no money and becuse they have no money we think they are worthless. It is sickening that when the talk of social change and equal distrabution of wealth comes up christians make all kinds of excuses to keep things the same. Christians do not engage in social change they just do “good deeds” so they feel good about themselves but take no action to make change.

 

[Dale_M]

We give out change or meals at a shelter or a bed for the night, but we do nothing to make a fundamental change, becuse we are to self centered to care.

JPK, I appreciate the passion with which you write this post. As someone who once spent one night per week, for a few years, volunteering in a homeless shelter, I understand the sense of helping a few starfish but at the same time being distressed about the ones who aren’t helped. And the outrage over why the starfish are being washed ashore in the first place.

But I think you are passing judgment on us here, and on the public at large. The causes of homelessness are multiple and there isn’t an easy fix. Because substance abuse and mental illness are very often involved, the solution isn’t simply one of providing housing and food. Life skills and coping skills need to be taught and medical care provided. Helping a homeless person back on their feet so that they don’t become homeless again is very difficult and requires great individual effort - on their part, as well as the part of those trying to help.

I think it is important that we take homelessness seriously. But I also think that the degree of our involvement is variable. Just as all of us are called to be pro-life, it doesn’t mean all of us are called to be on the front lines of that struggle.

I think the persons who do serve on the front lines of the struggle to help the homeless or the unborn are heroes. But perhaps God calls each of us to be a hero in a different way from our neighbor.

 

[vera_dicere]

As Dale has said, homelessness isn’t so black and white as people just not caring.

There are a raft of other factors, and sometimes, as odd as it seems, some homeless are happy with their lot. There was a homeless chap in teh city I live in and he was quite well known, when he died, it was discovered that he had close to a million dollars in the bank. His mother, who had had no contact with him in years, donated his money to various homeless shelters in accordance with his wishes.

I think, however, a lot of people jsut get sick of it all, they see some people who are having themselves a fine old bludge, or just being a nusiance and causing crime, or scaring their children. So, they switch off.

Yeah, there are people who don’t want to be on the street, who are, and that’s sad, and its something we need to try and change. But it’ll take more then just flickign money into social programmes or volunteering at soup kitchens.

 

[jpk1313]

I agree that throwing money at the problem is not the entire solution. But there are many things we could be doing and by we I don’t just mean the church but the government as well. For instance we should stop waging a pointless war and bring the armies back and put them to real service for the country namely building homes/apartment blocks for those on the street. Further a re-structering of our way of life. Cut the work week to 20 hours so everybody has a part time job, raise taxs and build more universities and the other 20 hours we would be working would be spent in school in whatever subject chosen. Create a culture of philosophers scientists theologians, artists writers ect,. Utopia is acivable it just takes sacrifice and giving up the consumer me me me lifestyle the wester world has created.

 

[vera_dicere]

I agree that throwing money at the problem is not the entire solution. But there are many things we could be doing and by we I don’t just mean the church but the government as well. For instance we should stop waging a pointless war and bring the armies back and put them to real service for the country namely building homes/apartment blocks for those on the street. Further a re-structering of our way of life. Cut the work week to 20 hours so everybody has a part time job, raise taxs and build more universities and the other 20 hours we would be working would be spent in school in whatever subject chosen. Create a culture of philosophers scientists theologians, artists writers ect,. Utopia is acivable it just takes sacrifice and giving up the consumer me me me lifestyle the wester world has created.

Some people are already stretched fiscally as it is, working 50 hours a week.

The idea of cutting the work week to 20 hours will simply create more homelessness. Not to mention, taxes are high as they are, (well, they are in NZL, -_-’) if the majority are working 40 hours a week and paying high taxes, than loosing 20 hours a week with an increase in tax is really going to break the system.

The only way that idea will work is if those in power or with the brunt of the money are more generous with it. I dont’ think a bank manager is going to not foreclose on your house if you tell him “oh, well, I"m only working 20 hours a week now so I can go to university and live in a Utopia”.

 

[Dale_M]

I agree that throwing money at the problem is not the entire solution. But there are many things we could be doing and by we I don’t just mean the church but the government as well. For instance we should stop waging a pointless war and bring the armies back and put them to real service for the country namely building homes/apartment blocks for those on the street.

I won’t argue the point of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but I would mention that the mission of the military is not to build housing. Its fine if the US government wants to employ people for that purpose, but I don’t think such housing construction projects have anything to do with the military.

Further a re-structering of our way of life. Cut the work week to 20 hours so everybody has a part time job,

This would involve a tremendous slashing of the standard of living. Even if you wanted wages to double to make up the lost wages, it would make US products so expensive that the products would be unsaleable and the economy would collapse.

…raise taxs

Oh, yes, taxes will need to be raised in the future. We need to pay for the Bush wars (which were financed entirely by borrowing from China) and we will need to pay for the Obama stimulus projects. But I would point out that taxes generate revenue only to the extent that economy is generating revenue. Your suggestion that we cut the work week in half would not only impoverish the average American, it would bankrupt the US government.

… and build more universities and the other 20 hours we would be working would be spent in school in whatever subject chosen. Create a culture of philosophers scientists theologians, artists writers ect,. Utopia is acivable it just takes sacrifice and giving up the consumer me me me lifestyle the wester world has created.

Yanno… I probably like hippies more than most Americans. And what you are advocating definitely falls into hippie-dom. Which is good! But such a choice should be up to the individual and won over by cultural preference…not imposed by government policy, which seems to be what you are advocating.

But to get back to the topic of this thread, yes, let us help the homeless. It is a requirement of being Christian, I think. However, I don’t think that government programs are the definitive solution.

 

[m134e5]

I agree that throwing money at the problem is not the entire solution. But there are many things we could be doing and by we I don’t just mean the church but the government as well. For instance we should stop waging a pointless war and bring the armies back and put them to real service for the country namely building homes/apartment blocks for those on the street. Further a re-structering of our way of life. Cut the work week to 20 hours so everybody has a part time job, raise taxs and build more universities and the other 20 hours we would be working would be spent in school in whatever subject chosen. Create a culture of philosophers scientists theologians, artists writers ect,. Utopia is acivable it just takes sacrifice and giving up the consumer me me me lifestyle the wester world has created.

I do not think that would work. I imagine people would soon realize that they were working hard to get ahead, but that the government was preventing them because it would be “unfair” for them to realize their full potential since there are others whose full potential is not as great as theirs.

 

[didymus]

Whoa! I mean I’m glad to see you raise the subject but you’re painting with an awful wide brush there.
I would not describe food pantries or shelters or meals aren’t nothing and I don’t believe people donate their time, money & food just to feel good though there may be some of that.
A lot of people who do help are already struggling & of course they’re the ones in the worst position to go charging in trying to change the system.

I think a lot of people care but don’t really know what to do-- you say change the system. Well, that’s nice but generally banging your head on a brick wall huts your head more than the brick wall.

I work at a shelter for homeless families. The reason a large percentage of our families wind up homeless is that their apartments failed code enforcement. Basically, absentee landlords just wring all the rent out of a building, make no repairs, possibly pay no taxes and let ti eventually be seized by the city, leaving a hulk that had to be demolished.
Albany tried charging absentee l.lords a higher tax rate, forcing them to put up a bond & other maneuvers, all of which were shot down in court. So even a city gov’t hasn’t been able to change a system that lets absentee landlords (hiding behind corporations) profit while their decaying buildings bring down the value of neighborhoods and tenants are eventually forced out.

As for the homeless themselves, there are lots of reasons folks wind up on the street, a large percentage due to alcohol or drug use. Many of these don’t even want to go to shelters (because shelters have rules) nor to detox. Are we going to change things so they can’t refuse treatment (detox)? It might be a good idea & would save some lives but flies in the face of their rights.

The other biggie is mental illness, but again we can’t force people to take their meds nor hospitalise them unless they’re in crisis.

Some of the families we see, and other homeless, are just grossly irresponsible, and I don’t know how any amount of social restructuring can address that.

I know it sounds like I’m justifying the status quo and I’m not. I’m sure you’re right that people look down on the homeless and judges people by their wealth. I’m just not as confident as you that we can change things for the better.

 

[LilyM]

I’m not sure about the premise of this thread at all.

We don’t have threads about homelessness (or not many), sure - but having a thread about it is a bit like having a thread about the fact that the sky is blue. There isn’t really much room for debate about the fact that we need to help the homeless, or that as long as there is a single homeless person around we need to keep helping. Just like there isn’t about the fact that the sky is blue.

As for the Church doing nothing - I have to disagree strongly.

Mother Teresa’s order of nuns are a very strong presence in my neighbourhood, and do run a homeless shelter that helps a heck of a lot of people. They at least certainly don’t do so ‘on rare occasions’, but spend all day every day looking after the people in their shelter. There are also laypeople who volunteer a lot of their time and talents. Including people with very necessary skills like social workers, doctors, lawyers and the like.

I know for a fact that there are a large number of other homeless shelters and hostels, soup kitchens, thrift shops and so on run by the Catholic church in several other parts of the city too, all of which help the homeless as their business, not just as an afterthought.

Including a very largescale and influential youth homelessness program started up by a Catholic priest. He has personally gone, for example, rough areas where street violence flares up in order to help put a stop to it - and been highly successful in getting short and long term solutions for youth up and running.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Homelessness is a complicated thing, and one size does not fit all.

Some really are people who are temporarily down on their luck. That’s a fact. Some do need job skills, but most of the ones who go to the shelters around here, anyway, are simply down on their luck temporarily.

There are private efforts to help the homeless. I know of some landlords who give otherwise homeless people a shot at a new life with free rent for awhile. Usually those people are referred by churches.

The “Habitat for Humanity” folks I have seen are usually able to rent. They just want to own a home, so people try to get that done for them.

The most intractable segment of the homeless (and perhaps the largest number) are those who are really not sane. Because our courts have declared that they must have the “least restrictive environment”, that usually means the street. The facilities that housed so many of them in times past, have closed.

One of my daughters is an RN who worked for some time in a psych ward. It’s a revolving door for the most part. The police pick up homeless people for one reason or another, usually having to do with conduct that threatens the person or others, and bring them to the hospital on a 96 hour hold. The providers there work with them; clean them up, feed them, get them on the right meds, get their heads working straight again. But they all leave, usually after the hold expires, and they’re out on the street again. They usually make it for awhile, but then they come back, and the hospital people start all over again.

And most of them actually receive some kind of supportive financial aid, or could qualify for it, including housing support. But if you think you’re Batman when you’re not taking your meds (one of my daughter’s favorite recurrent patients) and nobody can insist that you do beyond 96 hours, income support and the availability of housing support and medical care are meaningless.

It’s the lack of serious, even coercive, supervision that actually causes so many of them to be homeless. Some of the judges who felt so good about their “least restrictive environment” rulings, should be obliged to spend 96 hours with Batman, or the guy who sometimes thinks he’s the Angel Gabriel or the one who sometimes thinks Satan talks to him daily and tells him to do things he can’t resist doing.

I’ll admit that in small towns, there are few homeless people and the meds problem can usually be solved by constant attention and persuasion that borders on coercion, because everybody knows who’s who and the advocacy groups aren’t there to thwart it. But the larger the town, the bigger the problem is.

 

[JimG]

There was a period of time some decades ago when asylums for the mentally incompetent were largely closed down, because it was considered against those persons’ rights to hold them against their will or to require them to be institutionalized. The result was that most of them ended up on the streets.

But the Church does help a lot. In my city, the diocese operates a diner which is open to anyone for one free meal a day, no questions asked, no paperwork to fill out. Bring the family. It’s a great help to the homeless and those who have been laid off or are just down on their luck. There are nearly 6,000 volunteers who serve these meals. It’s the equivalent to a large restaurant operation, and those who come are treated as guests.

But it is true that the homeless often tend to be invisible to us, as do the unborn. It’s easy to ignore both groups.

 

[St_Francis]

…We don’t have threads about homelessness (or not many), sure - but having a thread about it is a bit like having a thread about the fact that the sky is blue. There isn’t really much room for debate about the fact that we need to help the homeless, or that as long as there is a single homeless person around we need to keep helping. Just like there isn’t about the fact that the sky is blue…

I agree about this.

Where I used to live, there were a lot of homeless people. And I did little things like donating clothes to the shelter, etc (this was before I was Catholic and still young–and boy do I regret those wasted hours when I could have been doing more!). But looking at this, I think that a lot of people do little things, like donating clothes, and others do more, like volunteering at shelters.

At the same time, other people who might not be doing very much for homeless people *are *doing things for *other *people. So I know someone who teaches English to immigrants, and someone else who runs the local Meals-on-Wheels program, and someone else who works with families hit by domestic violence, all unpaid volunteer labor. So, you can’t really condemn them for not helping the homeless, because they are called to help *other *people in need of help.

 

[St_Francis]

…Cut the work week to 20 hours so everybody has a part time job, raise taxs and build more universities and the other 20 hours we would be working would be spent in school in whatever subject chosen.

Used to be that a family would have one person (usually the father) working, and this freed the mother to do a lot of volunteer work. That was kind of like each of them working 20 hours a week.

Unfortunately, with changes to our society, it is now necessary for all too many wives to work as well, not so they can buy a yacht but so they can pay for basic living expenses. This is because mainly housing and health care have become so incredibly expensive.

Create a culture of philosophers scientists theologians, artists writers ect,. Utopia is acivable it just takes sacrifice and giving up the consumer me me me lifestyle the wester world has created.

Utopia is not achievable without God, and even with Him, I’m not sure it’s His will on this earth.