Benign Neglect

 

 

 

"Benign Neglect is walking on by. Benign Neglect is turning a blind eye or a deaf ear to this growing and vexing problem..."

 

The Dow surged 2% yesterday. Yea! The housing market is finally showing signs of healing. Double yea! The stubborn unemployment numbers are finally starting to go in the right direction. Yea all day long! The number of homeless people, including homeless youth, keep going up every month. Huh? I don't understand.

 

Welcome to the world of homelessness. A growing and often invisible problem. In the county I live in, which is typical of many outlying metro areas, homelessness is turning out to be a big issue. It is big, it is vexing,and it is growing.

 

My wife and I have been involved in an organization which helps homeless youth for about a year now. It has been an eye opening experience to say the least. My youngest daughter works for an organization which does outreach for the homeless in Minneapolis.

 

Whenever I try to explain homelessness to people who are trying to understand it, I often come up short. People tend to want crisp answers. They ask questions such as, "Why so many?" Or "Why can't somebody do something about it?" Or "Why can't they just find a cheap place to live?" Or for homeless youth, "What is wrong with the parents?"

 

What we have found out in the past year is there are non-simple answers to these tough questions. Basically, there are as many reasons for someone becoming homeless as one can imagine. A few choose this lifestyle - the majority do not. For many today, being homeless is only a missed paycheck or an unexpected expense away. In addition, some have an untreated mental illness on top of everything else. Because the causes of homelessness are so complex, solving this pervasive problem will not be easy. It will take a collaborative effort of many in our community.

 

Yesterday afternoon, I was at a community meeting at a local church. It was widely attended by faith organizations, local government, county government, law enforcement and non-profits. It was the first of what become regularly scheduled meetings which will attempt to craft solutions to put "meat on the bones" in solving homelessness. It was time well spent - I am looking forward to the next meeting and beyond.

 

My take away from this meeting is only one part of many parts which are needed to starting turning the tide on homelessness. We as a community, be it local, state or nationally, need to become intolerant. Not intolerant of the people who are affected by homelessness - rather intolerant that homelessness exists at all. In other words, we need to stop the practice of benign neglect. Stop ignoring homelessness, and hoping it will go away. Stop trying to transfer the homeless to someplace else so it will be a problem for some other community to deal with. No, we together need to become so staunchly intolerant of homelessness, that we will fix it now, and we will fix it here.

 

I strongly encourage people who don't know much about homelessness, or would like to know more about it, to do some Google searching. You will be amazed at how much information is out there. How many organizations have already joined the fight in combating this growing problem. As big as the efforts to combat homelessness are now, much more help is needed. If this issue tugs at your heart, please consider joining us. Remember - most who are homeless, are just like us. Most did not chose to live this way. Nobody should have to live this way.