It Is Our Responsibility.

I’ve noticed, it would be almost impossible to ignore, that most efforts to combat homelessness don’t really address helping the homeless. It is as if the homeless and not homelessness is the real problem. They don’t mind the homeless, they would just like them to be less conspicuous about it. Maybe, they could be homeless someplace else, someplace not so obvious. Then the problem would be solved. Little real effort is made to fight the causes of homelessness. 

Nobody chooses to be homeless, sleeping under awnings hoping the rain doesn’t soak everything you own, pressed against the side of a building trying to find a little warmth or relief from the sweltering heat and humidity. Making sure you are up and have everything you owned stuffed into garbage bags and hidden from view before people arrive and force you to leave. Nobody chooses that. 

According to Reuters a U.N. Human Rights Investigator “Poverty in the United States is extensive and is deepening under the Trump administration whose policies seem aimed at removing the safety net from millions of poor, while rewarding the rich.” Welfare benefits and health insurance are being slashed, and more people are forced to choose between food and medicine and paying their rent. 

Almost 41 million Americans live in poverty, 18.5 million live in extreme poverty. Americans “live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies.” Of course, these are not new, nor are they exclusively the result of Trump’s policies, but his insistence on pulling the safety net out from under those who are most at risk has increased the number of people who can no longer afford a place to live. Since Johnson’s war on poverty American policy has been “neglectful, at best.” And, the Trump administration has promised to dismantle almost every benefit or promise of security. And with the republican majority there’s no reason to doubt his intentions.

On a more personal note, I have seen these people. I walk the streets of downtown, and I hand them a dollar, or a granola bar, sometimes a cup of coffee. I have looked into their eyes, and seen the absolute hopelessness that is consuming them. It drags them down, compresses them, making them fit into a small, easily ignored, stooped little package, sitting against the side of a huge building. 

They are dwarfed by the size of the surroundings, the flow of traffic, the immensity of their problem. They have been reduced to insignificance, and trivia. But, if you take a minute, and look they are people, people who at one time had dreams and hopes, a life.

What they have become lessens all of us. What has happened to them affects everybody. What drove them to this silent, desperate, hell belongs to our whole country. We, as a nation, need to do better. We need to vote in November with the goal of returning compassion to power. It is our duty, it may be our most important responsibility.

Starts well, ends in despair.

Variety is the spice of life, true, but it is hard to bottle. Impossible to sell, and the demand today is almost non existent. Travel almost anywhere and there is a McDonalds, and business is booming. A Big Mac will taste the same in Miami FL and Seattle WA, and everywhere in between. It isn't healthy, normally it isn't very fast and it reeks of conformity.

One of my coworkers eats the same thing for lunch every day. It makes him happy. He knows where he is going, he knows what he is going to order, no long drawn out decisions. When I go out to eat it is torture. I agonize over the menu, fish tacos or a tuna melt panini? And then the minute the wait person walks away I regret my choice. "Oh, if only I would have gone with the buffalo, blue cheese chicken grill then I could be happy." But, it wouldn't work. My sons won't even go out to eat with me anymore. Maybe they can't stand my suffering.

My wife will still go out to eat with me. She has perfected the art of refining silence. We have been married a long time and she knows when to stop listening and when to start. I can worry, and sweat, and internally debate the virtues of various side dishes and she will nod, smile and thank the gods of happiness she found someone who is so keenly aware of the potential varieties of life. Or something like that.

I know, though, outside my little bubble of indecision the world marches on. Exactly the way it
always has. Young men, children, really, are sent to die in foreign countries for reasons that defy explanation. But, it has always been that way.  So, it will always have to be that way. Dull, dreary, consistency, nothing changes. Nobody asks why.

In the building where I work there is a door we hardly ever use. It is in a shallow recess, maybe three feet deep. It is a perfect place to sleep, if you don't take into account that it is outdoors, in the middle of downtown. But, it will keep most of the wind and rain off the cardboard boxes that will soften the stern, uncaring concrete. Last week there was a man with a wheel chair that made his way up the shallow ramp and called the little man made cave home. Today there was a child, so innocent looking, so young, he should have been talking about the classes he was taking in high school. But he was sleeping outside, no where to go. It is that way every year until winter's deadly cold drives them someplace they can light fires and huddle together for warmth. Mind numbing routine, unchanging patterns of bleakness so dark most people ignore them. But, they are there, obvious, all you need to do is look. And nobody asks why?

"We can't help everyone, Tim" People tell me."We can't help anyone," is always my reply. And then I ask "why not?" and nobody can answer.

The Homeless and Empty Houses

Empty house.

I sit here at my notebook gazing out the window idly gazing at the empty house at the end of our street asking myself how is it fair with all the homeless we have in this state and town it can remain so.

From what I understand and I won't quote what I heard it was selling for but it's supposedly for people who are on a low income. In fact, it's through an agency that we have applied to and got approved, waiting for our turn. We are on a waiting list. A very long waiting list.

Before, a very old house that was falling apart stood where this brand new house is sitting now. We all listened and watched as the workers demolished the old house warning the neighborhood kids to stay away from that area. That was 2 summers ago. I'm sorry the picture is so dark but once again we have some very dark clouds hovering over St. Johnsbury.

I decided to google and see what was going on and I found "172 homeless children in Chittenden County alone". 

I find a story about a family being homeless.  This family had fallen on hard times. Then I run across an article 25 percent more homeless in Vermont than in 2012.

It just goes on and on but here I sit staring at a 2-bedroom brand new house with an adjourning garage that has been sitting empty for at least two years. I just don't get it.

What are your thoughts about homelessness? I love stories so do tell.