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Homelessness -- The Bare Facts
By Knoxville Daily Sun Staff
I spent most of my day on Sunday speaking with a 27-year-old female, 3-year UT student who spends her days at the library, trying to find a job/hope and sleeping in her car.
If you can sing, write
a song about it and sing it loud. If you’re a millionaire, make a meal or create a job, if
you’re a writer, find and write the truth. The list goes on to touch every
single one of you. You know what you can do. Do you need someone to say, “it’s
time?” Okay, it’s time.
With all the research, band-aids,
stats, organizations, ten-year plans and all the political and business focus, why
is no one asking the experts? Our normal “business as usual” society looks for
truth in numbers then celebrates finding the numbers while applying for
government grants that produce larger numbers to apply for bigger grants. The
numbers they study and report were supposed to create solutions, but they
didn’t. They didn’t even create an accurate awareness.
No solution has yet been drawn up
or planned because the people we hand the numbers to don’t know what to do. I
compare this predicament to a doctor who focuses on medicating the symptoms of
the problem while never fixing what is causing the symptoms. They’re all
looking at numbers which, in most cases, are inaccurate and treating human
beings as if they’re a piece of the stock market.
The answers to these problems are
held in the very hearts and minds of the homeless and poverty stricken people
of East Tennessee, but they don’t wear Armani suits and diamond bracelets. They
might have at some point in their life but the suits and bracelets have been
pawned or sold years ago while becoming a part of their downward spiral. The unspoken
assumption is “The homeless couldn’t possibly know what the solution is;
otherwise, they wouldn’t be homeless, would they?”
That is not a correct assumption.
Being a victim of the problem does make you an expert on the
problem. We are assuming that the person was in control of their circumstances
and, in most cases, our assumption is very wrong.
It was usually one bitter
circumstance after another until the control they once held over their own
lives no longer existed. The majority of the homeless and poor people in East
Tennessee want and need control over their own life and perhaps the lives of
their families. That means the acknowledgement and appreciation of the very
human being. It means a decent job that gives them the opportunity to save some
money and prepare for emergencies. It means health care. It means standing up
to big business and corporate greed. That’s it. In the meantime, they have to
eat and find some sort of shelter against the cold; therefore, the immediate
focus is on emergency needs to survive until they can somehow gain control.
The leading causes progressing
the homeless population are the bad economy, drug and alcohol use, mental and physical
health problems, the nonfunctioning American healthcare system, domestic
violence and plain old simple bad luck. Each is relative to the other.
A physical health problem relates
to the health care system, which relates to the economy and the declining job
market. A person who spent their life learning their trade suddenly finds
themselves with their life savings spent on medical bills and no income.
Every other aspect of their life
becomes part of a downward spiral until they’re left with nothing.
A person can easily be pushed from
middle class to poverty while doing everything in their power to survive.
Naturally the leading cause of
the increasing homeless population is the economy, but it’s rooted in the lack
of support and simply being born into conditions that increase the odds of
failure.
Imagine for a moment that you
were born under conditions that weren’t completely ideal yet you worked hard, managing
to make a decent life for yourself.
However, one day it happened. You were injured on the job or the company
that you gave your life to decides to call it quits.
From there one could say it’s
time to find another job with another company, but they’re all getting hit by
the same bad economy and no one is hiring. From there you could say it’s time to
learn a new trade or career; however, with no money to feed themselves who is
going to pay for school ? Even if they mange to get student assistance, how are
they supposed to feed and house themselves in the meantime? All energy is then focused
on pure survival with food topping the priority list. The choice is eventually
made. You can survive without a roof and, in most cases, you can survive without
your medication, but you cannot survive without food.
The landlord is close at hand with an eviction notice.
Today there are thousands of
people in our community with their heads in their hands praying that the
economy gets better or they’ll get some kind of break or good fortune. They
turn to politicians, the media and local business people who hand them numbers.
Imagine, after 20 years with your
company you find yourself with the inability to get out of bed and make coffee because
you slipped a disk yesterday while attempting to keep your balance on a
300-foot scaffold. How are you supposed to get to work and, once there, how are
you supposed to go back to laboring? From here, as doctor bills, prescriptions,
and everyday bills dwindle any savings or assets, life becomes one tragedy
after another and you find yourself downgrading into poverty. No one is going
to hire a crippled person or risk the lawsuit that you attempted to file
against your former employer. It’s too late anyway. You can’t afford a good
lawyer, and the company you worked for has folded and filed for bankruptcy.
You still have to eat. Your brand
new used broken down trailer still comes with rent and utility bills. For the
majority of people, public assistance is a laughable joke and you are one step
away from the streets. Yesterday you had it all. Today you are broken and
scared, but the very topper is that seemingly no one seems to understand or
care. You’re seen as lazy or stupid and lumped into a percentage of Americans
that society doesn’t know what to do with.
If you think it can’t happen to
you, think again.
I could use a million different
scenarios, but the point is to show you that it could be you. Ironically,
concerning my own study, one of the leading causes of homelessness is the fact
that no one seems to understand it or pay it much mind until they themselves
are faced with it. At that they wake up to the reality of the situation. By
then you’ve lost all power, and no one wants to hear or deal with you. From
there you are apt to discover sure-fire ways to stop or slow down the problem
but you have no power. You’re barely seen as human. Any creativity turns to a
percentage, and you’re ignored and voiceless.
You’ve gone from a little bit of
power that you should have used from the start to a declining power to no power
at all. The key would be to use your power and your voice and your
understanding while you have it. To use it when you’ve lost everything is
shamefully impossible. Once you’ve hit bottom and are out on the streets it’s
nothing but wall after wall after wall where no one seems to be clearing any
path or doing much more than providing emergency assistance. Where is the
government money going? What are the politicians and business people doing?
Now you never again have to
wonder why there’s so much anger on the streets. Can you really blame them? Are
you saying you wouldn’t be angry too? To hear that only makes the people more
frustrated and further proves that you don’t understand. They would use that
energy to help us all understand it and solve the problem, but they don’t have
that opportunity. There’s simply no choice but to try to numb it, escape it,
use it for negative outlets or just stop caring about any of it. Any way you
look at it it’s a sad, potentially explosive time bomb.
Even with public assistance and the ever-increasing cost of
living, a poverty-stricken person often has to make the choice between food and
rent.
When push comes to shove
it’s not a choice at all. While you can survive without a roof you simply
cannot survive without food. Already living in dire circumstances, the poor
person is often one illness or one meal away from the streets. While forced into
a position where simple everyday necessities have to be dropped, the poverty-stricken
human being is living on borrowed time. If their car should break down, if
their roof should cave in, if their child should get sick, if they lose their
job, if almost anything, they will find themselves on the streets
At an increasing rate, they do every
single day.
You would think that the poor economy
would force the American system to have some kind of heart and help their own
people by actually lowering their profit margins and lowering their prices to
make the cost of living more affordable, but, in most cases, it just doesn’t
happen. While the average American person struggles to survive grocery stores,
landlords and utility companies continue to raise their prices and expose what
they are truly concerned about. With the somewhat insane housing market of the past
20 years, the cost of housing has become out of reach for many human beings. At
the same time wages and benefits for the average, hard working blue collar
people have declined. The entire United States seems to be catering to the
wealthy while every other class does nothing but suffer and continue to
downgrade to nothing.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
bravely exposes the truth of what is happening in America, but he’s only one
voice in a system that seems to be laughing at him. He’s been made out to be a radical but yet he speaks the truth. “Destroy the
middle class and continue to make the wealthy wealthier,” Sanders says. “Not
all of them,” Mr Sanders adds. “Some actually do care and want to help but most
are contributing to a horrible, rarely spoken tragedy that no one is doing
anything about.”
Health Care:
Although you don’t see it or hear about it people are dying every day on the
streets of America. In many cases, a homeless person can point directly to the
lack of health care coverage as their chief reason for being where they are. Doctors,
dentists and psychiatrists deplete any income at rapid rates at which point
one’s life can become a downward spiral to the streets. A sick person who can’t
afford a doctor is often unable to work, pay their bills or maintain any
resemblance of a normal existence. Once on the streets the bad health
progresses with the result often being the ultimate tragedy.
Alcohol:
Alcoholism is another issue that no one seems to understand or care about until
they are faced with it. It’s everywhere. It’s on the radio, TV, Internet, every
billboard, every convenience store, and every grocery store. You literally
cannot drive down the street without it being waved in your face and tempting
you. “It’s just another beer, it’s just another day, it’s just a 6 pack, and I
deserve it.”
Test what I’m saying. While
you’re reading this turn on your TV or radio and see if you can go 10 minutes
without hearing or seeing an alcohol ad. See if you can walk into a convenience
store or grocery store without seeing a big, bold, red beer sign. Try to drive
down any major two-lane road without seeing some sort of alcohol billboard or
sign. Now imagine that you have a serious problem which has destroyed your
entire life and you are trying to be strong and escape it. It’s impossible.
It’s everywhere.
The entire system
is set up to decrease the alcoholic’s chances for recovery.
The path for the recovering
alcoholic or drug addict needs to be cleared, and this area is completely up to
the politicians of our country. I am not blaming the politicians or the alcohol
companies, but it needs to be reevaluated just like the cigarette companies
were. Put control back into the hands of the recovering alcoholic and out of the
hands of big business.
Domestic Violence:
Half of homeless women report domestic violence as the number one reason for
their current condition. Most are simply fleeing from the problem while many
have been beaten into horrible mental and physical conditions. Their main issue
is that they never get a chance to recover. Like a runaway teen a woman
escaping abuse is screaming that she will no longer be a part of the dysfunction.
It’s a sign of strength and mental health.
It should be applauded and rewarded, but, in most cases,
they are seen as losers. Most return to the abusive husband because, although
it’s false hope, there’s more hope that the husband will change than there is
hope that society will care. Here again this path can be cleared.
There are people on the streets
who have incredible gifts and
talents that deserve to be recognized, heard, and appreciated. There’s a place
for all of us.
The streets are no
place for any of us. It’s colder than you could imagine, and I’m not just
referring to the weather.
Knoxville needs to take the lead
and other communities will follow. We need to adopt our own ethics, morals,
laws, plans, etc. and stop doing what everyone else is doing. It all needs to
be put in the hands of creative, intelligent people who understand the problem
because they’re close to the problem or have lived through the problem. We need
to watch out for our own people and force big business to create jobs in our
community instead of sucking the lifeblood out of our community. Our
politicians and business leaders need to clear paths not as a handout but as a
chance for the homeless to be in a position to help themselves. They could soon
be high bracket, voting, taxpayers.
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To close I will again say that
the answers are in the old man pushing the shopping cart down Broadway, the
lost runaway teen crying under the bridge, the lady at the library trying to
find hope, and the angry junkie shooting kerosene into his tongue. What you are
turning away from is someone who lost control of his or her own life. Ask them
what can be done. They’ll tell you, and they won’t hand you a paper full of
useless numbers. Don’t be scared. The answers and solutions are right in front
of you.
Now you’re going to try to find
your own hope and ask me if it’s possible. Can we really fix this? Thanks for
the smile. I wouldn’t be writing this if it weren’t possible. Your answer is:
absolutely.
A Closer Look at Homelessness in Knoxville
Published December 13, 2010 |