Close Up The Cracks

My Opinion Piece

I commented the other day how uncomfortable I was near a homeless encampment. The lovely grove of trees separating high speeds from slow parkers was always nice to enjoy between the interstate and a parking lot. I have sat in its shade before and munched on a sandwich at lunch.

Not anymore.

The space had been invaded! Homeless! It was not a shelter. There was no order, and the police were standing by, prepared to disentangle the situation. It was dirty, crowded, ugly, and easily confused with mental disease. Drugs, I’m sure, filled the tents. The only way they survive? Crime is normal, including bodily harm to each other, innocent bystanders, and surrounding neighborhoods.

At my age and perhaps approaching a time I’m less able to defend myself, I walked into the store I had come to shop at. I won’t let that obtrusive moment keep me from supporting a store I enjoy browsing through. I may buy something, but the ideas fill my mind as I scan the aisles. I refuse to give into fear. Nor will I express revulsion, “But for the Grace of God…there go I.” The camp would not keep me from my support of a local business.

Needless to say, inside, security guards were watching the encampment and parking lot. Crafters and homemakers were eyeing the camp as they walked from their cars. Kids in tow. Strollers. Clutching their loved ones closely.

Chatting through the moment, I realized that many do not have the ability to live normally. With mental illness, disease, drugs, and incapable of maintaining minimum decorum, many on the sidelines of life have slipped through the cracks of life.

I personally know people like this. Call it Tough Love and turn your back on them, or give into the need and once again step into the trial and do what you can to help.

We think the “government” will solve all our woes, but their only answer is to spend millions more of our hard-earned tax dollars to buy aging hotels and convert them to shelters for those attempting to leave their former life. One motel, where a youngster used to tell us how to spell church, “M-O-T-E-L,” was where our church used to meet. It was just converted into such a place – surrounded by retail businesses, mom-and-pop, and megastores. These new occupants will hopefully reacquaint themselves with normal life.

Yes. If you can believe it, it will be so. Right? Not so quickly.

The only way to close this crack of life requires more services than simply a dry sleeping area. I’ve been close to these homeless individuals. They need physical cleaning, clothes, and medical support. Some need to be weaned from the drugged-out world they might have been living in and the ability to reenter the job market to earn a living and step back into society whole.

Cracks are only closed when the support system deals
with the entire person and not just one feature of the crisis.

Equally, filling cracks is not an overnight fix. Keeping the system working will take months and years of constant attention. A tracking system to note each person by their needs and not just lumped into a number where another million dollars will help.

Go back to my opening description.

As they cleared the encampment, the government backfilled the space with jaggedly huge rocks from a local quarry. Perhaps one way of fixing the crack is to fill it up so it cannot be reclaimed. What happens next? The campers will load up and move to another location – perhaps one where they’ve been through a previous clearing out before. Or a new place.

If we keep filling the cracks, we only move the problem across the street, down the road, and shout, Hallelujah! NIMBY – Not in my backyard!

What do we do?

This is an honest question that I’m asking. I do not have the answer. Washington State, my home away from home, has just carved out 1.1 billion dollars for the next three years. Surely that will help, right? Programs, housing, and other services will cost money, but are we just spending the money without putting fixes into place?

Of course, money is not the fix. Services can only work if the homeless will avail themselves of the opportunity. But that’s not happening. Many do not want help because of the rules and restrictions. They do not want to stay in the same situation either.

Wait! That’s a crack between the obvious and the unknown that needs to be addressed.

Do you have a solution? I’m curious. This is not a new problem. Do we need to spend more dollars or do we have a better idea?

The story is told of a man walking the beach and thousands of starfish lay on the sand, dying as the sun rose higher. A young boy picked them up and tossed them back into the ocean. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t save them all. You are not making a difference!” With one in hand, the little boy looks at the man as he tosses the starfish back to safety, “To this one I am.”

Maybe the answer is closing the crack of one and not trying to put the “whole” into the same solution. I’m not sure. But maybe you have the answer.

John 12:8 NKJV

For the poor you have with you always,
but Me you do not have always.”

Deuteronomy 15:11 NKJV

For the poor will never cease from the land;
therefore I command you, saying,
‘You shall open your hand wide to your brother,
to your poor and your needy, in your land.’

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