Editorial -- Homelessness
The criminalization of homelessness, and the ultimate capitulation
How is it that we allow our fellows to suffer as they do? They stand by, waiting for us at intersections, and showing us our hidden face. For that one minute while we wait impatiently for the light to change, we cannot avoid remembering the terrible choice we once had to make.
Homelessness is no quirk. It is an inevitable result of advanced industrial society. This is the painful lesson which every child faces when it leaves the protection of its family, but which some people refuse to learn.
It is a striking moment when you find out that hard-heartedness is the ruling principle in society. Acceptance of this fundamental rule is the price paid for success, and we are asked to make this ultimate capitulation early on. The best and most beautiful part of ourselves falls into a long retreat, able to express itself only in private situations. The fittest survive, and those who refuse to compete fail.
Not everyone is willing to take the route to success. It impinges too painfully on their noble nature. The status quo requires a state of submissiveness: of playing a minor role in a bureaucracy which is growing constantly larger and more invasive.
Homelessness is usually seen as a tangible social problem, caused by low wages and unaffordable housing, and a vast array of social service programs are in place to provide assistance. As is discussed in the page one article this month, this safety net does provide assistance of a certain kind: an external and superficial kind that addresses immediate physical needs but does nothing about the origin or the actual problem of homelessness.
The current Anchorage project to discourage citizens from giving money to panhandlers, and to make it illegal to do so when they stop at intersections, is an example of this superficial approach. The widely publicized effort, called Change for the Better, is sponsored by businessmen and supported by government officials. It is a step toward the criminalization of homelessness, the growth of our already bloated bureaucracies, and the depletion of human and moral capital.
Is it too much for us to imagine that the Establishment could think about causes rather than effects? The problem is the nature, meaning and truth of our culture. There is no easy fix to a problem that is founded on a fundamental principle of society. What we need is a culture of care and understanding.
It has been an inspiring challenge, in the process of developing this newspaper, to seek out the news of the real. It lays at our feet, it spreads out before us, but our eyes are shut and our heads are twisted away. We are constantly tempted by small and political interpretations of what are really human and spiritual problems.
There is a degraded and there is an elevated kind of homelessness. The degraded form is filth, addiction, and oblivion. The elevated form is nomadic spirituality, in which you give up everything for a time: tradition, material comfort, personal relationships. The painful isolation and elemental situations you find is often a necessary step for those who seek integrity, humility, and freedom.
Our homeless sleep on sidewalks next to million dollar buildings, confronting us with the original capitulation we ourselves made, and which threw us into conformity. Maybe the rejected ones and the ones who choose rejection are not planning the development of their immense potential and the revitalization of society, but this is a role that they could play.
What is the news of the homeless? The real news is of rejection, loss and potential, and of human (not political) solutions to the problems we all share because they are at the root of industrial society.