We, the Homeless, Also Vote

With an election coming up and funds almost gone for any housing initiatives for the homeless, it is safe to say that no homeless person can afford to ignore the significance of what will happen once the outcome of the election becomes final. However, the surprising part is that the homeless remain a population without a voice. Should the homeless population just allow the election to pass as if it were a drawing of the lottery?

I have looked at all the posters of upcoming events. Not one deals with the plight of the homeless and the attention or lack of same that either party claims to offer. The closest I have seen to a rally for the homeless concerns a rally to protest changes in Section 8. The only change envisioned is to eliminate it, thanks to tax cuts that were supposed to “trickle down” to lower income levels. Has anyone in the shelters or on the streets felt the trickle yet? I would be surprised if they had!

In staff meetings at my shelter, I have heard many discussions on various topics regarding the ongoing operations at the shelter but never a word about the upcoming election, an election that could endanger its very existence. I have seen no show of support for a candidate based upon his platform of support to end homelessness when that is of paramount importance to all the persons residing at the shelter, whether past, present, or future. The issue is something that merits discussion, as I have also not heard the problem of homelessness being stressed to any large extent by either candidate – not that any of us could believe either one of them. Bush has done nothing but dry up public funds in four years, and he has shown little concern for the problem of homelessness except for some token lip service. However, Kerry has also not given a convincing argument that he would do things differently except when it comes to helping veterans; most of his talk regarding eliminating homelessness has been grouped in together with a general anti-poverty campaign that is old news for most Americans, as we have heard such promises many times in the past. Without a visible showing that the homeless population is a population with which politicians must reckon real time, the chances are overwhelming that, come what may in the election, the homeless will remain in their same hopeless situation as before, and Section 8 may not be the only program that dies in the process.

Can the homeless afford to lose this opportunity to step forward and be noticed? The numbers of homeless persons, especially families, are growing by leaps and bounds, and never has there been a time as opportune as the present for the homeless to become a political force in the United States. While people on the street will walk by a homeless person who stops to ask for a handout – and in Washington, DC, that phenomenon is well known to anyone who enters the District – it is not so easy to ignore throngs of persons who have no place to live and frequently face dilemmas that are being ignored by the persons who purport to assist them.

When HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson made the statement on May 20. 2004 that “being poor is a state of mind, not a condition,” the homeless were silent, probably because they had lost hope of anything improving. Had the homeless population been present when Secretary Jackson made his subsequent statement – that his father taught him that being poor was a state of mind because there was always “hope” that you can improve your economic conditions – they might have then been motivated to speak up in protest. The homeless, instead, remained silent, partly because they were not present, largely because most of them have already given up all hope, because nobody seems to be on their side.

That silence is keeping the homeless from finding a solution to the chronic problem of homelessness in the United States. I, too, know how demoralizing it is to be homeless and not to see any hope in the future. I know what it means to be so depressed that getting up in the morning does not seem worth the effort because nothing will change for the better. I have also heard the “boo hoo” catcalls from the so-called “compassionate conservatives” of our time and know that if the homeless does not speak out to make its voice heard, the homeless will remain homeless forever.

I would also warn the homeless to be wary of assuming that the political Left is an ally. I saw just how true that was in 2003 when Montgomery County, MD, known to be a liberal county, told me without hesitation that they “do not give shelters to men, only to women and children.” Because men make up the majority of the homeless population, as opposed to their minority status in the general population, such a policy is both discriminatory and hostile toward any person seeking to eliminate the problem of homelessness. Help does not necessarily come from any particular political party; help comes from people who know what is right and just in life.

We still have two months left. We can still make ourselves heard. Who’s with me on this? I’m talking about actual action, not just letters to the editor. How many seriously want to see homelessness ended? The reactions that I get – or do not get – will tell me how many people truly are serious about wanting to see the end of homelessness in our time.

Published in Street Sense, September 2004.