Editorial Overload

One thing I can say with total honesty about writing my editorial column: I never suffer from what is known as writers’ block: the phenomenon of not being able to find anything to write about. Being a homeless male who ended up on the streets because family courts do not regard fathers as a viable life form, I have more than enough topics that invoke in me moral outrage, especially as most of them have hurt me personally. The problem is in deciding which topic to choose for an editorial. That is the struggle I face each month.

Should I first explore the topic of how the core service agencies refuse to acknowledge the obvious fact that most people end up homeless because of legal problems? Do an intake with any core service agency; if you don’t get your head bitten off for saying you need legal help, consider yourself lucky. Right away, you’re told that it’s your problem, that no core service agency will help you, and that the DC Department of Mental Health – that picture of mental health – will not allow it. So then you have to go it alone. The one thing you’ll discover soon enough is that all the legal clinics that purport to cater to the homeless have one thing in common: they all say “no” with amazing swiftness. Whether it’s “We can’t take your case,” with “can’t” replacing the more honest “won’t”, or “we’re overbooked,” meaning, “We just don’t want to bother with you,” or “Your case is very complicated,” meaning, “Who would want to take the political risk of a case that might ask the question, ‘Why do we have a Constitution?’”, everyone can expect rejection to be the norm. If someone should accept your case, you should wonder what’s wrong that they took it. I’ve heard all the major legal clinics who purport to deal with the homeless give me their excuses for not accepting my case, and what I understand is that the 501(c)(3) status means that the persons who are supposed to benefit from the services provided are the ones who generate profits for the nonprofits by being denied services.

Maybe I should talk about the medical services given to the homeless? Now that’s a topic that’s always bursting at the seams with possibilities. Most homeless persons begin by having DC Healthcare Alliance as their medical insurance. DC Alliance is actually a great idea, and it’s a shame that the rest of the country cannot have a similar program for the uninsured. However, no sooner does a person become homeless, at the same time, most case managers will push the homeless person to apply for Medicaid. Should that person be approved for Medicaid, DC Alliance coverage ends without warning. It is at that time that the person discovers the ugly truth: that DC Medicaid, a federal program, covers less than DC Alliance and even less than Medicaid in other jurisdictions. In addition, DC Medicaid has all sorts of bureaucratic requirements that only a government-sponsored healthcare program could have. Already the homeless person who has gone this route is wondering if someone is trying to convey a very grim message.

Then comes the deplorable state of healthcare in the District, a situation from which every resident of Washington, DC suffers. The city government continues to close hospitals, causing backups in the remaining hospitals. I have many horrific memories to live down in DC hospitals, as do many others. Whether it was sitting for hours at Washington Hospital Center, only to have a nurse ask me, “Do you know what they plan to do with you?”, being given a bus token at 3:15am at George Washington Hospital with the words, “You have to go now,” being told by Providence Hospital that they cannot give me a letter confirming an existing diagnosis because they have to re-examine me and re-diagnose me first – makes me wonder why they have patient records at all – all my experiences have convinced me that Washington, DC is not the place to be if a person needs medical attention.

A really touchy subject is feeding the homeless. This topic is a hot potato for sure – and the potato isn’t even edible in most cases. Talking about the DC Central Kitchen is risky, but when City Paper published an article in which a former director made the comment that “the homeless will eat anything,” the institution became suspect in the eyes of the homeless population, and rightly so. For those persons who are not willing to risk one of the taste treats from the DC Central Kitchen, the other options in the city are, well, options but not exactly reliable. The sandwich trucks usually have good sandwiches and soup, but it’s not possible to predict when “usually” will not apply. Some of the other outlets, such as SOME, vary in quality. Anyone with special dietary requirements is as good as dead; the attitude is that you might as well die and stop bothering others with your demands. When one considers that food stamp allowances for singles in the District range from $109 for a person receiving municipal disability assistance to $141 for a person receiving food stamps only – and considerably less for someone receiving income from Social Security – the prospects are grim indeed, especially if a person does not have proper cooking facilities, and many homeless persons do not.

Employment is a topic too difficult to deal with here. The problem that many homeless persons must rely on day labor to survive is painful enough, especially when often those day jobs include assisting in evicting someone from a residence; in effect, the homeless must make other persons homeless as well for a few paltry dollars and no benefits. Finding employment in the current job market is difficult enough, but when an employer sees a shelter address on a résumé or calls up a candidate at a shelter telephone number, suddenly the candidate ceases to exist. In the case in which a candidate must call an employer but does not have access to a telephone, the problem is exacerbated even more. Even in places where they permit candidates to use the telephone, usually the time limit is absurdly short – three to five minutes at the most, when the candidate is usually put on hold for at least ten minutes – so finding work becomes a pipe dream.

And then, the topic that makes the homeless homeless: housing. Words fail me on this topic, as one spokesperson for the DC Council has already said “the situation for the homeless is hopeless.” It is when a person relates to how the homeless are to find housing that the word “absurdity” takes on new meaning. I will never forget how once I was urged to rent a room in a rooming house without taking into consideration that I had no way to pay the rent and without telling me that I would lose my priority status for public housing if I did so. This topic, however, merits its own editorial, not just a paragraph in one.

The question that remains with me always is: does nobody else see that there is no system? Does nobody realize that the homeless will remain homeless when they have nothing to look forward to but chaos? Unfortunately, I know the answer: aside from the homeless themselves, nobody cares. There is no room for further discussion.

Published in Street Sense, August 2004.

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.