No Joy in Mudville
It is a sad day for the homeless of America. Admittedly, most of the world was hoping that the American people would have the foresight to vote out George W. Bush; around the world, the sentiments were overwhelmingly in favor of a change in the Presidency. That change will not take place, and only roughly half the nation is happy about the stagnation that will result.
For the homeless, the future looks bleak indeed. The past four years saw almost every program that was designed to help the homeless die of starvation. Funds for housing vouchers dried up. The “compassionate conservative” refrain of “get a job” ignored the obstacles that the homeless face to getting a job, let alone to retaining a job when fighting the battle of survival on the streets. If anything, a society of haves and have-nots will become even more polarized in the future as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
The homeless population is a population that has no real advocates. The organizations that claim to help the homeless usually help themselves first, with the homeless being their justification for existence but little more than that. Instead of working toward empowering the homeless so that they can fend for themselves one day, the government ignores the homeless and the organizations for the homeless keep the homeless dependent upon their help. The only time the homeless are remembered seems to be when a ready supply of cheap labor is needed; futureless day-labor jobs that pay little and offer no benefits are what provide the pocket change that are what keep many homeless people alive. Because workers have no real protection under the law in the United States, the reality is legalized slavery.
How much longer will this situation continue? Nobody can be sure. While the television series The West Wing mentions the homeless often enough, the Bush administration has shown very little empathy for the plight of the middle class, let alone the homeless population, so for at least four more years, there seems to be no bright spot on the horizon. For a person on the street, four days is a long time; four years is an eternity, and one that many will not survive.
Historically, most social welfare reforms have been engineered and implemented by liberal politicians, and therein lies the problem that the homeless face today. Prior to the Bush-Dukakis election in 1988, “liberal” was not a dirty word; it once was almost synonymous with “progressive,” a positive concept. It took Bush Sr. to turn the term “liberal” into a mortal insult. Suddenly membership in the American Civil Liberties Union, originally a Republican-backed organization, was a mark of disgrace. The campaign that Bush Sr. led against Michael Dukakis focused almost exclusively on negative viewpoints taken toward actions that Dukakis had taken during his years in public service, with the label “liberal” stuck on as the identifier of all things evil. Regretfully, that label is still today identified as something that threatens the American way of life when, in fact, the American way of life would collapse without the programs that liberal politicians put in place.
Meanwhile, people pass by the homeless on the streets, pretending that they are not there, hoping that they will go away, wondering why someone does not do something to get them off the streets – although the “something” they have in mind is more in the way of incarceration than empowerment. The notion of helping a homeless person become productive again just never seems to come up; the only thought is “out of my face, out of my mind.” People who have never been homeless fail to realize how many obstacles exist toward ending homelessness. Once a person is on the street, getting off the street will almost always require some form of help from outside, but when the wrong kind of help is there, chronic homelessness becomes an inescapable reality. The “compassionate conservative” who thinks that day-labor jobs will ultimately solve the problem is too naïve to consider seriously, because day-labor jobs are little more than band-aids on gushing arteries; they can never do the job adequately.
I noticed that on November 3, the gloom seemed pervasive among most of the homeless persons I met in Washington. It was easy to understand them.
So for the moment, everyone waits for nothing to happen. Everyone knows nothing will happen, because nothing has happened in the past four years, and nothing will happen in the next four years. Either they will go to sit on a park bench, waiting to die, or they will go elsewhere and wait for the same. The re-election of George W. Bush has signaled a new era of hopelessness for a population that had already more than enough reasons to give up hope.
There is no joy in Mudville; mighty Kerry has struck out.
For the homeless, the future looks bleak indeed. The past four years saw almost every program that was designed to help the homeless die of starvation. Funds for housing vouchers dried up. The “compassionate conservative” refrain of “get a job” ignored the obstacles that the homeless face to getting a job, let alone to retaining a job when fighting the battle of survival on the streets. If anything, a society of haves and have-nots will become even more polarized in the future as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
The homeless population is a population that has no real advocates. The organizations that claim to help the homeless usually help themselves first, with the homeless being their justification for existence but little more than that. Instead of working toward empowering the homeless so that they can fend for themselves one day, the government ignores the homeless and the organizations for the homeless keep the homeless dependent upon their help. The only time the homeless are remembered seems to be when a ready supply of cheap labor is needed; futureless day-labor jobs that pay little and offer no benefits are what provide the pocket change that are what keep many homeless people alive. Because workers have no real protection under the law in the United States, the reality is legalized slavery.
How much longer will this situation continue? Nobody can be sure. While the television series The West Wing mentions the homeless often enough, the Bush administration has shown very little empathy for the plight of the middle class, let alone the homeless population, so for at least four more years, there seems to be no bright spot on the horizon. For a person on the street, four days is a long time; four years is an eternity, and one that many will not survive.
Historically, most social welfare reforms have been engineered and implemented by liberal politicians, and therein lies the problem that the homeless face today. Prior to the Bush-Dukakis election in 1988, “liberal” was not a dirty word; it once was almost synonymous with “progressive,” a positive concept. It took Bush Sr. to turn the term “liberal” into a mortal insult. Suddenly membership in the American Civil Liberties Union, originally a Republican-backed organization, was a mark of disgrace. The campaign that Bush Sr. led against Michael Dukakis focused almost exclusively on negative viewpoints taken toward actions that Dukakis had taken during his years in public service, with the label “liberal” stuck on as the identifier of all things evil. Regretfully, that label is still today identified as something that threatens the American way of life when, in fact, the American way of life would collapse without the programs that liberal politicians put in place.
Meanwhile, people pass by the homeless on the streets, pretending that they are not there, hoping that they will go away, wondering why someone does not do something to get them off the streets – although the “something” they have in mind is more in the way of incarceration than empowerment. The notion of helping a homeless person become productive again just never seems to come up; the only thought is “out of my face, out of my mind.” People who have never been homeless fail to realize how many obstacles exist toward ending homelessness. Once a person is on the street, getting off the street will almost always require some form of help from outside, but when the wrong kind of help is there, chronic homelessness becomes an inescapable reality. The “compassionate conservative” who thinks that day-labor jobs will ultimately solve the problem is too naïve to consider seriously, because day-labor jobs are little more than band-aids on gushing arteries; they can never do the job adequately.
I noticed that on November 3, the gloom seemed pervasive among most of the homeless persons I met in Washington. It was easy to understand them.
So for the moment, everyone waits for nothing to happen. Everyone knows nothing will happen, because nothing has happened in the past four years, and nothing will happen in the next four years. Either they will go to sit on a park bench, waiting to die, or they will go elsewhere and wait for the same. The re-election of George W. Bush has signaled a new era of hopelessness for a population that had already more than enough reasons to give up hope.
There is no joy in Mudville; mighty Kerry has struck out.
Copyright © 2004
posted by MasterWriter at 10:45 a.m.
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