Kevin did use one phrase that is appropriate, Humanitarian Crisis. That is what
people do not want to see, it is humans trapped in a cycle of despair,
hopelessness, and inhumane conditions that cannot release themselves from
those situations. The vast majority do not like being enabled, they want to be
empowered, given responsibility and accountability, as was said on the interview,
but that cannot be done from the streets.
In the video follow up we see three distinct points of view and sadly not one
solution for engaging and ending homelessness. We hear from Kevin, the
gentleman on the streets trying to help as he can, then we hear from the Director
of Blanchet House, and the Mayor of Seattle. The talk is of food, advisory teams,
programs, millions of dollars, mental and physical health but no one is talking of
collaboration or solutions. But, I did not hear of this one critically important
solution, housing combined with supportive services.
Scott Kerman the CEO of Blanchet House brought up a great point, it is like an
open-air psych ward and there is not much we are able to do presently for them.
Many are in a psychotic break right on the streets. There was a push to end
mandatory hospitalization of the mentally ill nearly fifty years ago and now we are
seeing the fruit of those decisions.
Ted Wheeler, the Mayor comes on the interview and we hear him speak of the
great government response to homelessness, agency alphabet soup. The
Navigation Team, The Street Service Coordination Center and he gave a good
set of numbers for what they did when they encountered a total of 413 homeless.
Out of that number 61 went into shelters, which often does not end
homelessness, but keeps a person on the merry-go-round and 14 got housing
referrals.
I fully believe both Mike and Blanchet House are doing the best they can with the
tools and money that have received and that comes in through donations. But,
both are falling short of solutions and actually engaging the homeless in finding
long-term, healthy solutions to the problems that produced their homeless
situation.
The first key is to get the government out of the way, they have no financial
motivation to solve homelessness. We see the evidence of this when they form
committee after committee and waste millions of taxpayers’ dollars with no
answers and no solutions. The second needed key is to get the church
activated, empowered and involved. They can bring solutions to the table.
Finally, collaboration is a long-term solution, it will take individuals, non-profits
and the church working hand in hand with the homeless, not for the homeless
to solution this crisis.
It features a woman named Wendy who lives in a tent in Old Town. A man asks
her what it’s like being homeless in Portland, and she replies, “It’s a piece of
cake, really. I mean, that’s why we’ve got so many out here. They feed you three
meals a day. You don’t have to do (expletive) but stay in your tent or party. If you
smoke a lot of dope, you can do that.”(copied from article)
Kevin stated, and it is true, that this tweet gave a lot of fodder to the critics and
blame gamers who can’t see the forest for the trees in the homeless crisis.
However, as Wendy stated, on a cold night when her tent failed, she simply
prayed to God that she would wake up in the morning. What else needs to be
said. Homeless people are humans and being homeless is inhumane. There are
some other valid points touched on in this interview that we will touch on in other
articles.