Home

Maya Angelou said, “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned”. She was very right on that one and while I'm very nearly certain she meant this in an emotional sense, right now I want to talk about the fact that people are struggling to fulfill their immediate physical need for a home. There are people living in tents right now-and I'm not talking about Haiti.

In Nashville, TN

Invisible City Winter — Nashville, TN — January 2010 from Russel Albert Daniels on Vimeo.

Under bridges and in tent cities in California

On the beaches in Hawaii

And in Seattle, which has established multiple permanently rotating homeless communities of roughly one hundred people.

All over this country, right now, there are people all around us living through the winter outside in tents, underneath tarps, or inside of cardboard/particle board structures. You probably don't notice them, but there are tent cities and other communities of homeless people in almost every major U.S. city, and with the free fall/suicide drop of the economy being what it is the number of people living like this in the United States is growing.

What is the reception to this epidemic of homelessness? Not in my backyard. The response has overwhelmingly been to turn homeless people away without regard for where they'll go. Several cities have gone so far as to make the act of homelessness (sleeping outside) an actual crime, for which they routinely "sweep" their cities detaining, harassing, and arresting the homeless. In Huntington Station, NY police destroyed a tent city which was serving as a home for more than 100 people just days ago, during what some journalists are calling "The Snowpocylpse".

A tongue-in-cheek Snowpocylpse for those who live inside is a death sentence for those who live outdoors.

And yet most people don't want to have to look at the homeless long enough to deal with them. You have people complaining about the addictions and crimes of homeless people because that's what they choose to see. What they don't see is a man driven into such a deep self loathing by his perpetual homelessness that he drowns it in a drink. Most people enjoy a few drinks after a rough day at work; the level of stress that goes into that man's very ability to exist is unfathomable to to most. People don't see a woman who escaped into a meth high because she was forced into prostitution to feed herself-and yet, what would you have to do to be able to live with yourself if you had to sleep with people for food or shelter? Society, despite the evidence, still doesn't see that stealing is an eventual and unavoidable bi-product of profound poverty.

They see smelly, addicted, thieving homeless people who should just try a little harder....somewhere else where "normal people" don't have to see them.

I have never been addicted and I have never been thieving and, thank God, I was never forced into any situations with dire consequences but I have been homeless (and smelly) so I speak from personal experience here. Most people who are homeless are normal people. They are veterans and school teachers and many of them are just kids like I was. In today's economy, it could just as easily be you in their place. All these normal people want is a home-a safe place where they can be free of crushing stigma and live unquestioned.

I can't provide that for them. You might not be able to either. But we can, as a society, provide them the safety and freedom that comes with a generous and compassionate heart. We can take the judgment out of the equation, treat homeless people with respect and human decency, and we can demand that our government does the same. We can practice small acts of random kindness that will mean the world to people less fortunate than us-bring an extra sandwich for the "bum" in front of your office building. Offer to share a cab. Sit with them and let them talk to you-homelessness isn't catching.

Provide an emotionally safe and judgment free place in society for those who have no physical shelter and we will be one step closer to the dreams of idealists like Maya Angelou, and truly closer to the mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves.



Yet another Mama Kat inspired post...join her for Writer's Workshop this week!

A Pinko Christmas

First Christmas, despite involving my in laws, went pretty well. There was only one little glitch; turns out I'm a communist. Here I was thinking that I'm libertarian, but luckily I have my mother in law to inform me that I am in fact a giant pinko commie.

Do you want to know why? I'm a communist because I make my kids share their toys. Oh, she's not kidding. The fact that I require my children to take turns and share toys undermines the foundation of the American political system and liberty all across the globe. After all, making children share toys is the last step before government controlled job placements.

Call Beijing so that I can learn the super secret communist handshake.

Funnily enough though, she's not the only person to recently equate me with the sickle and the sythe. I made the mistake of talking about living wage with my hard-core Republican sister, so I guess it was inevitable. My argument was that the market value of a full time job should be a living wage-that people should require living wages from companies before agreeing to full time work. Living wage, not minimum wage. Living wage is what it would take-based on minimal housing, food, utility, and transportation costs-to live in a certain area. We're not talking about what it takes for families to buy Christmas presents, or go on vacations, we're talking about a roof over their head, food in their bellies, electricity, and getting back and forth to work to pay for these things. Minimum wage in my state is $7.95, but the average family in my state has three people in it and living wage for families of three in my area is $23.23 per hour. I'll tell you right now, we're a family of five and we make a whole lot less than that.

My sister decided that if someone who worked full time at McDonalds made a living wage that it would only be the result of communism since "their job isn't worth that". According to my sister, if you want to be able to earn a living wage then you should have to go to college and get a professional career (you know, like she did). Forget that college is not always an option, if you want to feed your family-according to my sister-that's what you should have to do. All I know is, communist or not (though I suspect not), if a person dedicates themselves to working full time for a company they should also be able to set up an agreement with their employer to be paid decently for their services. A living wage should be the market value of a full time job.

Of course I realize in this economy people don't have much to bargain with-a job is a job no matter how little it pays and it's better than nothing. However, since people don't feel secure enough to ask for living wages, I see it as my responsibility as a consumer to make the lives of people who work low paying jobs easier any way I can. We live just under the poverty level for our family size, but I still round up when I put gas in my car and give the change to the attendant. When I go to the store I don't ask the clerks to stop what they're doing and walk me down the isles to find things. By doing whatever I can do to make their jobs easier, I feel like I am acknowledging that they don't get paid enough for the services they provide...and if I'm easier on them maybe their boss will be too.

I have my personal opinions about how to get our country going in the right direction, but I'll keep them (mostly) to myself. I just want to recognize that there are so many hard working people who can't afford to feed their families. So, so many people laid off and literally losing the roof over their family's head. So many little ones asking just for socks and new jackets for Christmas. The U6 unemployment rate (including people that were laid off and have since given up looking, and people who were looking for full time but took a part time instead and still can't afford their bills) is 17.5% by the Labor Bureau statistics which, if you calculate unemployment the same way they did 80 years ago, is about a 23% unemployment rate (compared to the 25% unemployment rate during the Great Depression). It really is hard times everywhere.

So, as a libertarian-apparently-turned-communist, I say go easy on the person bagging up your Christmas presents--they probably can't afford to buy presents for their own families. Share what you can, give what you can, and above all be thankful for whatever you do have no matter how small.

I hope you all are having a blessed holiday season.

The Good Old Days

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders....They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."--Socretes (469 BC - 399 BC)

Some things never change-the Earth revolves around the Sun, brownies are delicious and fattening, and the elders of the community will shake their heads and lament "kids these days". Even I-who some people consider still "kid aged"-have balked at what appears to be a 5 year old behind the wheel of a car and started a sentence with "when I was your age...." Perhaps it has something to do with brain chemistry and aging. And yet, every once in a while, a generation comes along that feels a particular kinship to an older generation--I think that time has come around again.

I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that I feel a very special bond with my Depression-era grandparents (though they are long passed away). With the economy being what it is, and Hubby and I being pretty much on the bottom of the economic pyramid, I have pulled a lot of 'tricks of the trade' from their generation to help us get by. I find myself keeping coin jars (something my Baby Boomer parents never did), making "remade" dinners (meals that use portions/ingredients/leftovers of other meals), and growing/making whatever I can with my own two hands. I can recognize the wisdom, love, and fear in my Nana's cavernous basement of canned fruits and vegetables and my grandpa's 40 year old (non-running) lawnmower that he never did part with...because Hubby and I feel that same apprehension about the future, and the same need to protect our children from true poverty.

Apparently it's not just me-many people in my generation seem to be reaching back into the past for help and guidance during hard times. We have decided-according to our increased participation-that sewing and canning are ever-more desirable skills. Saving is also becoming more and more important to us-according to Google there was a 150% rise in searches for home safes, and NPR reports that home safe sales rose up to 70% in 2008, reflecting a (warranted) lack of trust for banks in general. Generationally speaking, we're even giving our babies more traditional names (I know that's certainly true with Hubby and I!) naming them after and in honor of our grandparents (or great grandparents for some) who survived similar economic times.

The struggle for young parents to raise happy and healthy children in times of uncertainty and economic failure is bridging the generation gap between us-and while it is certainly a struggle that no one can really "enjoy" I hope that my generation will benefit from the values of our grandparents and great grandparents; that we are able to learn needed skills and enjoy those things that are more valuable than money...because, perhaps, if we build those skills and learn the meaning of true value someday, despite the hardships, we will be able to look back on these times as "the good old days".