Chalice Art by Selma Blackburn
Rev. Bob Klein
UUCLR - May 15, 2005
HOMELESSNESS, HOSPITALITY, COMPASSION, AND JUSTICE
Can we help make Little Rock Friendlier for those who missed the safety net?
I have been concerned about people who are homeless for a long time, but I have rarely had any idea about how to address such a challenging problem. It isn’t just that it is expensive to find housing for people, and it is expensive. It is also complicated by questions of joblessness, drug and alcohol use and abuse, depression and mental illness issues, and particularly by the negative stereotypes of homeless people.
A few weeks ago, Allen Ward urged me to attend a meeting of the newly formed Arkansas Homelessness Coalition at the 12th St. Resource Center. Allen is on the board of the Arkansas Supportive Housing Network which created and helps to staff the coalition. Prior to that first meeting, the only thing I really knew about the problem of homelessness in Little Rock is that the Homeless Camps were bulldozed last year, an incident that I think was connected with the effort to beautify the city before the Clinton Library opened. One of the results of that act was the naming of Little Rock as the city least friendly to the homeless in America.
The sacred writings of the major religions, including Islam, Judaism, and even Christianity count hospitality, compassion, and justice among primary virtues and values. It is interesting to see how many ways that governmental leaders are seeking to cutback or eliminate programs, services, and payments to the people most in need in our nation, especially the poor and the elderly. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and a whole range of protective services sometimes described as a safety net have been decimated or are at risk of cuts in order to fund tax cuts and military adventures. So many current leaders of our nation describe themselves as religious, yet their main value seems to be expressed in helping corporations to be even more successful, even at the expense of employee pension plans and consumer protections. If all workers were taxed at the same percentage rate on their incomes, there wouldn’t be a Social Security crisis, and doesn’t it seem like those earning more than $90,000 per year could pay more easily than those earning far less? Where is justice? Where is compassion? Where is hospitality?
Homelessness is a particularly difficult issue, because it is so difficult to recover from homelessness. To get jobs or receive Social Security or SSI payments, or even to get a Driver’s License one needs an address. Interviewing for jobs is challenging if one doesn’t have clean clothes and can’t take a shower regularly. Programs to feed the homeless only go so far in meeting nutritional needs.
I have been doing some reading about homelessness to remind myself of the factors that contribute to homelessness. The National Coalition for the Homeless has compiled statistics and reports related to homelessness which paint a discouraging picture. Most of us are aware that there have been major cuts in the amount of assistance available to persons through Federal programs over the last ten years. We may not be as aware of the cumulative impacts of those cutbacks in several programs that have helped the most vulnerable persons in society to have some basic benefits of society.
The current administration has attempted to blame individuals living in poverty as responsible for their own difficulties. In reality the current situation with limited economic possibilities, increasing housing costs, and decreasing possibilities for assistance for food, housing, and medical care has regularly forced more and more persons into homelessness or left them at risk of losing their homes.
Around the country, rising housing costs and decreases in the number of units of subsidized, rent controlled, and other kinds of affordable housing units have created a housing crunch for low income persons and persons stuck in poverty. Low income persons are being forced to pay a greater percentage of their income for housing each year, making it more likely that any financial problems will result in homelessness. Decreasing opportunities for persons working in minimum wage jobs to move into better paid positions effectively insures that many persons and families cannot expect to move out of poverty.
As of the 2000 Census, 31 million people, 11.3% of the US population, lived in poverty. 40% of the persons living in poverty are children. As of 2002, 5 million rental households with worst case housing needs paid more than half of their incomes for rent. A 1998 report by the National Priorities Project estimated that 46% of the jobs with the most growth through 2005 pay less than $16,000 a year, less than half of a living wage for a family of four. More persons living in poverty are employed, but not at a level that will lift them out of poverty. The median level of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families after 1996 provided only one third of the poverty level for a family of three. Many families have become homeless because of the loss of assistance. Hundreds of thousands of workers and their families have lost health insurance while coming off of welfare or due to job losses.
As low income families struggle to get by, many families cannot afford food, health insurance, and adequate housing. The lack of adequate public transportation between work and housing means that workers must also have or share cars. The lack of subsidies and affordable housing puts many individuals and families at risk of becoming homeless even if they have jobs. Many people living in shelters have jobs but cannot afford housing and may spend over a year waiting to find minimum housing. When you factor in the plight of persons with disabilities, mental illnesses, domestic violence issues, and addictions, the situation is even worse.
It is incomprehensible to me, that in this richest nation ever in the history of the world, that so many people are living in poverty and that so many are actually homeless. Where are compassion, justice, and hospitality in this reportedly Christian nation? Why have we allowed such a great disparity between rich and poor in this nation? Why have we allowed the safety net for vulnerable persons and families to be dismantled?
The blight of poverty and the epidemic of homelessness is symptomatic of a failure of some very important values in our national ethos. How can we allow the current level of corporate subsidies and corporate welfare and imagine that it is ok to cut services to the persons least well equipped to succeed in modern society? How can we support or allow to continue a persistent state of war against nations that posed no risk to us or to most of the world when there are so many needs here? The current inequitable distribution of resources, with corporations, the military-industrial complex, and the wealthy receiving far more than their share of dollars severely curtailed by tax cuts for the wealthy is simply unacceptable.
As I learn more about the suffering of people below the poverty line, I am more and more angry about the way that things are currently done in this nation. A generation ago, Martin Luther King voiced greater frustration and exasperation with the moderates of the middle class who were lukewarm and did nothing to make things better than even with racists and bigots who caused so many problems. Similarly today, it will take a greater level of activism from those of us who are comfortable to call for real change.
Today, I am issuing a call for people to give time and effort to the cause of justice. How many of you have ever served a meal for the homeless at Our House or the Stewpot, or at some other soup kitchen? Today I am urging you to volunteer to help out. I also challenge us to set up a regular collection of cans and other food items to go to one of the local food pantries. I also challenge us to use our greatest resource, our ability to lobby legislators to support programs and efforts to restore a safety net for vulnerable persons and families. Your e-mails and calls to legislators can make a difference, let them know that we care about the homeless and about persons stuck in poverty. We need to call for training programs, drug and alcohol treatment programs, housing assistance, health insurance and care, and food subsidies to allow everyone in this nation to have basic needs met and the opportunity to move out of poverty.
The welfare safety net was abused by a few individuals over the years who took advantage of handouts, but the vast majority of families and individuals only accepted welfare in order to survive. It is far cheaper to help those in poverty than to support them in jail. Welfare to work programs could succeed if they were adequately funded to provide real training and job placement into living wage jobs. We may or may not be responsible for the conditions that put persons into poverty, but we are responsible to do what we can to make conditions better.
If we in the middle classes paid $20 or $100 or even $1000 dollars more per year we would hardly miss it. How many thousands more could those in higher incomes brackets pay without noticing? Children in our rich nation are starving every day while each year there are more millionaires and billionaires. I didn’t vote for tax reductions nor for the elimination of the safety net. I will vote in the future for persons who express the values within the UUA Principles, people who care about those in poverty, those who will not support unjust wars, those who will call corporations to accountability. How can we sit back in our comfortable homes, within our comfortable lives, when there is such great injustice in our land?
To me this is a core matter of religion and spirituality. The writings and traditions of all our sources of enlightenment call us to justice and compassion and hospitality! Jesus and the prophets called for justice and cared for those in need, should we do any less? Many of the loudest Christians seem utterly unconcerned about the poor and homeless, but is that really what Christianity or other religions believe? The Principles of our movement are built on the teachings of Jesus and other religious and philosophical leaders. The foundation of our societal valuing of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness suggest a mutual responsibility that members of our society would have opportunities for success. Today many do not have those opportunities.
Only a concerted effort by many people of good will can hope to make a difference. We need to cry out for justice along with persons from around the state and the nation. We need to make a greater effort to understand the complexities of poverty and homelessness and to help out wherever we can to make things better. There is enough for all to have basic needs met, but only if we help to make sure that nobody is left behind!
I challenge and invite you to get involved. Study these concerns, volunteer your time and effort, bring in your non-perishable foodstuffs, and call those in power to let them know you are concerned that so many people are homeless and in poverty in this rich land!
The sermon in a Unitarian Universalist congregation is never the final word on any subject, and I invite your brief responses at this time!
Thank you and Amen!