01/16/2017
We are barely 2 months into 2017 and so far 4 homeless people have died from exposure to the elements. Their ages ranged from 29 to 68 and all of them died from hypothermia. I was engaged in a discussion the other day about this very topic and one of the individuals also engaged in the discussion made the comment “Why don’t they get a part time job and quit living off the tax payer’s money? At least it would put a roof over their head.”
Why indeed.
Let's examine that, shall we?
What are the basic requirements for getting and keeping a job?
Dress for Success. If you go to a job interview dressed in any other way except in a manner that indicates you really want a job, you’re not going to get it.
Grooming and Appearance. Clean shaven. Hair combed. No dirt beneath the fingernails. Fresh breath. So forth and so on. If you show up for a job interview looking like you’ve been sleeping in a cardboard box for three days, “Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch.” will likely be the last thing you hear from that company.
Personal Hygiene. If you show up for a job interview smelling like you haven’t showered in three weeks, not even a fast food franchise like McDonalds or Burger King will hire you.
Adequate Sleep. Proven facts: If you get a good night’s sleep, you are likely to perform well at your job during the day. If you have a restless/sleepless night, your job performance will suffer the following day.
Adequate Food. Not all people eat healthily. People with jobs know that a meal before work is essential. Without adequate nutrition, an individual won’t have enough energy to efficiently perform their job duties throughout the course of the day. They will be yawning, and lack energy and tend to slack off. Keeping a job means being able to do the job you were hired to do.
These are all basic requirements an individual needs to get and keep even a part time job.
Most homeless people have none of those basic requirements.
How many homeless people do you see pushing around their shopping carts who are dressed for success and are maintaining a well groomed appearance? None? Good guess. Most homeless people have two or three changes of clothes, if they’re lucky. I have never seen those include a suit or business casual apparel. Why so little? The vast majority of homeless people are mobile. They have to be. Which means whatever clothes they have, they have to take with them. Very few are lucky enough to have a safe place to stash their changes of clothing. Those who do have more than two or three changes of clothing are faced with another dilemma - keeping them clean. There are no special washing and drying machines set aside for the homeless to use. There are public laundromats. Public laundromats cost money. Money comes from paychecks, which comes from having a job, which is gotten when the basic requirements for getting and keeping a job are met. Homeless people rely on the kindness of others via panhandling or some other hustle to get enough money to go to a laundromat and wash what clothes they have. What that means is a very basic wash and dry at the laundromat. There is no ironing or other such luxuries. The clothes are washed and stuffed back into whatever bag or pouch they’re toted around in.
Good grooming and personal hygiene, something that is expected of all employers regardless of the type of job, is dependant on being able to shower everyday. Shave everyday. And brush one’s teeth everyday. Most homeless people will carry a toothbrush and toothpaste with them and brush their teeth in public restrooms. Some will attend to their shaving needs in the same manner with a razor. Bathing is not so easily accommodated. There are places the homeless can go to once every two or three weeks where the opportunity to take a shower will be available to them. Often this comes in the form of a truck that shows up with shower stall built inside. The truck is there for a certain amount of time during a certain day and, if you don’t make it there during that time period, you don’t get to bathe. Better luck next time. Some homeless will go to public bathrooms and take a poor man’s bath, which means ‘touch up’ cleaning of their armpits, groin region and upper extremities with a washcloth. Imagine how uncomfortable you would feel if you only had an opportunity to bathe every couple weeks or so. Do you think it would be enough to get and maintain a job?
Being homeless is a constant struggle for food. Most homeless don’t have a safe place to store perishable goods, nor anything to store them in. That limits them to non-perishable goods, and many of those have to be cooked before they can be eaten. Cooking requires things we take for granted; like pots, pans, stoves and microwaves. Most homeless people have none of that, nor access to it on a daily basis. That narrows down even further which non-perishable goods they can take with them to gain sustenance from. What they are able to get from food banks is rarely ever enough to last the course of one month. Getting enough food to just survive is a daily struggle for the homeless. It's the number one reason you see so many people holding up cardboard signs at intersections and panhandling at bus stops and train stations. Many spend the majority of each day making sure that one crucial survival need is met for the day, and often it is not enough to stave the hunger or provide sufficient vitamins and nutrients. Without a daily and sufficient intake of healthy sustenance it is highly unlikely that any person is going to excel, or even adequately perform, any job they’re given.
The homeless often look so tired and worn out because, aside from inadequate nutrition, eight hours of uninterrupted sleep is a rare thing. In Multnomah county, in certain areas, tents and sleeping bags are allowed from 9pm to 7am. That’s ten hours of ‘potential’ sleep time; not including setup time, and break down time to ensure the camp is removed by the 7am requirement. This, of course, isn’t taking into consideration the ‘sleep with one eye open’ necessity for the homeless. The streets are the streets. The homeless share the streets with drug sellers, drug users and any number of other shady types who won’t think twice about stealing from the homeless if they see something that may benefit them in some way. The homeless have to be very wary and on guard to avoid having what little possessions they have from being taken from them and becoming victims of crime. They tend to be very light sleepers, waking instantly at the slightest of noises near their sleeping vicinity. Clackamas county has no 9pm to 7am hours of sleep gratuity. In Clackamas county there is no legal place to sleep on the sidewalk or pitch a tent for the night. Clackamas county official do regular ‘sweeps’; meaning groups of officer sweep an entire area looking for homeless camps or homeless individuals sleeping at night. When they find them, the take the meager belongings they have, give them a night in jail, and send them on their way the next day empty handed - having to start the process of gathering their basic survival things all over again. The tents and sleeping bags that are confiscated are either burned or just thrown away by the police. Tents and sleeping bags, I might add, that were donated in kindness by hard working people who do have jobs. To sum that up - those kind hearted among the working class give a part of their hard earned money to donate something so that someone less fortunate than themselves will have some small measure of comfort or benefit in their lives. The police then come in and take that away from the people who needed it whom it was donated to, thus making both the need of the homeless, and demands for donations, greater as well as the burden on the working class greater. Yes, that is exactly the way it happens in Clackamas county. So besides the thieves and drug users and such, the homeless in Clackamas county have to be on constant alert for the police coming in to arrest them and ‘confiscate’ what meager possessions they have just because they want to do something as simple as sleep at night. So, ask yourself this - If you were living under those circumstances, do you think you’d be getting the adequate amount of sleep you need on a nightly basis to be able to function correctly each day at the job you have?
Some may be wondering - Is it really that bad? Are you embellishing perhaps just a little bit?
Decide for yourselves.
There are numerous places - missions, food banks, community centers, churches and so on - which provide some sort of service to the homeless. Some offer food boxes and the occasional hot meals. Some offer clothing or clothing vouchers. Some offer tents and/or sleeping bags. Some offer a combination of these things, and the list goes on. All of these places perform vital services that are important to the survival of the homeless. Many homeless would be in far worse shape then they’re in now if it weren’t for the generosity of these various organizations. It is certainly not my intent to criticize any of these organizations, though I will place things into perspective.
First off, each one of these organizations is a non-profit organization. A non-profit organization is a business. A business, be it non-profit or for profit, thrives on the bottom line at the end of the day. A non-profit, in a nutshell, thrives partially on donations from others. Also on corporate sponsors, be they a political or commercial entity. As well, there are grants. Some privately sponsored, other government sponsored. These are contracts to fulfill a need. An agreed upon amount that is to be used to fulfill a specific need. The greater the need, the greater the amount. Homelessness is something that has been continuously growing over the years. Something illustrated by this recent article in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/11/portland-oregon-housing-rent-homelessness
As homelessness continues to grow, so do the amounts non-profits get to address the needs of the homeless. Who decides how these funds are to be distributed and used? The organization’s Board of Directors, of course. One of the expenses they vote upon for funds distribution is called Administrative Expenses. That is, among other things, the salaries of the Board of Directors and President or Chairman. They vote on their own salaries. They do fairly well in that respect. That is the profit of a non-profit and in any business, it’s all about the profit. The steadily increasing rate of homelessness is good business for non-profits. As long as there is a need that needs to be fulfilled, the money keeps coming in. The greater the need, the larger the money.
Let me say here that I’m not trying to villainize these non-profit organizations. They do perform very good functions and are heavily relied upon by the homeless who benefit from them. I merely wanted to provide a brief outline of how and why they function profitably.
For all the good these organizations are doing, what are they really accomplishing? They’re feeding, clothing and providing tents and sleeping bags to those who desperately need them. Is that addressing the homeless problem? No, it’s not. What it’s doing, essentially, is enabling the homeless to survive homelessness. It’s not doing anything to actually solve the homeless problem. There are a small handful of organizations who understand that hand-me-outs aren’t what’s going to solve the homeless problem. They have set up buildings which provide shelter, a place to bathe, a place to do laundry, a place to store and cook food and a safe place to sleep each night. They provide skill assessment and job placement assistance. They provide the basic requirements for getting and keeping a job, thus taking steps forward to alleviate the homelessness of those who are fortunate enough to get into their program. But these sorts of forward thinking non-profits make up less than one percent of all the non-profits serving the homeless and are able to aid less than two percent of the homeless population actually get off the street and move on to a better life. When the growing homeless population numbers in the tens of thousands just in Multnomah county alone, then that effort is both wonderful and sadly inefficient.
For all the good the vast majority of the existing non-profits for the homeless do, it is no longer enough. The number of homeless continue to grow exponentially, as does the demand on the food, clothing and other services available. Many are no longer able to keep up with the demand. A major shift in the dynamic of how non-profits allocate their funds and serve the homeless needs to be made if the homeless situation is going to be effectively addressed in a manner that will do more than just allow the homeless survive homelessness. It is time to shift the focus from enabling survival to enabling a progressiveness toward a life of employment and self sufficiency. If the steps aren’t taken to actually alleviate homelessness as opposed to easing the symptoms, then it’s just going to continue to grow at an exponential rate.
With no laws mandating caps on yearly rent increases in Oregon, which for three years has been US’s top moving destination, homelessness is increasing
