(U-WIRE) RALEIGH, N.C. – The other day, I gave a man five dollars; he gave me a hug and told me he loved me. I can’t get most of y’all to look me in the eyes around campus, and this dude that society would call garbage, or bum, gave me a hug and told me he loved me.
Now, the Raleigh City Council is getting ready to discuss giving the police more opportunity to arrest homeless women and men just for trying to get by. Maybe it’s time to reassess who the bums really are. We all see homeless folks every day. They wait for us on the benches on Hillsborough Street; they sleep at churches and in parks downtown, and we’ve gotten really good at ignoring them. They make us uncomfortable. They don’t smell like we do, and they don’t look like we do. We think they’re lazy and uninspired and, if they’d just kick that drug habit, they’d be able to hold down a job and move up in the world.
We must keep in mind that they are human beings. None of these people made plans to be without a home when they grew up. Right now, a large majority of us are one or two paychecks or financial aid statements away from being on the street. What if mental illness struck, or a family emergency, or a physical ailment kept you from your job for a month? Eliminate your support network, if you still have one, and just how stable are you?
Think about it: women and men don’t ask for a quarter because they enjoy the self-righteous or pitying looks they get; they do it because they don’t have a choice. Some of them even do it to get a beer or their daily fix, and that is hard to handle, but by not giving them money, you aren’t keeping them from getting what they need (yes, addiction is a physical disease), you’re just keeping them from having to resort to illegal means to get it.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not laziness or worthlessness that causes homelessness. Most homeless people around here do have jobs. Some people just snap when families break apart, some spent time in prison only to find no options for them upon release, some have been hurt on the job and can’t find any more work, and others are survivors of mental illness. Each of them has been thrust into a society where empty buildings are destroyed for being eyesores, it costs an arm and a leg to pay the rent, and the average minimum wage job (the most popular kind in our economy) would require a single mother with a child to work 80 hours just to meet minimum needs. On top of all of that, it is almost illegal for them to exist. If you or I took a nap in Moore Square or had a beer at some public parade or festival, we wouldn’t be dehumanized like these folks are every day.
Now in the massive efforts to revitalize downtown (read: get rid of homeless people so bar-hoppers won’t be bothered), the city council has no solution for homelessness, so it’s authorizing the RPD to arrest and remove people so the rest of us can spend hundreds on our addictions and not feel guilty. We need to stop hiding our problems like some turtle-necked teen and actually address them. Ultimately, arresting more homeless people won’t alleviate the problem of homelessness. Our society will still underpay workers and overcharge for housing. It will still allow drugs to be readily available and criminalize those who use them.
And it will still sanitize and eliminate our public spaces to keep us “safe.” If we don’t stop dehumanizing and locking up human beings for problems that we are all responsible for, it’s not going to be long before we all forget how to be one.