Rough Sleepers(Rough Sleepers”— The Growing Problem Of Homelessness In America)
Sleeping in the Wild Not for Chickens, Death & Jail Await Many
Many have touched on this ‘rough’ sleeping, but it is still it is mostly unknown and considered almost a myth, but the problem has only grown because we do not care about them(Metatag)
Introduction
From about 2015 coming forward through the end of the Pandemic homelessness has skyrocketed across this nation. It is discriminating and it is impacting all ages, races, and economic classes. Rough sleeping is often not a choice, but it is dangerous and can land you in jail.
Shelters, housing first, supportive housing, program after program, none have been able to get a handle on the exploding numbers. None will be able to burb the numbers until we remove the government and its money-making components from the mix.
Rough sleeping is a side effect of the problem and not the problem itself and we have to see it that way and then we can look for the right solutions.
Let’s look at His word as we start today
Isaiah 30: 18
Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you, therefore He will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice, blessed are those who wait for Him.
Zechariah 7: 9
This is what the Lord Almighty says, administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another
What say you…
Rough sleeping makes it sound like something it is not, this means you ain’t sleeping in a bed, in a car or on an air mattress, you are struggling to try and sleep
Rough sleeping, sounds like a night after a fight or too much drinking and partying, but this is every night nightmare and then some get the icing on the cake, jail for sleeping
Let’s Define Rough Sleeping:
There is no bed or pillow, no protection or comfort
You must wrap up in a sweater or coat and hope for no rain or snow
Whatever you possession of any value must be hidden with you as you lay down, well-hidden
You must sleep near one that you trust, but never to near
You must hope that that foot that taps you early in the morning is not the police
Rough sleeping is taking a risk with your life every night hoping that a thug, robber, or prowler will not harm you
Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep…..
Fatal Flaw Exposed
How is this for a fatal flaw, the mix of extremely vulnerable people and a completely dysfunctional government? I think that combination can be likened to gasoline and a lit match. We have kept running down this track over the past 40 or 50 years and then wonder why homelessness is getting worse. One group needs help, and the other is incapable of giving constructive help.
Here is another flaw to think about, why would anybody in their right mind take a count on the cold night, on which is based funding, grants, help and so much more in the coldest month of the year? It is called the Point in Time Count, and it is conducted each year in January, yes, January when many homeless have managed to get out of the cold and thus are not counted. The Count is noted to be off by upwards of 10 to 15% on average.
Doctors, Thinkers, Educators, 40 Years Later No Solutions Pieces
These pops of notes in the article, the town government is not responsible for establishing a secular shelter. The founding and work of a faith-based shelter are considered humiliating. And then the final pop was it is the ‘job’ of the government to care for these people. Do you see and sense the confusion around homelessness and its supposed supporters in just a few lines of text?
Across the nation tents, encampments, and shelters on the streets are being razed, can you even try and imagine what that feels like, sounds like, and what that does to you mentally, and emotionally? Think about this, you live in a small apartment and suddenly strangers walk in, tear your place apart, and destroy your few belongings, what are your emotions? The homeless have so little and every time they are raided, they lose everything.
I fully believe that faith-based solutions, housing, and shelters are the only true answers. Asking a group of interconnected agencies that care only for the money in the bank account to solve a problem that has only grown for 40 years is insanity. It is not humiliating, and it is the only way to get homelessness out of the person and return them to self-sufficiency once again. Doctors and Educators have their ideas, but it is the heart of man that is at stake and must be changed.
Mosaic of Solutions
The best puzzle piece to use to start the mosaic of course is housing, but that has been stirring up controversy lately. Also, there are on average less than 40 needed units per 100, meaning if 400 people need a rental home there will be most likely only 40 or less available for them. That puts housing first, the most effective tool at risk.
If there is a group of homeless that are hindered by the inability to read and properly communicate, how will they ever have a chance to get off and stay off the streets? There are some estimates that up to 25% of men cannot read and write properly enough to hold a job. Part of the mosaic of solutions must be to correct this fundamental requirement for all people either at risk or on the streets.
Mosaic is the making of a pattern by arranging together many smaller pieces. The only mosaic here is the letters of the groups involved, SOAR, SAMHSA, and HUD, they are anti-mosaic, how do I say that, because there is no collaboration. The homeless are struggling, dying, and suffering on the streets and we have no answers as the hammer strikes and destroys what little progress is made. The small pieces of the attempted mosaic are now unrecognizable.
Why Cuffs and Not Keys
Okay, so you already have a problem with homelessness and with housing. Then your state and local government pass a law banning outside sleeping. Okay, no big deal, right? No, if the state and local authorities Do Not enforce the sleeping ban the non-profits in that given area are at high risk of losing their funding. Talk about handcuffing any attempts to help the homeless.
Hostile Architecture is the deliberate and purposeful placement and changing of the design of a given public structure so that the homeless cannot use it. A grate that blows warm air now has well-placed spikes, no resting here. A bus bench is slanted forward, no lying down. A shelter, quiet sidewalk is so well-lit that normal folk could not handle the amount of light there. Handcuffs upon handcuffs and the keys to freedom are moved further and further away.
Keys are not even mentioned in the article, but housing is ever so briefly. Handcuffs, that is the quick, dirty, and easy way to clear the streets. Keys on the other hand is the work that requires investment, investment of compassion, training, oversight, connections, services, and training, investments are costly. But are not human lives worth the cost? Without out-of-the-box thinking housing will never be solved, but that is another reason that handcuffs are more common these days, no housing available.
Conclusion
So, let’s wrap this up in 5 quick and short points:
>Rough sleeping is not glamorous nor is it safe or desirable
People trapped in homelessness are forced to sleep in the wild, untamed outdoors because there are no shelters. They are afraid of going to shelters because of the dangers they can actually encounter in these shelters. Women especially avoid shelters.
>The great minds that run places of higher learning and our government do not care or want to end homelessness, too much money on the table. Yes, I said that the Homeless Industrial Complex makes millions off the Thousands of homeless yearly.
>A mosaic of solutions is the only answer, but that would require across-the-board collaboration and that is not even on the horizon right now. It would also require ending most of what already exists but does not work. Change is never easy, but the government demands the homeless change while they reduce all change!
>Hand cuffs and jail are the rapidly increasing answers for homelessness, and it seems to not matter if the person is 20 or 75, no solutions, so you lose your stuff and go to jail. The end result is often hopelessness and an early death
>Finally, the thought that faith-based shelters and providers are humiliating is simply madness, they are literally the ones that carry the answer to ending homelessness because answers are from the Lord Himself and not the government
CTA…
Answer this,
Are the homeless humans, and if so do they deserve to go to jail for simply trying to survive, and if not then is not housing a better option
If the mosaic of wise ones cannot solve or answer the ‘problem’ of homelessness, then why is the answer to punish so quickly approved
Hundreds of agencies make up the industrial complex surrounding homelessness and yet the shelters have no answer, there is a dead cat on the line and it must be fixed, yes or no?