Mindsets Are Ensnaring Tens of Thousands to The Streets
Suicide and Death on the Streets
Introduction
Mindsets are powerful, they are good, forming great foundations for life, or they are damaging and opening doors that ought to be closed and remain so. What we are speaking of in this blog is often referred to as not polite to bring up in proper company, but it must be to end the tide of death sweeping the ranks of the homeless.
Suicide and death are no clearer-cut and simple as when one with a home dies, either by their own hand or after an illness or accident. The numbers are skewed, and an investigation never happens. It is as if the whole Industrial Complex surrounding the Homeless just breathes a sigh of relief, one less to be worried about. But it never used to be this way, there used to be safety nets. Why has this changed?
What role do addiction and mental illness, hopelessness, food insecurity, housing, and the other topics we have talked about play in these tough subjects? They are not independent of each other, by no means. Hand in glove, one impacting the other, but we are not allowed to think that way, mindsets are formed for us.
An Opening Word
An Opening Word
Proverbs 28: 5
Evil people do not understand justice, but those who follow the Lord understand it completely
Isaiah 63: 9
When they suffered, He suffered, He sent His own angel to save them. Because of His love and kindness, He saved them. Since long ago He has picked them up and carried them
Data for this Discussion
Without shelter or stable housing, the suicide rate can be 9 or 10 times higher than for housed folks
The rate of overdoses used for suicide is low, but present, around 5% on average
Many violent crimes against the homeless, by non-homeless, go unreported, for many reasons
Cold Exposure, violence, being hit by cars, and illness raise the death rate on the streets by about 2.5 times over the housed population
Rare cases of domestic violence follow the people to the streets and end their lives
Accelerated aging process due to poor nutrients and dehydration, lack of medical care
Loneliness and hopelessness are fatal illnesses
Literally, The Safety Net Is Gone
The moment you speak of safety nets and help and the homeless, there are mindsets that come into your thinking; it is just the way we have been programmed to think. Mindsets are not bad nor are they good; they just exist. Where they become problematic is how they influence our thinking and related behavior.
Safety nets for the poor and infirm have been around since this nation was founded. The difference is this: until the era of the Great Depression, the government did not have a defined role in the support of those in need. When we individually or as a nation blindly hand a set of programs off to the government with little if any oversight, the safety that they were supposed to oversee has little hope of surviving. Why, too many hands in the pot.
There is something that the new administration in Washington is working to deal with and if they are successful, it may give birth to safety nets. It is generational entitlement to the benefits that were designed to help people for a short period of time, but not a lifetime. Section 8 housing was, for a period of time, a crisis time; now it is generational, being passed down to another generation, and mismanaged. Food Stamps are increasing out of control for this and that, and the person can work or earn some type of income. Medicaid was designed for limited uses, but it is out of control currently. What if it were re-designed, cut back, making sure only those who needed it got these programs, could the safety nets return?
Government Systems and NGOs are Failing
How do we have honorably discharged veterans dying on the streets?
How do we have grandparents now homeless, facing death on the streets?
How do we have foster kids aging out and then surrendering their lives on the streets?
How do we have people deciding it is better to just walk into a train and get it all over with?
How do we have those who have never used drugs deciding to take that one single dose so that the pain ends and peace comes
How do we have people hiding in the mangroves and outlying areas away from all help and intervention due to fear and then dying out there
This is the simple answer: the churches, the NGO’s and the government programs have all failed, because their focus has been skewed. Just as we learn in church, you cannot serve two masters. In the world of service programs for the homeless, money became the god, instead of serving and helping and investing, and ending homelessness.
The greatness of any nation, it has been said, can be seen by the way it treats its weakest members. So, with systems failing we as a nation are opting for jail, institutions, civil commitment, death and suffering on the streets. What does that say about the United States as a nation? But please remember, for many years we catered to the illegal hand and foot! It is time to go and find those arrows that were shot and deliberately allowed to miss their targets and start over again.
Landscape of Street Homelessness Has Changed
I keep referring to 2020 and the Great Pandemic, but it changed so much we cannot simply forget about it and the insurmountable changes it leveled on this nation. It was in the midst of this Pandemic and its aftermath that illegals were being host, housed, fed and cared for while the American homeless died on the streets. This is when the invisible landscape of the homeless population in America changed and became more visible than many were comfortable with.
We had grown used to the males and rough-looking females, if they came out of hiding, even the young men, they were the normal, but this has changed, on purpose. Slowly, we were seeing a distinct criminal element mixing in with the homeless; it was almost like they were being told to go and hide there. Attitudes started changing because of this. Then the illegals popped up and added to the mix. But what caught many unprepared people who are not used to the homeless group is the elderly, when they started landing on the streets. How that did not raise an outcry in this nation, I do not know, but it should have.
One of the main reasons the outcry was quelled was false facts, figures, and numbers; they had to hide what they were doing. The game was the introduction, taking the pressure off the government agencies who were supposed to help, aid or even reduce homelessness. Instead, they were pumping the numbers up so they could hide the illegals and still blame the homeless themselves for the problems. So we went from a nearly black and white problem, housed versus unhoused, to a murky multi-colored gray scale, who is and is not homeless, who is or is not an illegal or criminal released without prosecution.
Now I went down a very long bunny trail, but the reason for it was this: if you have a mix of illegals, elderly, criminals, addicted, mentally ill, and other homeless folk, who is going to care if they start dying on the streets? There are so many means of death out there for those on the streets, it is easy for them to ‘slip away’ unnoticed, uncared for, and so what if it’s suicide or death by other means, right?
Laws, Rules, Policies and Anti-Homeless Hearts Increasing
There is a unique aspect that describes where our society is tracking, with the laws, rules and such, as if it can, meaning the laws and regulations can fix what is broken. The word is “Litigious.” It simply means going to the law to solve everything. We don’t seem to cherish discussion, open dialogue, focus groups, or the like. With housing concerns it is it is all HOA, Condo Boards, Quality of Life Crimes, all are neatly wrapped up in law, rule and such. But where is mercy, justice and compassion?
If we are that strict with those who have homes, what about the souls who have lost homes, especially since the Pandemic and the economic downturn that came along with it? Or did the baby just get thrown out with the bathwater? What I am saying is we were merciless to the homeless, before granny and grandpas became homeless, will anything change, or not?
We leaned on the laws to cover us when we wanted to say they were all mentally ill, addicts, and needed to be forcibly removed from the streets. What about now, thinking along the lines of the vast population change? The laws grew to keep us comfortable, to keep us above them, to keep us safe, to keep us walking on the other side, but the laws cannot protect us when a landslide happens! Remember they used to be us and one day if we are not careful and compassionate, we may become them, the new us.
Hopelessness
Hope: a feeling or expectation and desire for a certain outcome, a specific person, or place, or an organization. It is a positive emotion, a favorable future
Hopeless: A state of despair, lack of hope, or something that is certain to fail. Feeling hopeless when you believe things won’t get better.
Hopelessness: An emotional state characterized by a lack of hope or optimism, accompanied by feelings of despair. A belief that the situation is not going to improve, and you may start to pull back from life.
We have all been around people who have gone through a period in their life where hope was lost for any number of reasons. The difference for the person that is in your mind right now as you read these words is this: they had a support system that brought them back from the edge. I would dare to say not one uf us has faced a situation in life if we are old enough that did not kick hope in the knees and make us buckle, but by God’s grace and His mercy, support, love, and a circle surrounding us kept us alive, safe, and protected until we stood up again.
What about grandma who just became homeless at say, 60 years old, after living in one home for over 30 years, and everything is gone? What about that disabled uncle who was doing good, building their career, and then life hit them hard, and work ended, life became a struggle, and all was lost, hope also? Hopelessness is not a homeless-only illness or situation; it faces all of us, and without a safety net, friends, a church, relationships, it will end I the grave if we are left to our own devices.
Hopelessness, you have landed on the streets, no matter your age, and every door for recovery is closed; that is the very definition of hopelessness. No family, no friends, no job, no ffod, no blanket, no pillow, no coffee, nothing to call your own and the police are hounding you for sitting down, you are entering hopelessness.
5 Selah Moments as we close:
Is it normal to be so desperate for change that you give up and walk into a train?
What about this, I think today will be a day I do not take my insulin, I just do not need it, right?
Oh, he dies due to heart failure, but what was the root, did he take too much, too little, or simply chose to forget to take it?
Pedestrian versus car, feel terrible for the driver, but was a choice by the human walking, had they had enough?
Mindsets govern our lives, without being aware of it most of the time, these mindsets can drive decisions that end lives of the homeless, the life altering decisions we make impact them directly
Conclusion
Food deserts, addiction, mentally unwell, shelter bed or no shelter bed, Cicero and its friend shaping and forming government policies, what it all means is this, they’ are not welcome, they’ are outsider and unwanted, they’ must go elsewhere
Hopelessness is not the first stop on the train ride to death, but our mindsets are allowing more people than ever before to get on that train and ride on it until death is the only outcome that is left to them. Their only grievous sin is being homeless and not making it through whatever storm hit them
Every human being alive on this planet over the age of 20 has had a bad day, a real day that has caused them to reach for their comfort method of choice, to get them through. But what if it was not available and the bad day never ended…
CTA…
Please Answer This:
Are you okay with knowthing humans are dying on the streets for being unable to work, eat and find income?
Please Answer This:
Hopelessness visits everyone, but should it be an open door of no return just because a person is trapped on the streets and ending their life appears to be the less painful answer
Please Answer This:
Homelessness and anxiety, and struggles, it cannot be an us versus them game anymore, not with the economic landscape changin the way it has, think carefully
MINDSETS
Manipulated Impartations
Negative Determinations
Seeking Entanglements
Targeting Souls
Why, to control outcomes, decisions, money and lives
For what, to make it easier for the homeless to disappear
How, overwhelm with numbers, anger, frustration, helplessness
Whom, those who are to govern without medaling, but have failed the American people, they created mindsets