Incorrect to say ‘A Homeless Problem’.

“Your Wrong!” I tell people who speak to me of ‘a homeless problem’ or of ‘a solution’. ‘Homeless is a label applied to make it easier to paint the issue with the broad strokes of slogans and ideological points of view. Drunks, druggies, hookers, dregs of society, criminals, bums who do not want to work. Much easier to avoid thing about an issue when you can just stick ugly, prejudicial and untrue statements on a very complex situation.

And it is very complex. Because what you have is not a ‘homeless’ situation but a PEOPLE problem. Does anyone want to argue that any situation involving people is not only subject to all kinds of complexities caused by the differences among people, it is also going to become more of a mess if ignored and/or addressed only by knee-jerk reactions? Factor in that we are not dealing with a few dozen people but currently hundreds and if we continue to waste resources to accomplish nothing we could pass the thousand mark. 1,000 – seems high or impossible does it not? The simple math of addition tells us that if you keep on adding to this group of people, the number will continue to rise. What is needed is to take advantage of the other simple math – subtraction. If, instead of wasting your resources in pointless pursuits such as chasing them from spot to spot around the city, you target your resources at getting people off the streets you reduce the number of people living without homes in the city. Politicians seem to have a real problem with the adding vs. subtracting concepts. Perhaps this stems from wasting taxpayers $$$$ in all the different ways they manage to find to squander money.

‘A’ people problem. It is wrong to use ‘a’ as it is singular, implying only one problem. Come spend some time with me and you will discover there is no ‘a’ here. You will find an amazingly diverse group of people, that at best could only be grouped into small groups. Even grouping them into small groups would not be easy, nor would it reduce the complexity of the situation. The complexity of the situation is why speaking of ‘a solution’ is wrong. Another math analogy? Remember algebra and equations and how difficult it could be with just 3 variables (x,y,z) to solve the problem? Think how hard or impossible it would be to solve those equations with hundreds of variables – different needs, issues, challenges, mental illness, problems, etc. For the politicians, just imagine the situation if you were to try to keep all those (conflicting) election promises. With a people problem and hundreds of people as variables finding a solution, well I would say a snowball has a better chance of surviving in hell.

So, am I saying this is so complex a people problem we should give up? No! I am saying that we need to change the way we examine and think about the situation. I am saying that if you take a close look at the homeless population you find a wide variety of people. These different people have a wide variety of challenges, handicaps, problems, needs and choices they face in ceasing to be homeless. Person A or small group A need a certain program of help to get off the street. Person B or small group B need a slightly different program of help to get off the street. And so on through the rest of the people who are living on the street and lumped together under the label homeless.

In recognizing that this about PEOPLE not about labels, in seeing the complexity hidden behind that simple label, you begin to see the separate strands tangled together into the knotty mess we currently have. At this point you can begin to take effective actions. In seeing the strands you can begin to untangle or resolve the individual strands and thus address the overall situation. Because what you find is a much simpler series of problems you can address simply by thinking out what you need to do, then taking appropriate actions. So the real question is: do we want to keep wasting resources or do we want to stop, think, then act effectively and accomplish something?

James W Breckenridge