Re: (fwd) Thoughts on the Homeless (fwd)
Donald Bokor (boko7751@uidaho.edu)
Mon, 5 Jan 1998 12:29:10 -0800 (PST)
Dear Pat,
This is the essence of my approach to homelessness. That is, that there
is really nothing we can do by hoping that others will solve our problems
for us, and that we must come together to solve our own problems.
On Mon, 5 Jan 1998, P. Myers wrote:
> I would suggest, though, that anything that has to do with people,
> especially marginalized people, *is about housing, money, economics, etc.
Although it is just my opinion, I have to disagree with this suggestion.
On the contrary, anything that has to do with people is about people, and
anything that has to do with marginalized people is about acceptance of
people's differences. My parents will not let me into their house (they
do not accept me for who I am) while unemployed kids on the street will
bring me into their or their parents' homes (among those kids I am
accepted). What I have been trying to get HPN to realize is that poverty
and homelessness is not about housing, money, economics, etc. All of
these things will not make a spiritiually bankrupt person moral; while a
transcendant consciousness will make even the poorest of people wealthy
beyond all material.
> And about definitions
Yes, it is about definitions. Who is responsible for the poor person's
misery? The poor person. Why? Because it does no good to look outside
of oneself for the answers to one's problems. So what are the poor doing
wrong that keeps them poor? They are not using the resources they have at
their disposal to help themselves and other like-situated people. Once we
realize that all people are members of the human family, and that it is
our individual responsibility to help every one of our family members in
need, then both the poor and those better off will be able to solve the
problem of poverty. Blah, blah, blah. Shut your fucking mouth Duck!
> ...externally created, and eventually internalized
> definitions... that very profoundly influence how people, one by one and
> together, understand their rights and responsibilities, and their
> possibilities... maybe the politics of division has as much to do with the
> difference between the groups putting together enough for a house (or a
> meal or two), and the guy sleeping in the dumpster...
The politics of division suggest that we are not responsible for anybody
but ourselves. The politics of unity suggest that we are responsible for
everybody including ourselves. It is true that the groups putting
together enough for a house are not seeing the guy behind the dumpster as
one of their concerns, but neither is the guy behind the dumpster helping
others like himself to get a better place to live.
I really don't know what to say. I think that you've all heard it from me
before. What can I do to help (beyond intellectualizing the problem)?
Will starting soup kitchens and youth hostels help? What if my community
doesn't want to see those things in it? Do I go to some other community
where soup kitchens and youth hostels are accepted? If that's the case
then aren't I just going to be another of the homeless problem in these
larger cities? Look, we need to organize, and I don't mean to become an
advocacy agency which uses government funds to meet governmentally
ordained needs of the poor. Is anybody interested in helping out? Or can
somebody tell me of a group that is doing the work that I have in mind?
I'm going back to my shell. Fuck you all very much for your silence and
the meaninglessness of your advocacy approaches to poverty. At least I
will always know where to go for a band-aid to cover my hemmoraging
economic and social arteries. I'm just glad that I didn't hold my breath
until I found something useful on the HPN.
Please forgive me for freaking out, It's just that this new year promises
even more shit than I have been heaped under in the past four years, and
no way out. Thanks anyhow for your attempts to help homeless people get
in touch with one another. I hope that others benefit from your efforts
more than I have.