A simple (golden) rule to counter homelessness
Christian Science Monitor · C · trust 28/100
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Neighborly connection and care provide the vital glue to sheltering those in need.
Alfredo Sosa/Staff/File Tents on a sidewalk in Portland, Oregon, March 2024: Cities such as Portland, Denver, and Austin are expanding the availability of “tiny houses,” which offer better protection and privacy for individuals transitioning from life on the streets. Play Pause Share Shared content is always free to recipients. Copy link Copied! Font Size Share this story Copy Link Link copied
As winter starts to arrive, communities across the United States start to take a tally of those who are homeless or unsheltered. Coat drives and food drives go into overdrive. Partisan arguments flare over how to balance removal of street encampments with voluntary placement in housing or wraparound social services.
There is, apparently, no one-size-fits-all solution for the estimated 750,000 individuals who are homeless. But that’s not entirely bad news. Rather, it points to a range of emerging and specific responses that are working, community by community.
Reports over the past year – in this publication and others – show citizens and local governments redefining concepts of home beyond a roof and walls to offer a sense of belonging, safety, and neighborly regard. In other words, Americans are figuring out how to live out the Golden Rule.
Human connection offers the most lasting pathway out of chronic homelessness, according to Alan Graham, who leads a housing nonprofit in Austin, Texas. Mr. Graham oversees Community First! Village, an expanding cluster of tiny homes that facilitates relationships and services to help people make a transition into stable circumstances.
His “governing theory,” as reported by Austin Monthly, is “that solving homelessness requires ordinary people to re-enter the work of caring for one another.”
It’s not just faith-impelled individuals like Mr. Graham who see neighborly caring as core to alleviating homelessness. So do mayors, city councilors, and think tanks.
“Homelessness is not a moral failure,” noted the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in an essay last year. Rather, it needs effective policy, such as the Good Neighbors Success Sequence, “a community-first framework that treats neighbors as assets – not problems to be solved.”
The first pillar listed under this approach? “Love thy neighbor.”
Baldwin Park, a community in Los Angeles County, came to a similar realization as it dealt with a recent uptick in homelessness. Civic engagement “helped dispel misconceptions ... and displayed our neighbors as fellow human beings deserving of dignity,” a council member told Western City Magazine. “This wasn’t just about housing. It was about healing our entire community.” The city built two tiny-home villages to help homeless individuals rebuild their lives.
“Policy starts with people,” the AEI essay observed. “Strong communities are founded on faith, trust, and local action – not regulation alone.”
As the Monitor’s Harry Bruinius reported this month , one woman in Albuquerque, New Mexico, exemplifies such local action: Karina Chavez, who is converting unused motels into micro housing units, believes that “community purpose and profit can occupy the same room,” Harry wrote.
In Denver, Mayor Mike Johnston is pursuing a two-pronged approach, which has reduced its unsheltered population by 64% since 2023. The city offers tiny houses, as well as group shelters. Its police officers break up homeless encampments, but also work to connect homeless individuals to services.
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When problems appear intractable, Mr. Johnston told The New York Times, the tendency is “to blame your neighbor or to blame democracy.” Working things out together, he said, can “train people’s muscle memory to turn to each other – not to turn on each other.”
Those affected by homelessness “need to be fully and wholly loved, and fully and wholly known,” as Mr. Graham in Austin put it. “Our government provides extraordinary and meaningful things. But we, the people, can make it far more effective if we do our part.”
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