America’s homeless population is at around 553,000. They live their street lives in decaying downtowns and slum districts, hidden from our daily commute between work and the suburbs.
In just the Los Angeles County section of Southern California, there are more than 30,000 people who have nowhere to call home. Like most of my neighbors, I never use public transportation or visit the more deprived areas. Unless I make a special effort, I never see the thousands on the sidewalks.
It is only when disaster strikes a poor area that the country sees the face of poverty. After Andrew in southern Florida and Katrina on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, the omnipresent television cameras caught a glimpse of what it is like to be poor in America. We saw the faces of the forgotten lined up in the Superdome and had to admit that the national dream of success and a comfortable lifestyle does not extend to everyone.
There are those who believe that the poor bring on their own misery. That anyone with any motivation would be able to work themselves out of the mess. Thousands of homeless have drifted away from the larger society because of drugs or mental illness, the have-nots who fail to qualify for the treatment and rehabilitation programs established for the more fortunate, but also, I have learned from my monthly visits to the homeless shelters, that some are just not capable of getting up on their own feet alone.
Many are victims of domestic violence, illness, structural unemployment, or a series of events that devastated their former working or middle-class lives. Many thousands are just working poor. Lacking skills and contacts, they trudge daily to minimum wage, low-level positions: motel maid, security guard, custodian, waitress, or day labor. The minimum wage is a social farce for a single individual, never mind someone with children or family to support.
Can Congress or the Administration explain how someone clearing less than $200 per week can feed and clothe themselves and their family and yet set aside enough money for even the cheapest apartment? Can the finest financial minds in the country calculate how to pay first and last month rent and a security deposit when there are only pennies left at the end of the week?
Is it so and so’s theory that the poor don’t deserve the protection of prevailing wages so he can use that money to protect them from terrorism?
The poor and the homeless don’t even think about a bomber at an airport or what’s happening in the Middle East. They have more pressing concerns such as where is their next meal coming from, how can they educate their children, and where would be the safest place to spend the night.
And yet, the oil companies, with their already obscene profits, get a tax break….
* The several organizations that I’ve been involved with, really help those who are in need. The programs that are offered to the individuals and families in lost of hope, are fit to structure the lives of these people on the streets, helping them until they can get up on their own feet. If you are interested in knowing more about it, please feel free to email me at tiaspage@mail.com
