Throw the bum out and leave him there. Wait a minute. That person happens to be ME.
The problems of poverty and homelessness are “intractable” and complex. However, in American culture, it is easy to blame the poor for their own problems and thus to be overly simplistic and uncaring. “These people” lack discipline, delayed gratification, job skills/education, work ethic, and so forth on the one hand, but on the other, “these people” struggle with alcohol and drug addiction and mental illness.
No doubt such observations are true. Any and all are common – even major – contributing factors to poverty and homelessness in our culture. However, very quietly, bubbling up at the edges of popular analysis, I find a concern for “networks of support.” People living on the street suffer the loss of “networks of support” which put them there, networks which enable (empower, if you don’t like my use of “enable”) them to overcome any of these other contributing factors.
Got a debilitating drug addiction? …
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