Here’s a book to read — When We Walk By. The subtitle is Forgotten Humanity, Broken Systems, and the Role We Can Each Play in Ending Homelessness in America. Those words put the emphasis in the correct place: us. People like you and me who pass by someone –- or a whole group of someones — that we mostly don’t want to deal with. In town after town, city after city, the challenge is how not to see “them” as people to be ignored or pushed away; too easily dismissed as “the homeless.”
After all, it’s not always obvious who “they” are. Chances are they are people we know. Sure, if they’re camped out in the rain or snow, in the woods, that’s a problem. But the issue is definitely not just the lack of a home, or a job, or drug treatment or counseling –or often as not, the annoyance about who sees who.
Kicking people out of town…or keeping them in jail…seem like knee jerk reactions.
What to do? For starters, come to IVCC--Illinois Valley Community College in Ogelsby—at 5:30 Thursday, November 7; an evening called “Hope for Tomorrow: A Community Response to Homelessness.” You can see the documentary film Americans With no Address. Talk with experts; people who are working hard to find solutions. See what other communities are doing. IVCC Thursday, November 7.
Read the book. It’s When We Walk By. Start now. It’s getting cold out there!
We can all work together on this.
I’m Rick Brooks, and that’s my perspective.
