Nothing to Catch Us

This article caught my eye several months ago, before the current world-wide panic over COVID-19.  It caught my eye in January because of the memorable line early in the story – There was nothing to catch us.

The whole point of the story is decades and decades of failure in terms of public policy on homelessness.  The entire story is geared around the idea that homelessness is essentially a public policy issue best solved by all levels of government in a combined effort to save these people from their situations.  Yes, yes, the article will grudgingly concede, mental illness and addiction are often contributing factors.  But since those are different arenas, let’s essentially just focus on the economics of it and how government should pump more money into systems already proven to not work to fix the problem.

Here in California, where homelessness is often a matter of ‘enlightened’ live and let live, resulting in pervasive homeless camps both communal and solitary, lawmakers want to throw an additional $2 billion dollars per year at solutions for homelessness.  These solutions will undoubtedly emphasize state and local programs, social workers, case workers, low-rent housing options, and a variety of other factors.

Even should such massive appropriations be approved (raising taxes on other people and thereby putting more people at risk of homelessness, perhaps?), it won’t solve the problem.  Experts have already said as much.  But it’s better than nothing, right?  And to be fair, something is better than nothing.  But some things are better than other somethings.

And it fascinates me (but doesn’t surprise me) that so much emphasis is placed on state-provided solutions towards these issues and no attention is given to the importance of strong families as a means of protecting the most vulnerable in our society.  Of the people who approach me for help, it’s literally universal that they have no other support lines in terms of family, nuclear or extended.  There are undoubtedly myriad reasons for this, but it is a consistent factor.

I wonder what it would look like if our society finally admitted that families are actually more important than the State, in terms of providing stable environments for children to be born and raised and continuing to function as safety nets even into adulthood, both for the grown children as well as their aging parents?  I wonder what it would look like if the State invested in these directions rather than in trying to create alternative systems which repeatedly prove inadequate to the challenge despite good intentions?

The first and best line of defense against the unexpected and catastrophic in people’s lives is family.  We can’t prevent tragedies from happening, but families are naturally the first line of defense and solidarity when they do strike.  It’s a shame this sort of common sense eludes elected officials when they discuss strategies to help people, and journalists when they report on the disadvantaged.