America's Homeless Secret: The Outsiders

Homelessness is so much more than a lack of shelter. It's a state of being "outside"'.. Outside of the invisible boundaries of what society terms normal, acceptable and good. Homelessness relegates one to an invisible state of being. We don't want to see that which causes us discomfort. The homeless are "those" people, the "outsiders" Surely they brought this on themselves. To think otherwise, to look more deeply, might be really uncomfortable for many of us.

In San Jose California, there are homeless men and women who make $52,000 a year, but cannot afford housing. Highly skilled in high tech applications, software, programming and data processing, these people simply cannot afford to live in such a tight housing market, or the job market is glutted with others just like them. You will find similar situations in San Francisco and Sacramento, California.

On the Capitol Park benches, you will find clean well dressed senior citizens, mostly women, washing their clothing at night in a laundromat, and spending their days finding shelter. Why? They have no family left and were priced out of their homes or apartments. There are young mothers with small children, struggling in the cold to survive. How did they get there? Usually they fled from an abusive situation or they were simply discarded, like yesterdays news, by someone they loved,.

Many of us sitting in comfort, snug against the cold, are but one step away from becoming outsiders ourselves. It is this, that causes so many of us to look away, cluck our tongues and think... not I. It takes only one shift in our circumstances to obliterate all sense of security and safety. A divorce, devastating work injury or illness can tear away the very foundation of our smug world.

It's time to wake up to one brutally simple fact, especially in states like California: the safety nets don't work. Workmens Compensation, State Disability and welfare, all routinely fail workers who pay in, paycheck by paycheck. Insurance companies with their brochures and sales representatives assuring us of compassion and swift response, fail miserably 80% of the time. In a matter of 90 days a family can slide from happy productive living into being outside, one of the invisibles we shunned.

No way, I can hear you thinking. Oh Really? Tell that to the less than understanding banks, mortgage lenders, car finance and credit card companies. Try telling a work comp insurance adjuster your woes. And get a very cold answer. You will be shocked to discover there are no allies extending helping hands out there. There are workers brought to homelessness by bureacratic legalese, who sit night after night outdoors, alone, waiting a decision..

Severely physically or mentally disabled people, who must wait 180 days or more for the Social Security Administration to finish their paperwork dance, are homeless outside, where they least need to be. It is a national disgrace of staggering proportions. We spend billions on other countries for aid and other programs, while the ones who need us most are left dying in the streets.

In the greatest nation on this planet, a place of such abundance, there is NO excuse for one single soul to be "outside". We protest wars and policies, but where are our voices for those who cannot speak? Where is our compassion, our desire to make this nation a place for everyone? We fight wars in the name of this compassion don't we?? America the beautiful we ain't, as long as we, the silent majority allow one single human being to die on the streets of this country. Soup kitchens and shelters are nothing but cosmetics, covering the bleeding away of our nation's soul. Charity begins at home. As long as bodies are scraped off our streets, dead from exposure, not one of us with any courage or compassion should stay silent.