If there were an easy cure for poverty and homelessness, we would be thrilled. If telling someone the error of their ways, explaining the difference between good and bad choices, handing them a list of instructions, and sending them out with an “attaboy” worked, that would be terrific.
It would be so much less stressful than figuring out how to help everyone who comes in keep their utilities on, put food on the table, have the medicine they need, and find employment. We could just kick back in the office, hand out lots of free advice, tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and give them a kick in the pants at the first questioning of our “Cure Yourself from Poverty” program.
We would tell little children to suck it up, hunger makes you stronger. Have your mom give your face a good spit shine and get on to school, you have learning to do. Holes in your shoes? Nothing that tying bread sacks around your ankles won’t fix. When Grandma is eating cat food, tell her that her hair has never looked shinier. Must be the protein. There were plenty of bums during the Great Depression who got by just fine. Did they get beaten? Did they starve? Were they ravaged by illness and disease? Well sure. But longevity comes with its own set of problems, so quit your bellyaching.
If only human beings didn’t have emotions. If only they could go along like a machine, never feeling anything for anyone else, never feeling anything for themselves, what a fantastic world this would be. Everyone would always do exactly what they were told. Always go to the job because the job makes the man, or the kid or whatever. I sure hope that happens soon, because I am ready to close the doors on Humanity House, kick all these perfect human beings we create to the curb, and let the people who have all the answers take over. I could go back to my garden, do some yoga, take a walk, and stop worrying.
But spending the last two years working with people in poverty, and those we help who are not in poverty but are having a hard time, I know that those things don’t work. Not everyone has enough grit, determination, stubbornness, resilience, gumption, whatever you want to call it, to put all of the ugliness of their lives, all of the abuse, all of the life altering circumstances that have taken them down the path of poverty and sweep it under a rug. And they shouldn’t have to. It is not a path that has to be walked for a lifetime, but it is a path that once on is hard to get off.
Most human beings are complicated. If there were a simple answer, there would be no one in poverty, because, believe it or not, poverty sucks. So if you want to help, please do. If you want to teach a class on life lessons, let us know. Be prepared to have your eyes and hearts opened. Kindness matters!
