Caring for the most vulnerable among us.

Fear of the Poor by Kristin Calabrese

If I am lucky enough to live to the ripe old age of 97 I hope to enjoy my twilight years by listening to the sounds of oldies cover bands, playing bingo, and drinking spiked, dietary supplement beverages.

Hopefully, I’ll be that lucky. Not everyone is.

In a Los Angeles Times human interest piece that ran last week, we met Bessie Mae Berger who at 97 lives in a rusted Chevy Suburban that barely runs. She spends her days moving from parking lot to public parks to the beach. Her two sons both live with her. They cannot work as they both have had injuries. The trio has been looking for government subsidized housing for the last four years. Although at 97, Bessie Mae certainly qualifies, she wants to stay with her sons, who do not. I have to say from what I have seen in government run nursing homes, she might be better off in the car. Their heart wrenching story can be found here.

A two year study funded by the United Way of Los Angeles shows without a doubt that it is cheaper to house the homeless than to leave them on the streets. The study found that the taxpayers pay $187,288 a year for people living on the streets because of their use of hospitals, jails and clinics. Putting people in permanent housing costs $107,032. The study did not factor in loss of tourism or destruction of public and private property caused by homelessness.

Los Angeles is often called the Home of the Homeless because of its mild climate. However, two homeless advocacy groups recently deemed it the “meanest” city to be homeless in. The city has been accused of criminalizing poverty by issuing loitering and jaywalking tickets to people that cannot pay them and putting camping bans in effect where homeless people congregate. Once a person has a criminal record it makes it harder to find a job and housing and the cycle continues.

In my neighborhood I often see several old, broken down campers that house older people on fixed incomes. Many neighborhoods around Los Angeles have banned overnight parking in response to complaints but in my neighborhood there is a live and let live attitude and so far my neighbors have turned a blind eye.

So much of what makes us uncomfortable in life, we either want to punish on or deny the existence of. Neither of these approaches are good solutions particularly when the conflict involves people with stories and lives that are more like ours than we would like to admit.

Sources:

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE56E0MC20090715

http://www.unitedwayla.org/getinformed/news/Pages/exposescostoflifeonstreets.aspx