The Silent Exclusion and Discrimination of the Homeless
I am homeless but currently in a house sit. I am focusing on this issue as I am going to do something about it, not just for myself but for a group of people who are definitely marginalised and they do not enjoy the same rights as citizens. I might add that even citizen’s rights are diminishing. I am fortunate in that I have an education and that I studied economics, I understand structurally why unemployment and homelessness from an income perspective happens. However, what interests me is the discrimination and how we divide on the basis of a characteristic. I trained in Bangkok with Rotary and we looked at peace from a range of perspectives. My calling is inner peace and outer peace. I am interested in empowerment where we tap into our own resiliency to overcome discrimination, poverty and stigmatisation. Living it is really a positive experience as I naturally empathise with people. All my life whenever I have suffered I always thought of others. I believe it is my calling to serve humanity and I utilise my own aloneness and poverty to enable me to gain deep insights into the structural violence that exists in exclusion. Again, I am fortunate, I dress as if I am a middle income earner so no-one knows I may sit with a coffee and work on something with $20 in my account. However, I am spiritual so I allow life to give me what it gives as my own experiment.
Turning to the story below it is about homelessness and the attitudes towards it. I am very honest so I will tell people I am homeless, I quickly let them know I am ok. I note who offers a place to stay and who doesn’t. I am not after a place to stay. However, I am observing. I was reading a paper yesterday. i seldom read the mainstream news as it is not informative. However, yesterday I glanced at it. I saw $208 million spent on a arts precinct. As a peace educator I couldn’t even get funding for peace education. I had an experience with a service club when they realised I had no money they labelled me economically unviable. I saw the economic paradigm laid over the top of what is supposedly sustainable and not. The truth is the work I was doing was definitely sustainable, it just required support as a pioneering project to get up and going. I needed some mentoring in the schools as I am not a trained teacher. The ignorance of those funding and discrimination was the barrier, I noted. Gender comes into it as well as the older ‘boys’ clubs exist. I have come to realise women are seen in a different way. I say this because I never saw myself as unequal and still don’t. I know if I wanted a relationship (which fortunately I don’t) I would probably not fare that well if I told a man that I am homeless. He would see me as a failure. In families you get lecturers about responsibility, get a job, don’t depend on others, pull your weight etc. The reality is that you have chosen to live a responsible life, my responsiblity extends beyond myself, everything I do and say is on behalf of others as I feel the oneness with humanity. I see them as myself. However, we have moral and economic mantras that have been drummed in to us and this becomes the barrier to compassion, people are not supportive. I know they don’t empathise as it is not in their experience. They don’t realise the importance of principle, to live ethically, to question and to follow one’s own rhythm. I’ve been silently judged and excluded many times. I don’t mind as I don’t need to be included but I then turn my mind to those who feel desperately lonely. How do they fare? I also am included as well, as in other situations I am embraced.
I read another article in this paper quoting an opposition Leader in Victoria who believed the homeless were all drug addicts and alcoholics and he was agitating for a ‘move on’ law. I couldn’t believe how insensitive and ignorant this statement was. It is akin to cleaning up the neighbourhood of those unsightly people, they did this to indigenous in Redfern in Sydney when the Olympics happened, those in the upper quartile wanted to be seen to be, rather than acknowledging the social ills (externalities) from structural issues with capitalism (no full employment, psychological barriers). When I was at Macchu Picchu in Peru I found out that the Inca’s had a society based on equality. They never left one person behind. The Indus civilisation is the same, it has its roots in equality. Even though we see the caste system which is definitely creating labels for particular groups based on a form of class. This is why the homeless I saw there were desperately poor in a poor country. I always remember the young girl who came to me with a baby on her hip (around 7 years old) begging. I refused her money as I had limited funds to travel. However, I always remembered her and in many respects was glad I refused as she became indelible in my awareness. Had I given her money I would have forgotten her. I recall looking at her mother in the distance watching. I felt the connection to them. I was advised not to give as more would come and I didn’t have the funds to give to all. So I work for peace as my contribution. I recall Patch Adams in Moscow saying not to give to the kids. They want more. In Indian orphanages we gave love, which is what they need as well. They need to feel acceptable, to feel included. So the gift we gave as clowns was to welcome them and honour them. I feel this sense of equality with everyone. So when I see a wealthy society like my own making statements of ‘move on’ it is not a question of resources it is a question of ignorance and lack of empathy.
This case below is about a man who has been homeless a long time. He became an alcoholic and purchased from a convenience store. It is noteworthy that the convenience store are fine with selling him alcohol. He apparently took a paper not thinking. Probably his mind is confused through alcohol and they banned him. There was no thought of conflict resolution when this was proposed. He needed to have resolution is apparent here, the manager didn’t want it, being fixed on the decision to ban him not aware of how he may feel. Why did he become an alcoholic? He was bereft and lonely. I feel so much compassion for the homeless. I have been in the crowd walking past, but never comfortable with it. My inner feeling is to bring them into society and help them to remember they are equal to others. Many on drugs and alcohol feel empty that is why they take drugs. They want to be happy and this gives them temporary solace. However, it will never solve the problem, it only digs them deeper into despair. So they need tools on how to reconfigure their life, how to see their problems in a different light, how to remember they too have talents and abilities. They too are worthy. This is where love directs action, not to ‘move them on’ but give them a ‘hand up’. Our society has become fearful and selfish. It is very evident. I wonder what love would do next? In my worldview Jimmy is me. I love every person, there is something inside me that sees their worth even if they are CEO or Prime Minister, I see their pain, poverty and their potential. The poverty I see can be physical or spiritual poverty. Mother Theresa said spiritual emptiness was the poverty of the West. That is why we walk past.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-schanes/are-homeless-people-human_b_841198.html
Why Do We Discriminate Against Homeless People?
My homeless friend, Larry, was upset as he recounted his recent experience: “The other day I went to a fast food store, bought a coffee and went outside to sit, drink my coffee and have a cigarette. But, they wouldn’t let me. ‘Move along,’ they said, ‘You can’t stay here.’ All I wanted to do was sit and have my coffee and a cigarette. And I had bought their coffee!”
What could I say to Larry? I have heard this before — presumably-housed people treating a homeless person differently than they would a housed person. For example, when housed people buy items at a fast food restaurant, we expect to be able to sit in the restaurant or on its patio and enjoy our food. It goes without saying. It’s what we expect and it’s what we get.
What are we talking about here? Fears. Fear of people we don’t know. We’ve been taught since childhood not to talk to strangers. But we’re adults now. We can introduce ourselves to anyone and thereby meet a neighbor and potential friend.
Fear of economic loss by having homeless people on the premises is a concern for any business. Everyone needs a home. But, until everyone has a home, we will have homeless people among us. What is a business to do?
I wonder if when a business accepts the patronage of a homeless person, whether that business has any responsibility to the homeless person. My homeless friend, Jimmy, was involved in a situation lately that gave me pause to think about this.
For over 10 years, Jimmy and his wheelchair-bound wife, Ellen, were homeless. When Ellen died nearly six years ago, Jimmy could not contain his grief and drank to try to literally drown his sorrows. Every day, Jimmy would visit his local convenience store and buy his morning paper and breakfast beer. During the day, as his finances would allow, Jimmy made as many trips to buy beer to the same convenience store. Needless to say, Jimmy has been a consistent customer for many years.
But his last trip to his convenience store was different. As Jimmy tells it, when selecting his morning newspaper, he thought he had paid for it and put it in his bag. Jimmy was still in the store when the owner of the convenience store approached Jimmy and told him that because he had tried to steal the newspaper, Jimmy was henceforth barred from shopping in his convenience store.
The day after this incident, Jimmy told me that he felt terrible about being barred from his convenience store.
Please know that I am not condoning theft by any means by any person, housed or unhoused. However, misunderstandings do arise.
So, I offered to speak to the owner of the convenience store on Jimmy’s behalf. Jimmy said that he would apologize to the management for the incident.
Unfortunately, the owner of the convenience store was not present when I went there, so I left my phone number with the manager and asked that owner call me so we could discuss the incident. [Note: the owner never called me.]
I shared Jimmy’s feelings about the incident with the manager. She was not interested in anything I had to say on Jimmy’s behalf. She did tell me repeatedly and with feeling that “they” are always standing outside the store and that “once ‘they’ steal from us, ‘they’ can never come back.”
I said that there was only one person involved in this incident and it was Jimmy. The manager did not know Jimmy’s name, but said that she did know that he had been coming to the store for years. She said that since he had stolen from the convenience store, he was barred from shopping there in the future.
I said that I understood her position, but that Jimmy felt terrible about the incident and would like to come in and apologize to her. She said that she was not interested in his apology.
“Please,” I entreated, “Allow Jimmy to come and apologize to you because it would be good for him to do so.”
“No, I’m just not interested,” she repeated.
This incident is an example of how some businesses regard homeless patrons as different from their housed patrons. I can use myself as an example. Every day for over two years, I have been walking several miles in the morning. On my way home from my exercise route, I always reward myself for my efforts by buying a cup of coffee in my local convenience store.
At my convenience store, the manager often greets me by name when I enter and the sales people are always friendly to me during my stay in their store. I am treated with respect and as an individual. I don’t feel like a “they.”
Could it be that homeless people, as was the case for Jimmy, are not seen as individuals? I guess I’ve written this piece in hopes of reminding all of us that homeless people are people, too.
I look forward to your comments. Thank you.