The Register-Guard




Homelessness Editorial

Why people should care

Compassion, self-interest both point toward action



Appeared in print: page A8



Most of the 170 people attending Wednesday’s public forum on homelessness at The Register-Guard were already persuaded of the urgent need to address the problem. The question arose several times: What about the people who are not at this forum? How can feelings of hostility or indifference toward the homeless be shifted?

Focus on Homelessness

One way is by harnessing empathy to self-interest. Acting to prevent and relieve homelessness is not only a humanitarian imperative, it’s a way of reducing staggering public costs.

The humanitarian imperative is easily grasped. The indignities, discomforts and physical dangers of homelessness are readily apparent to anyone who spends time talking to people living on the streets, in cars or in shelters. These people are found at all points across a broad spectrum, extending from the chronic alcoholic who refuses treatment to the working parent of school-age children. Some deserve to be held accountable for their own mistakes or bad choices, while others are blameless victims of cruel circumstance. All of them deserve compassion.

But not everyone who has less-than-compassionate opinions of homeless people has a heart of stone. Many simply don’t understand the scope of the problem, and believe that all of today’s homeless people could live different lives if they chose to. Others think the problem is so intractable that there’s no hope of doing anything meaningful about it. Still others see homeless people as freeloaders, or as reminders of unwelcome changes in American society.

Even those whose feelings toward homeless people are untinged by empathy, however, ought to be able to grasp the idea that their city and their country are far better off when people get off the streets or out of shelters and into housing, or avoid becoming homeless in the first place. It’s not just homeless people themselves who benefit. Homelessness places a strain on every American institution, and affects every American’s pocketbook.

Nearly every homeless person, for instance, qualifies for the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s Medicaid program. The state and federal governments share the costs. Homelessness aggravates existing medical problems and creates new ones, multiplying average health-care costs by a factor of three. It costs less to provide housing than it does to pay for the increased demand for health care resulting from homelessness.

Or consider the cost of incarceration. Homeless people frequently find themselves in conflict with the law, often for relatively minor offenses related to a lack of shelter, such as trespassing. People who could provide no address accounted for 40 percent of bookings in the Lane County jail last year. Keeping each of those people in jail cost $170 a day. The cycle of homelessness and criminality won’t be broken without housing, and the result would be a substantial reduction in public safety costs.

Opportunities to achieve savings by addressing homelessness are everywhere. What if schools were relieved of the burdens of educating students who lack the stability that only housing can provide? How much more effective could social service agencies’ programs be if their clients had housing that made it easier for them to keep appointments? What would be the gains to the economy if human capital were treated as having as much value as a piece of machinery?

And then there are intangible benefits that don’t depend on feelings of altruism. What’s it worth to feel safe in public places? What’s the cost of being unable to go to the riverbank without stumbling upon someone’s camp? What’s a fair price for not having to explain to visitors why so many people are living in tents? Even those who never give a dime to panhandlers pay a psychic toll for each refusal.

People motivated by love of their fellow human beings and compassion for their suffering are helping homeless people in miraculous ways every day. Some of these people were at Wednesday’s forum. But mobilizing political, economic and social action against homelessness will require more than those who show up at forums. It will require people who come to see addressing the problem not only as a means of improving other people’s lives, but their own.