Margaret Hastings wrote, in part:
If you have never been at this or any of the other shelters.... coaxing
someone to do the right thing without a decent place to sleep, decent mental
health screening, privacy, being in a crowded, noisy place with many, many
other men, ...many people have undiagnosed Traumatic Brain injury or PTSD,
...well, it is hardly the way to coax anyone to do anything.
<<<<
GH here: I was privileged to work in a downtown Minneapolis shelter a few
years back. The unit I worked on was a "Special Needs Emergency Housing"
shelter. We took in homeless folks with a variety of mental health issues
as well as people with gunshot wounds, diabetes, bad cases of frostbite, and
people put out on the sidewalk by hospitals after surgery or a stay in the
"psych ward."
One of the most difficult things for me was to see people who were clearly
"victim-perpetrators." These were people who had been severely damaged in
ways --physically and psychologically. They seemed caught in a cycle of
destructive behaviour that hurt others and always ended up hurting
themselves. It is not pleasant to recall memories of people who grew up in
wealthy or middle class homes filled with violence and abuse, and who ended
up living under bridges downtown.
Perhaps a kind of "peace core" program set up by local faith communities and
other organizations could provide more people with some in-depth shelter
work experience.
I believe that candidates for public office (including City Council, Mayor,
County Commissioner...right up through President!) should be required to
work fulltime for a minimum of 5 years caring for children, including
significant time spent working directly with infants...full time! But maybe
some of that five years would be well spent working in shelters with a
variety of homeless people.
One of the reasons we are smack in the middle of a Democracy-turned-Empire
engaged in an increasingly brutal war for resources is that our leaders are
devoid of experience raising and nurturing children or learning to
understand those who have truly been brutalised by our supposedly righteous
and compassionate society.
Add to this narrowness of experience the fascism of ordinary corporate
welfare culture and we have a recipe for cultivating criminally sociopathic
leadership.
We need to ask ourselves how the household of our city is doing. Are the
children cared for? Are we planning for future generations? Are the elders
cared for? Are those who have been seriously harmed in life also cared for?
Most American cities encourage citizens to treat government like a discount
service center. "Fix my roads for less. Make my commute easier and less
costly. Let me park at the door for free. Give my corporate nanny big tax
breaks so I will have a job. But screw everyone else. Give me excellent
products and services at Wal-Mart prices but beat the Hell out of anyone who
makes my urban experience the least bit unpleasant."
Someone got a bit of peanut butter in someone's chocolate. Fortunately,
they got a nice new confection. Unfortunately, someone got a bit of Ayn
Rand in someone else's Pat Robertson, and ended up with American fascism.
"When they said 'Repent, Repent, Repent," I wonder what they meant..." L.
Cohen
-- pedaling for peace and ecojustice from Lynnhurst -- Gary Hoover
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