By INGRID McCLEARY
More than 20,000 people in Santa Clara County are homeless. The number astounds me. Where do they all go during the night? They seem like shadows that disappear once the sun slips below the horizon.
I don't remember noticing the homeless during the '60s and '70s. Some drunkards, yes, but people holding up "will work for food" signs or pushing shopping carts holding their worldly belongings? No.
Is this a case of a child's faulty memory? No. Public awareness of the homeless didn't arise till the '80s. The first claims of 2.2 to 3 million homeless nationwide were thought exaggerated. The 1990 U.S. Census Bureau claimed 229,000. The truth probably lies somewhere between the two.
Authorities cite these reasons for the increase: de-institutionalization of mental patients, escalating drug and alcohol addiction, recession and unemployment, destruction of skid rows. I would add inadequate affordable housing. Homelessness is no longer a peripheral issue.
The first thing I discovered in trying to nail down some local numbers is that there isn't one organization with full accountability. The system is fragmented, with each organization citing its own numbers. You'd think each city would head an annual compilation and report it to the county, who'd pass the information on to the state, and so on. But the homeless are transient, moving from shelter to shelter, many not even seeking organized shelter. And the term "homeless" covers homelessness from one day to forever, so there may never be any reliable numbers.
I read an article about the discrimination against single homeless males, because most services catered to women with children or single women. The articles argued that mentally fit, able-bodied men could not find help outside of emergency aid. I wondered why that was considered discrimination. Why should mentally fit, able-bodied single men receive anything other than emergency aid? However, mentally fit, able-bodied single women shouldn't get any more emergency aid than men.
I donate to those folks standing outside grocery stores, at street corners and left-hand turn islands. Sometimes I give them the name of my church, where they can pick up a bag of groceries. I support my church, which in turn supports a homeless shelter in San Jose.
But I've also seen the same people time and again. Once, at a grocery store parking lot, a man approached me before I'd even closed my car door. He asked for money. I gave him some. Then he said, "You know, I've been homeless for 29 years now." I peered at him: Was he bragging?
It's commonly believed that many of us are only three paychecks away from homelessness. In this land of plenty, where you're taught to take responsibility for your own life, it's hard to conceive being first without a job when the papers are filled with employment offers (though 70 percent of those listed are temporary jobs), then running through your savings, then passing your credit card limits, then losing your home, then appealing to family members for aid, then friends. We think we are relatively safe with these six buffer zones (considerably more for those with large families and a healthy circle of friends).
It's hard to conceive that others may not have these buffer zones. Yet research indicates that it's the lack of family and friends that is the key factor in families becoming homeless.
At some point, we figure in choice. Like the man who approached me at the grocery store; this man has made a lifestyle choice, and these type of men have always been around. But those cases should not deter us from helping those who are homeless against their will, against their choice.
There's a lot of cynicism attached to giving money to the homeless. I know I've been lied to, but it doesn't stop me from giving. I give because it makes me feel better. Whether I give to ease my own conscience or for more noble purposes is something I've often pondered.
Funding for the homeless comes from many avenues: government agencies, nonprofit organizations, local churches, individuals. Putting all the "why or why not give," "who should or should not receive" reasons aside, there remains the ultimate reason: Because it's there.
It was there 2,000 years ago. "To this very hour, we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated. We are homeless." (1 Cor 4:11).
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, September 11, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.