Homelessness Tour, Coda: When Will We Get Outraged About Poverty?

Other than racking up 2,500 miles on my road-weary motorhome, emptying the bank account to pay for gas, and adding to global climate change, what did our two week Southern (Dis)Comfort tour accomplish in the world of helping homeless people?

At my last post, Pat LaMarche and I were headed to Birmingham, AL, "The Magic City," to nudge a much-needed movement to house homeless youth ages 19-26. The event brought together community members, social service types, media and experts - two courageous young men who knew life on the streets from living there, Courtney Brooks and Josh Pugh.

I pointed out that one upside of this pulverized economy is an abundance of abandoned buildings. As they listened to Josh and Courtney, hearts warmed. A man who came to check out the hoopla offered to donate a building. Others volunteered to mentor, donate, or otherwise move the dreamed-about "Youth Towers" forward quickly, before more vulnerable young people are lost to the hopelessness of the streets.

This exciting aura of action carried us back to our starting point, Atlanta, at the art gallery operated by the much-scorned but wonderful Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, where a cozy reception by members of the Georgia Green Party filled our gas tank and reinforced the purpose of our mission: to call attention to the under-served legions of the homeless population—youth on their own and families with myriad barriers to stability and independence.

Notables from our frenzied route:

• New Orleans Catholic Charities received tons of offers to help their efforts to assist homeless and impoverished adults and kids.
• Calhoun, GA will likely see a much needed family shelter emerge, soon, thanks to the focus on the lack of resources in that devastated carpet industry community, an effort pulled together by the Family Connection of Gordon County, now an embattled agency thanks to Gov. Deal's new budget.
• Folks in Mobile, AL fired up their interest in helping homeless families, taking a closer look at the common sense approach of finding mentors to support frenzied families and youth.
• Shelby, NC community heard a plea on behalf of their soaring homeless student population.
• The 2011 U.S. Conference of Mayors' Hunger and Homelessness report may reflect the ravaging reality of hunger and homelessness a little more accurately after our visit with Asheville, NC Mayor Terry Bellamy, chair of the report committee.
• Florida's Gainesville community is still grappling with how many poor people deserve to eat, but the heightened awareness of this issue, and the thousands of Change.org petitions filling email boxes of city leaders is poking the gators. Time to call in the "Big Dog," Jon Stewart of The Daily Show!

Even if Jon Stewart manages to budge the stuck-in-the-mud Gainesville leaders, we're still looking at a mess.

Most communities on our route possess little or no means to rescue families or teens from the streets who desperately turn to storage sheds, cheap motels, overcrowded dwellings, tents, or worse. Congress is clueless about the dire conditions of the unhoused because HUD has hidden this reality from view. Instead of the purported 656,129 homeless individuals in America, millions - perhaps as many as 10 million - have no place to call home. Governors like Florida's tea-stained Rick Scott plan a brutal assault on that state's most vulnerable, to the glee of poverty-hating conservatives.

Regretfully, because many communities lack emergency provisions as homelessness soars, I find myself encouraging locals to kick-start emergency programs like Family Promise to shelter some families in places of worship. Emergency should mean temporary until we can get things fixed. Not so in 21st Century America.

We struggle to stretch the crumbs tossed our way by our war-focused federal budgeteers. Throw homeless families under the congressional bus so programs serving homeless veterans can be funded. Disregard the promise of youth and the decades of contributions of the newly-homeless aged because we don't have enough money to help everyone.

Seems to me it's time for some well directed outrage. Meekly accepting "not enough resources" as the answer to surging hunger and homelessness is morally wrong. So we desperately turn to Jon Stewart to incite an outrage riot.

Photo by Diane Nilan