The Audacity of Home

If there were ever a time for the Obama Administration to fulfill its promise of restoring Hope for America, re-prioritizing the promise of "a Home for all" is the ideal start. The sum of our devastating housing and economic crisis, combined with the recent findings from the international human rights community, prove that there is no better time to move housing to the top of the federal policy agenda.

Today, I'm taking a step back. Away from the details in the news, away from the constant flow of comments, the banter. Today I want to talk about something so simple, so basic that most of us take it for granted.

Home.

A Home is a basic necessity. Something so basic that it's easy to forget. We see homeless people, we hear about programs designed to serve them, we read the news of the worsening crisis. Yet we're desensitized to the severe psychological implications of not having a home. We're numb.

A Home helps to ensure safety, health, and well-being. It is our base, a place we can always return to. We identify with our Home - with the structure we live in, the town and state it's in, the schools it's near. A Home is safety, it is opportunity. For many people, it is even identity. It is not far-fetched to say that our ability to hope is directly related to having a Home.

Last week, the special United Nations rapporteur on housing concluded that we, as a country, have "shamefully neglected" our homeless while concurrently pumping billions of dollars to big businesses. This report arrived on the heels of a record-setting foreclosure crisis and just as unemployment rates hit the double-digits.

Nestled within these large, complex issues are varying layers of tragedy. State finances are in disarray, resulting in cuts in services to critical to meeting the needs of the homeless. Services to the mentally ill, drug and alcohol addicts, and victims of domestic violence have dwindled. Washington D.C., Massachusetts, and California - among many others - are slashing homeless service budgets, resulting in lost shelter beds, fewer shelter workers, and ultimately a reduction in services.

At the same time, other entities - many not accustomed to serving the homeless - are being forced to respond to the crisis. Schools across the country are fighting to keep the growing numbers of homeless children from falling behind their classmates. City councils are wrestling with growing numbers of tent cities, attempting to balance the housing needs of community members with important public safety issues.

The sum of all these issues results in a greater number of people who experience the trauma and the pain of losing a piece of their identify - their home. Many of these individuals will never be counted. They stay hidden; in cars, on friend's couches, in tents in the woods. They may never enter "the system," maybe because there aren't enough resources or maybe because they have too much pride to ask for help. You see, just as the word "home" carries a greater significance, being "homeless" has its own negative implications.

If there were ever a time for the Obama Administration to fulfill its promise of restoring Hope, re-prioritizing the promise of a Home for all would be the ideal start. The sum of these crisis, combined with the findings from the UN, prove that there is no better time to move housing to the top of the federal policy agenda.

Yes, this crisis is bad. But the greater tragedy will be if we learn nothing from this crisis. If we don't re-evaluate the importance of Home, the accessibility of Home to all who need it. If we don't re-prioritize housing in this, the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world, that will be the real tragedy.

Images: j9marshall, papalar and dandeluca