Whining Won't Solve Anything, Especially Not Homelessness

I got my start in homeless services several years ago working with a homeless advocacy organization that also operated a shelter. While the organization was quite vocal in its activism, it was largely ineffective at helping the homeless families in its shelter transition into housing. I found it ironic that while this organization was lobbying the government and other service providers to do a better job of helping those experiencing homelessness, it failed to do much long-term good for the people it purported to serve.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose administration created and popularized Project Homeless Connect, a bi-monthly event that brings a wide array of community organizations together to connect homeless San Franciscans to services, is regularly criticized for not doing more to help the homeless by a local advocacy agency called the Coalition on Homelessness. At a recent Project Homeless Connect meeting, Mayor Newsom lashed out at the Coalition on Homelessness for providing plenty of criticism, but no solutions.

Newsom told the San Francisco Chronicle: "There's 250 service providers down there [at Project Homeless Connect], and they're not one of them. It's action. It's not words. It's not rhetoric. You can sit there and hold a candlelight vigil and attack folks every single week, but that's not solved a problem in the world -- ever."

I don't know much about the Coalition on Homelessness so I won't speak to the specifics of the Mayor's accusation (or his debatable record), but his general sentiment is exactly right. What we do about homelessness, now what we say, is what actually matters. We cannot get so wrapped up in protest that we lose sight of progress. Let me be clear here. I am not saying that criticism and debate has no place in homeless services. To the contrary, we need more of that. But it is not enough for us to simply criticize what others do. The most insightful critics and most effective advocates are practitioners. Our advocacy must come from more than our passion -- it must come from our experience and efforts, too.

As homeless advocates, our interest must be in obtaining real, lasting solutions for those experiencing homelessness. Therefore, I adhere to a definition of advocacy that is rooted in service more than it is in sayings. A true advocate is one who gets results for people in need. We cannot measure our successes in re-tweets and page views. [Ed. note: Thanks a lot, David!] Our success as advocates is defined solely by the results we get for homeless individuals and families. Anything else is just noise.

Photo credit: Pedro Klien