Our society has a terrible problem making the distinction between people who don’t want to work and those who can’t work.
It is a regular conversation I hear so often that I no longer listen. ‘All those poor people living on the streets, we need to take care of them.’
Having dealt extensively with both populations, that statement is sheer stupidity and offensive.
What brought the subject up in a way that made me willing to write a blog about it was an article by Michael Totten. Totten is a reporter of the highest integrity. I have read his on the spot coverage of the Middle East. I contributed money to a campaign to get him to Vietnam for reporting from there. I concur with his brilliant coverage of Cuba that few others see clearly.
Now Totten has written a piece about the street people he talked to in Portland Oregon. No surprise to me. They wanted to be on the street. Unless there was a $5 motel that didn’t require a deposit, a credit card or ID.
I created a park for street people on 6th and Minna in San Francisco. I knew the people in my park. They didn’t want to conform to social norms. It is that simple. They didn’t want to give up drugs or alcohol. They certainly didn’t want to get a regular job with a schedule. They were content with the generous food and clothing that our society gives them.
I was also a consultant to the State of California for its ‘special needs adults’. That phrase is in quotes because the name continually changes. They were ‘retarded’ in older definitions. They could dress and feed themselves.
The State Department of Social Services provided them homes in clusters of six and paid caregivers to feed and take care of them.
I was hired to developed measures of the quality of care offered from food to educational stimulus. The caregivers were largely black women and Filipino families. I needed slightly different measures for each group. I proposed several reward systems for outstanding care.
The care I saw was warm, compassionate and loving. With an often difficult clientele.
The point of this blog is simple: there are people who don’t want to work and those who can’t. There are a few people who really care about this issue and these people are taking care of both populations.
The rest of our opinionated citizens are misinformed, political ideologues or just plain misanthropes.