The Rapid City Weekly News had a revealing article on "homelessness" yesterday.
Take a look at a few excerpts:
Another young man, twitchy and apparently unstable, politely declined to talk. As the team walked away, Stirling said, “Meth.”
The young man’s pupils and mouth sores were a giveaway.
In one motel room, a young woman tended to her three-month-old baby and a puppy and seemed happy to see the team, to have somebody to talk to. She’s here from Nebraska, traveling with her boyfriend, but he is being held in jail, charged with possessing stolen tools. Bond is only $100, but she doesn’t have it.
One of the children was eating Gummy Bears, another sipped a blue slushy drink, and another had a bag of chips. There are convenience stores conveniently located all along East North Street, providing a constant supply of junk food.
Those same convenience stores usually sell bread, lunch meat, canned fruit, milk, etc., too, but that's another story.
Across the parking lot lit by streetlights and a half moon, a man stood unsteady on his feet, hands in his pockets, rocking to the rhythm and singing along to the music coming out the open door of his room
Substance abuse is another problem; in many of these rooms are tables holding open bottles, and some of the people who come to the door smell of booze. Meth, when snorted or injected, doesn’t give off a smell, but judging by some people’s eyes and demeanor, it’s probably overrepresented in this small population.
Many of the motel dwellers are disabled, physically, mentally or both, and SSI won’t cover all conditions, Stirling said. The people might not appear to be mentally ill, but Stirling said they could be cycling on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis or have become skilled at hiding serious symptoms.
Bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety — all can contribute to the inability to find a home and keep it, he said.
(Note that many people are living in motels are still classified as "homeless." While this is certainly far less than ideal, it's not like they are completely destitute and living in a car or under a bridge).
You can come away from this article with a lot. However, one of the things most clearly revealed by this article (though I'm certain it wasn't intentional) is that the majority of the people living in these substandard conditions are there because of (1) substance abuse, (2) economic difficulties due to illegal activities, (3) having children outside of marriage, (4) people with mental problems that should be institutionalized, (5) breakdown of the family resulting in a breakdown of the family support system.
How many of these people might be living in normal housing conditions if we eliminated (1) substance abuse, (2) lawbreaking, (3) extramarital sex, (4) turning the mentally troubled loose, and (5) strengthened the family as the standard support system in our society?
It probably wouldn't eliminate all of these "homeless" situations. But how many would it eliminate? 75%? 80%? 90%? Even 95%? I dare say one of those answers is almost certainly the correct one.
Yet those who advocate liberal solutions and liberal social policies for our community and our country are working directly against solving this problem. You can't solve substance abuse problems by legalizing more drugs. You can't reduce lawbreaking by being soft on crime. You can't eliminate extramarital sex by handing out condoms and celebrating sex with no restraints whatsoever. And you can't strengthen the traditional family support system by expanding the role of government as supplier and provider and father and god.
Rather than keep pushing liberal solutions that have provided overwhelming proof that they don't work, why don't we return to traditional values and work to strengthen family and personal responsibility?
As long as we ignore the fact that we've created this problem by departing from the traditional values that are proven solid, the casualties like those in this article will continue to mount. And people will continue to suffer.
0 comments:
Post a Comment