What it is. 10.31.08

On any given day in Spokane, Washington, the commonly accepted number of homeless lands somewhere around 7,000.

This means that there are more homeless than there are total Gonzaga students--and most likely more when staff, faculty, and service crews are tallied.

The number of Seattle homeless is only about 8,000, according to shelter staff.

This leads to questions. Why Spokane? What is is that is so special about our city that lends itself so to a large homeless population? Anyone can notice the homeless, if we take the time. The visible minority panhandle under the bridge, near Dick's Hamburgers, or can be seen walking along the low-income service corridor portion of downtown (2nd and 3rd Ave) to various appointments, social services, or hanging out around and in the public library, the park, under the train bridges, or in the parking lot across from the Satellite.

This project of mine (the author) is simple--humanize the dehumanized in Spokane. Not that this is a clear, straightforward process, because those that dehumanize people in Spokane because they lack shelter, adequate support for a debilitating condition, or have clothing priorities (like warmth!) that outweigh keeping up on the latest fashion trends, well they aren't the sort of people that would become activists or advocates, or read this blog.

There's a lot of ground to cover before this project can be realized (hence the need for this online forum). Let's get started. Once we realize that it's to everyone's benefit for people to be able to live healthy, happy lives, the motivations for working to keep people in homes, off the street, and having options for employment, recreation, and enjoyment of life are obvious.

It's also difficult, given the individualistic model for success we have in our country, to understand our role in this process. Simply put, because our culture values financial success, and gives praise to the successful, then those that are poor are automatically looked down upon. This is not to say that we shouldn't give credit to the rich! But congratulating someone on their wealth oftentimes mistakes the process by which they came across their financial success. The dangerous assumption, though, is to consider a financially successful person to be a good person. Some of the values that one could reasonably associate with financial success--a strong work ethic, a 'me first' mentality toward the future, aggressiveness, domination of others, a good ability to plan, to name a few--are certainly valued in our social landscape.

These aren't necessarily the values promoted by any religion, religious philosophy, folk tradition. That being said, perhaps there's room for error.

Without alienating those of us (myself included) who have been given much, it's important to recognize that this is the case--and that those that have not been given enough are not necessarily to blame for this circumstance.

These circumstances are the ones that need changing. Circumstances that can be dehumanizing, like living on the street, are to everyone's detriment.