Homelessness: Personal Responsibility or Community Responsibility?

A letter in the Whittier Daily News today asks a simple, but cutting, question (Here's the article.):

“While we ask the homeless to take personal responsibility, are other local communities in the county demonstrating their community responsibility?”

We blame the person on the streets for all of his or her problems. “You chose to take drugs!” “You left your family!” “You messed up your life!”

It’s easier to point accusatory fingers at the problem than try to solve it. But the problem with finger pointing is that nothing gets done except for verbal or mental accusations. So the problem persists. And increases.

I remember a supporter of PATH, a few years ago, who happened to be a well-known news person, wanted PATH to only help those homeless who became homeless “through no fault of their own.” Those are the only people we should help, he said. I told him that if we did just that, we would never solve homelessness.

So rather than play the blame game, our community needs to look at itself. The only way we are going to resolve this county-wide (country-wide, for that matter) problem is for every community in the county to take responsibility. Whether we feel its people’s fault or not, our communities must also take responsibility to help.

Otherwise, we become a Third World urban city where homelessness and poverty becomes rampant.