Hurdles to Humanizing Homelessness

Written on 17 June 2020.

A reflection on the pandemic, the protests, homelessness & race asks fellow white people to take a step back & educators to re-imagine what it means to be human.

by Kelli Lynn Grey, June 17, 2020

Near the beginning of 2020, the non-profit AMP (which I serve as secretary to the board) received a grant from Global Ubuntu and the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities to fund a series of community dialogues within Rome, Georgia, USA — the small city where I grew up northwest of Atlanta. The dialogues were supposed to center on the intersection of homelessness and developmental disabilities.

Homelessness felt like a particularly prevalent issue because Rome had recently approved an urban camping ban. Many citizens felt this criminalized homeless encampments. Simultaneously, local homeless shelters experienced massive funding cuts from the local branch of United Way.

In lieu of funding the shelters themselves, United Way hired a consultant and established a task force for better understanding the issue of homelessness in in Rome. The task force instituted its own series of community discussions about multiple aspects of homelessness with the hope of producing an actionable plan.

In February 2020, AMP held its first small group community dialogue with leaders of all the local shelters, as well as with the leader of the task force. We all agreed that disability is a factor impacting the homeless community, and we also all recognized the strong need to humanize the idea of being homeless. We decided that humanizing homelessness, and thus igniting compassion, would be the driving goal of AMP’s dialogues and related projects.

Then came March 2020.

COVID-19 reached the USA on its widespread expansion across the globe. The space for having dialogues shifted online. Record numbers of United States citizens lost their jobs. Record numbers also lost their lives and continue to do so.

A stimulus package, rent freezes, unemployment compensation and extensions granted by energy and internet companies have provided some financial relief to citizens across the USA. However, the limits of these programs are also apparent:

1. Not all people qualified for the stimulus.
2. Among those who did qualify, not everyone (including me) received it.
3. Unemployment compensation comes with time limits and other restrictions.
4. Rent freezes vary by location and, thus far, still demand that past balances be met once the freezes lift.
5. The same is true for past due power and internet bills.

We may be moving rapidly toward a society in which some form of socialism is embraced due to necessity, or we may be hurtling into a full-scale economic depression. Either way, homelessness has already become a lot more human. Within Rome, the pandemic even inspired United Way to release funds to the shelters it had previously blocked.

Meanwhile, the pandemic is no longer the only massive public health concern. Rather, it opened a window through which all eyes could bear witness to the murder of George Floyd. With that, our attention shifted sharply from following news of the pandemic to protesting fiercely against systemic racism and police brutality, sparking a new civil rights movement which already rivals what the USA experienced in the 1960s.

Peaceful gatherings across the USA have incited both major shows of compassion and striking displays of authoritarian abuse. Riots and looting have sparked national debate. Racist monuments celebrating the Confederacy have fallen. Police have actually been charged with murder. And the movement Black Lives Matter has made history due to the widespread global support it’s received.

An open letter signed by 1,288 public health officials, infectious disease professionals and community leaders states: White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19.

The letter encourages continued protests while also making recommendations for how to minimize the spread of the pandemic within the protest setting. In my opinion, it’s a very powerful reminder of the extent to which the pandemic and the protests exist hand-in-hand.

This connection has also got me thinking more deeply about AMP’s homelessness project. I’m feeling newly inspired to explore the degree to which homelessness intersects not just with disability but also with race. I’m also taking a wider view of what “humanizing homelessness” means.

Specifically, I think that having answers to the following questions will do a lot to facilitate a more deeply meaningful dialogue around the issues posed by homelessness — both within my community and within the USA as a whole.

1. To what extent has homelessness been criminalized in communities across the USA?
2. To what extent is black homelessness considered more criminal than white homelessness?
3. What is the process for entering a shelter in communities across the USA? Does the process contain a level of inherent discrimination? If so, how does this affect marginalized communities — including those with developmental disabilities, those with other types of disability, those who are BIPOC and who identify as LGBTQIA?
4. To what extent does inherently racist legislation (such as the criminalization of marijuana) lead to conditions which promote homelessness within black communities?
5. What protocols are in place for finding homes for homeless populations? Do these serve some groups more effectively than others?

Perhaps even more intriguing than these questions are the depths of what it means to humanize something.

At its core, humanizing something means making it seem like a natural aspect of human existence, to be neither condemned nor praised but rather accepted and understood. Humanizing concepts means they become relatable to everyone as a result of their shared humanity alone.

Yet, as I sat in on early planning meetings, I must admit that “humanizing homelessness” within Rome, Georgia, seemed to translate roughly to “making homelessness seem like something that can happen — not just to anyone, but specifically to educated, employable, white people.”

The rationale behind that way of thinking is to show that homelessness is systemic rather than individual. And, of course, it is. However, the decision to illustrate the systemic nature of homelessness by showing that it can even affect educated, employable, white people implies that anyone else is already inherently marginalized, socially deemed to be Other and thus intrinsically more susceptible to homelessness and other misfortunes.

Three months ago, I felt like the what of inciting compassion for homeless people and exposing homelessness as a systemic issue mattered more than the how of achieving this goal. Today, fortunately, that’s no longer the case.

I now feel like it’s vital to call out and re-think anything which equates “being human” with “being white” — regardless of how implicit or subtle the connection may be.

I will be bringing my thoughts to my fellow board members. Even more importantly, I’m sharing them here with a group of educational professionals.

I’ve worked within traditional public school systems, traditional private school systems, alternative learning centers, virtual schools and the living rooms of homeschooling families.

I currently work as a freelance curriculum designer and have spent the past two years homeschooling my neurologically divergent children.

As a result of my experience, I know that we teachers have the power to re-shape cultural narratives, both within the context of our own classrooms and within the context of education as a whole — regardless of the setting post-pandemic learning will take.

Now more than ever, I think it’s important that we ask ourselves and our students hard questions about what it really means to be human. Likewise, we must study the impact those answers have on the systems which lead to intersecting issues like homelessness, inadequate healthcare, police brutality and racial inequality.

I find it fitting that I was originally tasked with developing a poetry workshop for people staying within Rome’s shelters. While I’m uncertain whether it will still take shape, I’m grateful to have deeper insight into its purpose.

Earlier this year, I struggled to articulate how exactly writing helps people navigate their way through difficult circumstances. Now, I feel like I finally have an answer: Writing is a way for us to humanize ourselves.

The sames goes for music, art and other forms of creative expression.

The struggle to assert one’s worth in the face of systems which oppose it takes a toll. Meanwhile, engaging in unique acts of creation allows people to build themselves back up and to tell their own stories in ways which can be beautiful, cathartic and revolutionary.

I’m interested to see how marginalized people would use poetry and art to answer the five questions I’ve posed about homelessness in this essay. With that in mind, I will conclude with three resources which have shaped my personal understanding of race, writing and homelessness in the USA so far.

The original article ran Medium on 6/17/20.