WHY OUR HOMELESS PROBLEM IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE.
It’s not selective memory.
Back in the ‘60s and before, we Americans really believed in a nation of equals. We were all in this together. We believed in helping those less fortunate than ourselves, believed in the ideal of fairness in all things.
Since the 1970s, however, the gap between us and them in South Florida has spread to the point where economic inequality threatens this most essential American heritage. In Miami-Dade County the number of persons living in poverty increased by more than 60% from 1970 to1990 while the wealthiest of us quadrupled our real incomes.
This vast disparity creates such different lifestyles and geography that today the well-off can ignore the needy, believing them inherently lazy and less able, therefore deserving neglect, even scorn.
What happened?
Twenty-five years ago our federal government, abandoned its support for full employment, determining money (capital) more important than people (labor). The result: America’s middle class now is disintegrating. Downsizing and outsourcing jobs to other nations have cast many formerly middle-class to a sea of fear and frustration where merely staying afloat becomes formidable. Concurrently, government safety nets tear irreparably.
Used to be, there were always decent jobs available for those wanting to work. And minimum wage was a living wage. In fact, if it just had kept pace, minimum wage today would be $11.07.
Today in Miami-Dade County more than 20,000 of our neighbors are losing welfare benefits, looking for jobs in a market where 75,000 are already unemployed. It is estimated that the county will have a shortfall of 120,000 jobs in the next seven years. More and more of us face the loss of our homes, unable to meet rent and mortgage obligations.
Who are those people out there?
Consider the homeless, and what do you see? Single men. Drunks. Addicts. Mentally ill. Truth is, 40 percent of those on the street today are families. The average age of a homeless person in 1998, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, is nine years old.
The average homeless parent of that nine-year-old works full time. That’s right. But to save enough money for the deposit and first-month’s rent is unlikely under today’s minimum wage. You try raising a family earning $5.15 an hour ($10,712 a year).
Please look around. See beyond our gated communities and locked car doors. Those are your neighbors out there on the streets. People much like you, believe it or not, who have for some reason lost their homes and now struggle for dignity and the means to feed and house themselves and their families.
This magazine is for them. By selling StreetSmarts the homeless or those at risk of becoming homeless earn immediate income as they work to win back dignity and self-sufficiency.
But we need your help. Donations of cash to cover the costs of production and printing, training, (Macintosh) computer equipment, a van for magazine distribution throughout South Florida. Donations of office furniture, usable office equipment and transportation.
Donations of your time providing encouragement and support while mentoring our vendors. Donations of talent.
Help shape this magazine and make it successful.
Love your neighbor.