McKinley: Homelessness in America makes us consider societal failures

I have never much pitied the homeless. On weekends in New York City as a child I remember my…I have never much pitied the homeless. On weekends in New York City as a child I remember my grandmother looking with disdain at the men sleeping on the subways. When asked for money we’d pretend we didn’t speak English. I often joked that a cold city like Pittsburgh shouldn’t even have any homeless people in the winter — can’t they just hitchhike their way to Miami or somewhere warmer?

This summer I saw my distaste for the homeless reflected in news stories from around the nation. Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter proposed banning charities from feeding the homeless in public parks. Across the country in Berkeley, Calif., similar discriminatory legislation toward the homeless is proposed for the November election. Sitting on the sidewalks could bring $75 fines, a price most homeless people won’t be able to pay. The proposed legislation matches that of a San Francisco law enacted two years ago, banning the homeless from sidewalks and park benches. These three cities — Philadelphia, Berkeley and San Francisco — are typically touted for being socially progressive. Yet all three cities reflect an American culture traditionally unsympathetic to the homeless. In a nation still proud of American exceptionalism, we resent those incongruous with the narrative of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.

But a recent survey of homeless teens has me thinking differently about homelessness in America. According to a study by the National Science Foundation, most college-age homeless people use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter at rates comparable to college students (62 percent of homeless teenagers own cell phones — smartphones even — and they are a valuable resource for them in connecting with social supports, according to a 2011 article in The Denver Post).  The Twittersphere is not created solely from your tweets during boring lectures, but also from a galaxy of homeless people on park benches and bus stops.

Our social media tendencies are not the only way we are similar to the homeless. The majority of homeless people are around our age. We also all rely on the public good: For every acre of Schenley Park we use for morning jogs, a homeless kid might use as a place to stay for the night. We enjoy our busses to Shadyside or Squirrel Hill, just as a homeless person might use one to enjoy a few hours out of the elements. The point is, just because the homeless play a different, marginalized role in our society does not mean that they are not indeed a part of it. And that’s why these recent acts of legislation across the country from Philly to Berkeley are so problematic. Too frequently, laws and ordinances aimed at homeless concerns don’t aim to fix the problem, they aim to mask it by banning the homeless from public spaces like park benches and sidewalks.

Hiding the homeless from the street is like popping a zit on your forehead instead of adopting better facial hygiene practices. It makes the issue temporarily less visible, but it doesn’t fix the root of the problem.

It is natural that we should want to hide homelessness in America. It makes us uncomfortable to see a homeless woman curled up in a corner of Carnegie Library or panhandling on Forbes Avenue. Homelessness makes us uncomfortable because it is the very visible sign of the ways in which our society has failed. In a July Fox News article about the ban on giving homeless people food in Philadelphia parks, one homeless law school graduate asks, “What are the causes of this problem?”

The homeless make up over 600,000 Americans. From 2005 to 2010, the number increased by more than 50 percent, in part a result of the national economic downturn. Many homeless adults are the victims of domestic violence. According to Partners for Our Children, a policy center at the University of Washington, many homeless young adults are the victims of a failed foster care system where almost a quarter of the kids who age out become homeless at some point in their lives. A disproportionate amount of the homeless population consists of war veterans who we can’t assimilate back into society. Gay and lesbian youths make up another disproportionate part of the homeless, mostly the unfortunate result being kicked out of their parents’ homes. Others find their way to the street straight from hospital beds because of the extreme price of healthcare in America.

I am not suggesting that you take the resident vagrant out to dinner at The Porch or even throw a dime toward the man in the cardboard box on the street you walk down every day. And I’m not arguing that we allow public places to become the domain of the homeless; I’m against Yellowstone becoming a commune as much as the next person is. But it is time we stop attempting to mask the problem of homelessness behind ordinances and laws that block them from the public sphere. The homeless are a reminder that our country has still not perfected this great American experiment. We should demand better not from the homeless, but from a government and society that often has failed them.

Contact Rosie at romckinley@gmail.com.