Sue Lani Madsen: Simply caring isn’t the answer to problem of homelessness

Everyone cares about homelessness. A shopkeeper repairing vandalism cares. A man finding his car windows smashed overnight cares. Elected officials trying to provide a safe city care. Even the homeless care, especially when being homeless is so readily conflated with crime. Caring isn’t the problem. Passing laws requiring solutions doesn’t make it so, it just establishes who gets to take the fall.

Debating who gives or who deserves the most empathy does nothing to manage homelessness. And manage is the key word, because there’s rarely a one shot and done solution to a problem with so many faces. It’s a classic “wicked problem,” with multiple difficult-to-define factors in flux and incomplete information on all of them.

My nephew Matthew has spent much of the past 10 years either living homeless or on the edge of homelessness in Spokane. He’s been straight for months and wants to stay that way. He was described by a former teacher as “wicked smart” in a local documentary, a creative thinker who knows the homelessness landscape of resources and hazards the way some people know the ski runs and terrain of their favorite mountain.

It’s a God thing to have Matthew with us while the weather is in single digits. He’d been couch surfing in Spokane, isolating as much as possible to avoid somebody passing him a drug pipe or the increasing drive-by violence. If you are known as a user and turn down drugs, suspicion abounds in a street culture where trust is hard earned and easily lost. First week in the country he announced joyfully “I’ve already taken three long walks today” on a bitter cold and sunny afternoon. Winter’s chill is better tolerated when you can come inside and brew a cup of piping hot tea.

It was easier for Matthew to transition into homeless culture than into post-prison programs. He still remembers the name of the homeless man who took the time to clue him in to life on the streets. Typical shelter routines are up at 6 a.m., booted out at 7 a.m., nothing open until 9 a.m., first opportunity to get lunch at 11 a.m., but there’s only so much to go around and more demand than supply. He can rattle off the names of various ministries, their specialties, locations and operating hours with a detailed review of their strengths and weaknesses.

We’ve had many long conversations about the challenges of siting and running more shelters. Every solution dead ends at the problem of drugs, which frequently drives the crime. When he was younger, he remembers there being “dirty street kids” like himself along with older alcoholics and a few addicts, but nothing like it has been in the past 10 years.

“Meth heads kept to themselves because it was extremely illegal,” said Matthew. He attributes the change to laxer enforcement. “It’s unreasonable to decriminalize drugs and then be surprised there’s a drug problem.” People used to be wary of carrying drugs or doing it openly because they’d get “popped by the cops.”

It’s what makes low barrier shelters so very challenging to site. Not even a homeless man like Matthew wants them as neighbors. His ideal homeless world would have all the drug action confined to one camp located away from the city center, away from the resources for transition, and away from the camps of those who are “only” mentally ill. There would be onsite mental health counselors at the good camps, then send in missionaries to the drug camp twice a day with basics likes socks and sack lunches, with an open offer to leave if an addict is ready to change.

It could be called Camp Rock Bottom. Friends who’ve successfully made the transition back to healthy lives from addiction all tell stories of how they had to hit their personal rock bottom. They needed tough love.

Susan Schuler, state committeewoman for the Spokane County Republicans, told her family’s story at a Beyond Politics forum last month. Her son is suffering severe mental illness and is now homeless. “It’s changed my view on what makes someone struggle. And not that I was not compassionate or empathetic before … but when we sit here and say it is complicated, it is so much more complicated. As much as I encourage my son to do his part and I will match, there are just days when that is not a possibility. It is a big problem and it’s going to get worse … we have to rally as the adults in the room, rally harder and it’s not just about putting a roof over their heads so they feel safe but we have to get to how do we help them find their self again.”

Solving wicked problems requires creative, holistic thinking. It can’t be either or. It’s compassion and accountability, it’s basic resources and logical consequences, it’s free will and a safety net, it’s mayor and council and businesses and home dwellers and homeless. And while the needs will always be with us, we can manage them better together.

Contact Sue Lani Madsen at rulingpen@gmail.com.