Have we promised an undeliverable?
I pondered this question recently when I was on a conference call with other professionals in our field. A leader from the West Coast said something along those lines. In recent years, it has been the standard of our field to end homelessness. We have messaged that with campaigns to end veteran homelessness, to end family homelessness, to end chronic homelessness and other variations waiting and ready to roll out when we achieve these other elusive goals. But have we promised an undeliverable outcome?
I am beginning to think we have. The truth, as dismal as it is, is that we will never end homelessness. Shelter will always be elusive at some point in time for some people in our community. People have no place to call home for many reasons. Some lose their home through fire or flood. Some lose their home through the end of a relationship or due to job loss. Some lose their home because of addictions and/or bad decisions. That’s why we are called upon to provide non-judgmental compassion and competence to help clients become stably housed again so that they can move on with their lives.
For many reasons, I like the medical hospital emergency room as a parallel to emergency shelters in the housing field. The emergency room is not a long-term place for medical care. A person in medical distress is treated and sent to a less critical care level, be it a regular hospital bed, a nursing home or back to one’s own home.
I have never heard hospital leaders promise that they will end acute medical crisis and render the emergency room obsolete.
Rural hospitals have struggled in recent years with small local hospitals closing around the country. Somewhere in that coverage, I always hear community concern that with no nearby emergency room, life-threatening emergencies will likely more often become fatal. Yet it doesn’t need to be stated that we want people healthy and not having heart attacks, strokes, or accidents. Other harm reduction efforts...
