Maybe, just maybe, we can do this

I’ve been reading a lot lately, which for me, usually means nothing good can come of this. Because I start to think, and as I start to really think, I begin losing sleep. And that’s when I get crazy. I start to look at things, and imagine how they came to be, and really start to wonder if it really “just has to be that way.” Typically, my response during this after-midnight conversation is “of course not.” And then I laugh, sigh, and say (sometimes out loud), “Well, that’s just crazy.” But these are crazy times, so I’m just going to pretend for a while that I actually fit in with everything going on around me.

Here are a few tidbits that I’ve come across in my readings over the past week:

Meet Tim at Pimp This Bum. This is great. See how a western Washington recovery program stepped up to help get Tim back on his feet. And controversy over the website name? Give me a break. Over 375,000 visitors since the site went live…seems like successful marketing to me.

In King County, 45% of renters and 41% of home owners were paying more than 30% of their income for housing (the federal definition of ‘unaffordable’) in 2007. Nationally, 16% of all American households (17.6 million) were paying more than 50% of their income for housing in 2008. In the face of those types of housing costs, is it any wonder that so many are struggling in this recession? But just stop for a moment and think about who could really use some help.

“What I miss most is having a pet.” This is Crystal, who’s 11. Her family has been living in a motel for three years. Her dad was a computer tech who had to leave his job for medical reasons. Her mom just had her hours cut in half working the night shift at the local Target. Read about them and others in the ‘hidden homeless’ population living in hotels and motels in the New York Times.

The cost of hunger in America staggers my crazy imagination. The US pays more than $90 billion annually for direct and indirect costs of people experiencing hunger in our country—children who are absent from school and are more susceptible to health problems, adults who can’t focus at work or are sick more often and actually have to miss work, and seniors who have extended hospital stays or suffer from isolation due to disability and lack of a regular food delivery system.

If you missed it, our First Lady Michelle Obama spent some time earlier this month serving meals at a food program called Miriam’s Kitchen. It turns out some people were more interested in the fact that someone being served at the shelter had a cell phone camera to capture the moment…as if people getting a bowl of soup at a homeless shelter shouldn’t be allowed to own a cell phone, much less create a lasting (and happy) memory. Read Shannon Moriarty’s great blog post at Change.org.

So we can’t seem to shelter or feed ourselves, or if we do, it’s highly inefficient and at great cost. So my exhausted brain turns to this: isn’t it just a little crazy that a society as intelligent as ours would base a person’s access to our most basic needs (shelter, health care and food) on that someone’s ability to pay for them? Sure, it might be okay, if children didn’t get sick, or employees never got laid off (while their CEO walked away with a multi-million dollar severance), or seniors never got old. Sure, it could work, if ‘minimum’ wage actually meant ‘livable’ wage, where people could be assured to earn enough to pay for food, shelter and health care for themselves and their loved ones, while still saving a bit each month for when the car breaks down. If we could pride ourselves on our investments in public education instead of hedging and hawing about where we should build our next, bigger and better prison, then we might be able to get by with tying basic needs to traditional supply and demand economics. But that’s not the world we live in, is it?

Thankfully (‘thankfully??’), that world is changing right before our eyes. We should always be careful when we place our values and judgments on others, but particularly in an economic sense…why do we question the poor person who has a cell phone, when we know full well how important our technology is to us when it comes to staying in touch with loved ones? Why do we think people who wait in line at a food bank or some other social service space should be okay with that lengthy wait, when we know how annoyed we can get if there are more than four people in front of us in line at the grocery store? Why do we shake our heads at the young pregnant woman on the bus playing with her two other young children, when so many of us look forward with glee to the sound of our child’s laughter?

These are not ‘poor’ people. They are people. I have seen many in our area at our tax preparation sites over the past few months. Many were living on hard times long before this recession we’re now in, and a lot of them aren’t going to be ‘bailed out.’ But they still have dreams for their children. They still want that training to try to get a better job, even if they don’t know how they’re going to pay for it. They still participate in their neighborhoods, their schools, and their religious organizations. And sometimes they still think of and do these things and more, while not always knowing if they’ll be able to buy food next month or pay for their heat during this cold snap. And to me, that makes them just a little heroic.

I am gainfully employed, making a decent salary, have health insurance, no kids, I love food, and although I’m just as in danger of getting laid off as any of us are in this economy, I don’t live in fear of that happening anytime soon. I am getting older, but I’m also learning how to take better care of myself (although I should really get some sleep soon). Basic needs are not things that I am generally concerned with in my life. But what I am concerned about is this: when we come out of this (and by we, I mean that thing called ‘middle class’ where some of us are doing better than others), I hope it’s with a deeper understanding of that old adage, of just how alike we really are, and that we stop looking at ourselves as just a bunch of salary ranges. I’m counting on it. After all, I may not be ‘okay’ in a few months.

–Patrick Kelley