Tragedy and Opportunity

Blog#154- 4/14/23

TRAGEDY AND OPPORTUNITY
By Richard Davis

When horrific tragedies happen we try to make sense of things. There are never easy answers and the pain of loss lingers for a long time. The recent murder of Leah Rosin-Pritchard, a social worker at Morningside homeless shelter in Brattleboro, creates a sense of loss for an entire community, even for people who did not know her.

She was a caring individual who was trying to make the world a better place. There will never be enough people like her because there are so many problems in our society that need attention. Homelessness is a societal problem that has been around for almost as long as there have been humans on the planet. The faces and the circumstances change but the basic problems remain.

So one thing we can do with the tragedy in our community is to honor Leah Rosin-Pritchard by shining a light on homelessness in our community and in the larger society with the hope that by speaking out we can make little changes that will make a difference in the lives of people who struggle to simply make a home for themselves.

I provided health care case management to Morningside Shelter during my 13 years while serving on their board of directors. When you are immersed in the lives of people who struggle to find a home you learn that everyone has a unique story and that solutions are never simple.
But there are some basic issues that this country has failed to address for so long and that puts the homeless among us at greater peril than they have ever been. The gap between the have’s and the have-not’s has grown so large that there is almost no middle class left in this country.

Wealth continues to be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals and those people have so much power and influence that they are able to control this country’s political agenda in too many ways.

According to the Pew Research Center, “Household incomes have grown only modestly in this century, and household wealth has not returned to its pre-recession level. Economic inequality, whether measured through the gaps in income or wealth between richer and poorer households, continues to widen.” At the end of 2022 the top 10% of earners in the U.S. controlled 68.2% of wealth.

There are voices in the wilderness, most notable Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who constantly point to the unjust wealth distribution as a root cause of many problems in this country. But the people in power continue to ignore Sanders and others while they make laws and enact policies that make the fat cats fatter.

The forces that create this wealth gap are the same forces that make it so difficult to slow the progression of homelessness in this country. Low income wages can’t support paying rent and buying food. People who work two or three jobs still have difficulty supporting a family and they live knowing that they are only one paycheck away from homelessness.

According to Security.org, “Homelessness in America is a pressing crisis that can be difficult to document. The same pandemic conditions that ravaged the economy and disproportionately impacted the most vulnerable kept the government from accurately counting those left without shelter. Following a period of limited data, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently completed its first comprehensive Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR) in two years. It found that nearly 600,000 Americans are unhoused on any night – a slight increase over pre-COVID numbers. A deeper dive into the census reveals that while overall numbers were relatively stable during COVID’s reign, some demographics shifted notably.”

It is critically important to speak out about homelessness whenever possible. It is one way to make sense of the death of Leah Rosin-Pritchard. Using facts can help. Here are some from Security.org.

• 582,462 individuals are experiencing homelessness in America, an increase of about 2,000 people since the last complete census conducted in 2020.
• About 30 percent of people without homes are experiencing chronic patterns of homelessness. This means they’ve been without homes for more than 12 months or have experienced extended periods of extended homelessness over the past three years.
• Most states saw their homeless populations rise since 2019, including four where the tally more than doubled (Delaware, Vermont, Louisiana, Maine).
• Sixty percent of individuals experiencing homelessness are male, though unsheltered homelessness rose by five percent among women and girls. More than a quarter of those experiencing homelessness were with their families and children.
• Much progress has been made in reducing homelessness among military veterans.

Homelessness in this population declined by 11 percent over the past two years and has been halved since 2010.