Sometimes I can’t help but think back on my now-grown children playing with friends, years ago, in the backyard. I think of Power Rangers and princesses, of karate kicks and sand cookies. I remember the sure-voiced pronouncements of what they’d be when they grew up:
“I want to be a singer.”
“I want to be a mommy.”
“I want to be a teacher.”
“I want to be a ninja.”
The list went on, of course, in the middle of daring swings from the climbing rope on the fort that housed the slide on the south side of the swing set: “I want to be…” almost anything. The sky was the limit.
It’s kind of strange, but not once in all those years of parental eavesdropping did I hear a child say, “When I grow up, I want to be homeless.”
Imagine that. All those dreams about growing up, and being homeless was never in the mix. Surprised? Probably not.
Just last week Ellen left her home, and in so doing removed herself from her longstanding role as a convenient punching bag for her boyfriend. She’s taking shelter with friends of a friend with church connections while her visible bruises heal and she gets a resume together. Ellen will need a significant boost in personal income to become self-sufficient. The training she needs to get that boost will take time and resources she doesn’t appear to have at present. It will take a lot of support from a growing network of helpers to see Ellen through this season of homelessness.
Ellen is quite uncomfortable in her role as a newly homeless woman. Like many homeless neighbors, she never intended to become homeless. She didn’t choose to be here. But she is anyway.
Of the hundreds of homeless people I’ve had the privilege of meeting over the years I can only think of a couple for whom homelessness was a welcome choice. It certainly is not the preference of Jeff, a middle-aged man who lost his factory job and then his apartment during a time of deep depression. He lives in his van in a friend’s driveway right now, but can’t drive it anywhere until he gets his license back when his DUI suspension is over. He’s working hard as a day laborer when he can get the work, but he can’t always make the transportation connections he needs. There’s no question his choice to drink, and then to drink at the wrong time, fed the conditions that led to his homelessness. But do you really think Jeff hoped to end up where he is today?
Do you think, when he was a child, someone asked, “Jeffy, what do you want to be when you grow up?” and he answered, “When I grow up, I want to be homeless” and as a result pursued the goal to be homeless until he so recently achieved it? Homelessness wasn’t even a conscious option in Jeffy’s dreams, in all likelihood. Homelessness isn’t a desired option for the adult Jeff, either.
If you take time to talk things over with a few homeless people (share a cup of coffee sometime), you’ll probably find that they don’t make many excuses for themselves. In fact, you might discover that they have keen insight on the conditions (some admittedly self-imposed) that made them homeless.
You’ll also find that, almost without exception, they’d rather be safe in a home they could call their own than in a van or on the streets.
Just like us, in so many ways.
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