OPINION: Partnerships can help solve homelessness

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” That’s an age-old question. Albuquerque thinks not, according to the Pro Publica reporting of March 4. 

The non-decision decision is that those who are domicile deficient — lacking houses of straw, sticks or brick — are not worthy of the city’s support. City leaders appear to think incarceration in a steel and concrete jail for a few days will convert the unhoused to a different mindset and a different behavior. One can lose housing and gain a police record in under a week. That is not help. It’s punishment.

I’ve worked with several cities to answer the question positively. Presbyterian Night Shelter in Fort Worth, Texas, is a great model. Many worked together to build and operate a more than 500-bed shelter called Casa Oscar Romero for migrants in Brownsville, Texas. I can name more.

Governments can be efficient, effective and equitable when they want to and/or when they feel compelled to by constituents. The benefits are many and amplified when the nonprofit sector is a major partner.

Carpenters can turn out to teach apprentices how to build bunk beds and furniture. Faith communities can serve meals in inspected kitchens. Food banks can help. Kids can come play with kids. Good-deed doers from the helping professions can provide information and referral services that reintroduce people to work. Primavera Foundation in Tucson, Arizona, excels at this. French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville admired the “American Spirit” of government working with nonprofits in the U.S., especially when the lines between public and private get blurred.

Arresting homeless people uses scarce resources that could be used more productively. What good is the authority, power and jurisdiction of a city if it does not address the needs of those who reside there? Many of the pressing problems homeless people face are forms of structural violence, and a reason for having a city is to reduce violence of all kinds. Policing is not the only method. The first question is whether we can keep our brothers and sisters.

A proper answer can emerge from a macro-conversation about human rights, economy, citizenship, public health, education and security. All of these go to the kind of people we want to be. And all of these are city responsibilities.

One good seed grant from the state and some corporate sponsors could go a long way toward establishing a gold-standard way of answering the first question that should be answered.

Our mayor and City Council need help, Karen, so quit screaming about your rights when you can’t see that a pup tent houses a neighbor in distress.

Most cities get into building micro-neighborhoods. That works well for those with consistent, but low, income. They are not adequate responses for what many forecasters project will be a near permanent feature of our society.

History tells us that Karl Marx, John and Charles Wesley, and the Salvation Army all sought to address the horrid social, political and economic problems of east London. Imagine if east London’s people chose to work together. An Albuquerque Model for addressing homelessness could emerge from an affirmative answer to the question.

Robin Hoover is a retired mainline pastor, a social ethicist and a political philosopher.