HAPPY NEW FEAR
Right around the time we push aside our piles of newly-acquired Christmas cheer with our cool new remote-controlled bulldozer, our thoughts turn to what we’ll be doing for The Eve of the New Year. Will we be trapped once again before the boob tube, counting Dick Clark’s wrinkles? Will we spend obscene amounts of money to impress a bunch of pompous boors who think nothing of us anyway? Or will we really do it this time? Will we buckle down and put those New Year’s resolutions in writing (not just leave them up in our head, where they get all musty and dusty), post them near the bathroom mirror or on the fridge, and actually make some sort of effort to change our behavior for the better over the next twelve fun-filled months?
For most of us, the answer is a barely audible No. Most just don’t care. One day’s the same as the next. So what? Big whoop. Some don’t want to change any part of themselves. Too much work. Too much like school. Some don’t know how to change. They don’t see the light at the end of that tunnel. Easier not to go there at all. Easier to stay exactly the same.
Of course, here comes the future, faster than a speeding bullet, so if you want to stay exactly the same, and not grow as a person, more power to you. However, if you think that the rest of the planet is going to stay frozen in time because you don’t wish to do the work to keep up, you’re cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I realize, for many of you, that simply keeping the resolution to make a list of resolutions is a colossal feat, right up there with putting down the toilet seat, but it’s important nonetheless. Usually, on those occasions when folks sit and try to write down what they would like to see for their lives over the next year, they either talk about new possessions they crave, bad habits they feel the need to break, or new skills they want to develop to elevate their status in life.
My goal is very simple. I want you to add one more thing to that list. Help the homeless. Three words. Simple. The rest of those things you put on your list were aboutÑyou. What you want. These three words are about someone else Ñanyone elseÑother than you and yours. These three words are about someone you don’t know, maybe someone you don’t want to know, who needs your help right now.
Actually, they needed your help yesterday, and the day before that. Some of you believe that the only time homeless folks need you is some time between Thanksgiving and now. That’s just not so. Hell, we’ve got people falling through the system’s cracks day after day. The people running the system want everyone to believe that everything is hunky-dory. What cracks? I don’t see any cracks. That way, they can avoid caring enough about the average poor person’s constitutional rights to even bother filling in all those nasty cracks. After all, who really cares if one person’s life is destroyed here, one there, so long as it’s not ours, right?
It’s a horrible thing, I know, to bully those over-worked slaves in City Hall about keeping track of something as insignificant as the deaths of homeless people. It must be really rough for them. Their work is so hard; so much heavy lifting. They have a bed, a car, a home. They have families, friends, lives. Why, it must be downright offensive just to touch the documents, let alone count thoseÑpeople. Good thing they don’t have to talk to them, huh? Well, let’s hope that policy changes soon. I, for one, have no desire to turn a blind eye to this silent Holocaust. What else do you call it when poor people die and they are not even countedÑlike they never existed? No, we don’t want that number out before the public. Why, they might think that the City’s letting people slip through the cracks. Then the public might not think that they’re doing their jobs. They might look into how the City serves homeless peopleÑor doesn’t. It’s much easier not to put that silly little number
out there. After all, what the public doesn’t know won’t hurt them (or the City), right?
This is why homeless people need your help. They need security guards to protect them from the government people who don’t care about whether they live or die. They need brothers and sisters of honorable backgrounds to go into the homeless system undercover and see first-hand how much of the food and clothing and money that is donated actually makes it to the homeless person, instead of in the cars and pockets of the “saints” running the show. They need educators who will teach them how to watch their backs with landlords and employers who don’t care enough about them to help them overcome obstacles. They need caring friends to tell them when their public behavior is inappropriate, insensitive or offensive, so they can be a part of society, instead of outside of it. Right?
There’s a saying that the environmental movement uses that can be applied to many other movements: Think Globally; Act Locally. For those of you who care about what goes on in Third World countries, but feel powerless to help, this is a good place to start. Helping one local homeless individual. Getting to know their name. Checking up on them once in a while. Helping them improve the parts of them that need work, so they can get up and off the street for good.
The list of New Year’s resolutions that a homeless person creates is a short one: Survive. Everything beyond the basic staples of life is too much of a luxury to even consider the notion of attaining it. Their greatest luxury is freedom from fear. Because of 9/11, we all have a sense of what that means. Whatever feelings of fear 9/11 conjure up, imagine how you would feel if you were homeless. Quite a bit more vulnerable, don’t you think?
SoÑwhat’s the verdict? Will you remain a bump on a log? Will you be a part of the problem, and kick around folks who can’t fight back, just because? Or will you add those three simple words to your new tradition of making a list of New Year’s resolutions? Once you’ve converted yourself, you might want to discuss this with a few friends; maybe even show them this article. If that doesn’t work, maybe letting them play with your remote-control bulldozer will do the trick.
Randall