Solving Homelessness

I was reading “The Homeless Guy” this morning out of boredom. No one updates their blogs early Sunday morning. He had written a post where he claimed to know the causes of homelessness and he tends to try and speak for all homeless and formerly homeless people. I started to write a long comment but realized it wouldn’t be worth my time and would fall on deaf ears.

Sometimes, it is hard to capture the point he is trying to make, but I think he was trying to say that severe emotional trauma causes homelessness. I had posted a comment and link to a major research study a few weeks ago that stated that the lack of family support is a major contributor and almost universal factor leading to homelessness. He basically just stated, “But you have to ask why.” His reply was kind of pedantic.

The majority of us experience severe emotional traumas during our lifetimes but very few of us become homeless. A dearly beloved family member dies, you lose your job of twenty years, your mate that you adored has an affair, you experience a devastating divorce, are just but a few examples. All of us have experienced something similar but it didn’t make us leave behind everything to go sleep in a card board box downtown in complete squalor.

I would never intend to speak for all homeless people, but I do know what caused my own homelessness and, in my case, it was simple. The lack of family support was a major cause in my becoming homeless and it was partially of my own making. It was also family support that got me out of the woods. Here is what caused me to become homeless:

A) I have a mental illness that is socially alienating and devastating and I wouldn’t take my medications. This caused my then wife and family to become estranged from me and to be afraid of me.

B) I was also drinking heavily at the time and this just compounded the above problem. I couldn’t stay sober for longer than a day. No one could trust me and rely on me to be responsible. I was attempting to self medicate myself through copious amounts of alcohol. Alcohol was the only substance that made me feel “good” and I was miserable at that time.

I personally think that there will never be a cure-all, one stop solution to homelessness. Every case is so distinctly different and requires personalized care. This personalized care is almost impossible to implement with such a big bureaucracy like our current government. One thing I do know that out of all the homeless blogs I have read, the authors are all estranged from their immediate families; every one of them. That has to say something profound.

I have also found that keeping a home and keeping good relations with my family to be much harder work than being homeless and isolated. I am socially and ideologically