What's Wrong With Us?

I have no real objections to street people panhandling. They offer me the opportunity in a very direct one-on-one way to express my humanity by responding to their very immediate needs. Even as their presence on the streets of a wealthy country like mine offends me deeply and most personally. Their very presence on the streets of this country represents an affront against humanity by their societally-ignored fundamental needs of shelter and maintenance.

What is truly offensive to me is our society's unwillingness to confront and attempt to solve this growing problem of homelessness, of people not having the wherewithal to provide reasonably for their existence, let alone their well being. This country is the envy of the world which sees not our growing homeless population, but evidence of our economic strength through trade, through our assistance to other countries in foreign aid, through our commitment to assisting war-torn populations, through our much-vaunted system of socially-progressive medical-health services, our high post-secondary graduates, our skilled workforce, our technical and scientific advances. Yet we cannot see our way clear to ensuring that the unfortunates among us receive adequate social support. Adequate to keep them off the streets secure from inclement weather and the predation of sociopathic elements present in any population. Adequate for those among the working poor who cannot put together the wherewithal to clothe and feed their families properly. Adequate for our welfare recipients who live close to the edge of existence in this society of plenty.

Instead we are a society given to worrying trivially, compulsively, over irrelevant veneers that enhance our sense of personal worth and accomplishment in a consuming society. Case in point, the ubiquitous appearance in neighbourhoods of the Weed Man trucks and others of their ilk, with their equipment and chemicals to combat weeds and intrusive insect life that mar the perfection of our lawns. We're happy to pay for such questionable services which in fact poison our atmoshere in more ways than the obvious. We prefer to focus on our ego-driven satisfactions rather than demand that our public institutions look to the welfare of the downtrodden among us.

We assiduously assist companies like Weed Man through our willingness to respond to their needs, increase their fiscal well being through an increasing predatory presence to hawk their services, which we accept as necessary. Where is the value to society in supporting such a skewed service function? An obnoxious, non-essential service agency which pesters potential clients by telephone solicitation, by showing up aggressively on doorsteps refusing adamant "non interested" responses flourishes to the point that consumers insist they have an important role to play in our economy. What a travesty in support of the free enterprise system.

Yet there are unceasing complaints about the presence of the homeless on our streets, panhandling, intruding on our sense of personal well being. We'd like, ideally, to sweep them away somewhere where they won't be seen so prominently. We need to build more bridges in central urban areas, not to carry traffic, but to provide shelters underneath for the homeless. Bridges and the transport of vehicles are of infinitely more importance to our system of living than assisted housing.

Our steadily eroding moral compass and unwillingness to address a critical social dilemma where in wealthy country like ours families with children are forced by circumstances of personal misfortune to seek temporary shelter or to live on the streets, and where visits to a food bank become critical to their existence is a dreadful dilemma we must face. And to our great shame, this situation demeans us all as thinking and compassionate human beings.

We're a society that relates to the likes of super pop stars like Bono whose speciality is excoriating governments for their inadequate support of overseas aid agencies, yet who sees nothing personally amiss in placing his well-padded earnings out of the reach of the very governments he faults, taking his wealth to safety in countries like the Netherlands which offer the wealthy tax havens.