Public Privacies
Over Bethesda’s seventeen years with the poor and homeless we’ve found
that the deepest and most intractable tragedy is isolation. Homelessness
comes about only at the end of a long series of losses - the final loss
may be of a job, or a lease, savings, or family strife, or a collapse
of health,- but the other requirements are no family, relatives, neighbors
or friendships that are strong enough to support one through a time of
stress. Parishes and neighbors relinquish the opportunities to relieve
with the expectation that government programs should have these responsibilities.
Health care systems have little that is personal about their methods.
In Philadelphia, there are many people who are homeless. They are without
a place to live safely. They are without sufficiently supportive family
or neighbors or friends. Many are involved in relationships only with government
sponsored organizations; police, probation, prison and hospital; Welfare,
Social Security, Medical Assistance Insurance providers, mental health
agencies, drug and alcohol rehabilitative organizations. Although all our
citizens have access to the businesses whose products can be afforded,
it is only a theoretical access. The poor and the alone are at liberty,
but not wealthy enough to participate in the economy that requires monetary
exchange.
There are churches for worship, museums and the free cultural events
of the metropolitan area. We recognize that our poorest citizens live in
the richest and in some ways most generous country in the world. We see
that every citizen is free to view a Picasso, listen to great music, use
the finest municipal park in the world, but as a society we can’t figure
a way to make sure they have access to a safe place to live, or security
about their next meal, or a chance to be with someone that cares personally.
Thousands of our fellow citizens exist in such conditions in this city.
In a news conference objecting to the plans of the state of Pennsylvania
legislature to continue withdrawing Department of Welfare support for the
unemployed, disabled and poor, Mayor Rendell reported that the city knows
of over 3200 people in Philadelphia that are presently homeless and hungry
(February 1996). He estimated that that number could possibly double if
there is a continuing drawback of Federal and Commonwealth anti-poverty
funds. The Philadelphia Committee to End Homelessness reported that 68%
of people who are homeless are alone, i.e. without any family participation
in their lives. They reported that two out of every three people of this
group have long-term handicaps (mental illnesses, developmental difficulties,
addictions, chronic physical handicaps).Most of those who are cast into
homelessness are among the most frail and vulnerable of us.
We take homelessness to be at its heart about abandonment and isolation
and marginalization from participation in the full life of the society.
Around Bethesda we think that the necessary response to this condition
begins not with shelter or welfare or even jobs and training but with an
invitation and an offer to be a member of an association of persons trying
to care about one another; to belong to a community - a poor one, broken
even, sometimes dysfunctional, I suppose, but a community. This belonging
requires contribution as well as the reception of assistance. It requires
that we see from the very outset and onward that each person has talents
that demand use and which is part of the necessary commonwealth, as well
as needs that require satisfaction. We disemploy ourselves at grave risk
to common prosperity as well as justice.
Our work at Bethesda is to nurture the possibilities of common life
in small communities of disabled homeless persons so that they can
serve themselves, care for one another, provide for one another’s security
and support each others’ needs as well as each others’ ambitions and hopes.
We get to see that such supportive small communes function gently and
very economically to protect the physical well-being , emotional health
and tranquility of its members. We witness that addicted people support
one another’s recovery; that people with mental illnesses constitute the
most effective and experienced support group for one another. People dislocated
from their native countries are stronger and safer when banded in friendship
together to offer their work and heritage to their new communities.We notice
that people living in community with requirements for privacy met, and
their desire for association satisfied, are an economically modest way
to meet their housing requirements. Such small communities that we have
nurtured have been critical for vulnerable people who are alone, poor,
handicapped and homeless, and for whom the prognosis of either returning
to, or creating their own families is minimal to non-existent.
Beyond this sense of people’s deep aloneness with their difficulties,
my sense is that exhaustion is a big part of the scene. The immense effort
just to get through one day when so little is certain, not even the surety
of dinner, or place to rest at end of day. It is great that we have the
privilege to shelter such weary travelers, make a place where there is
some rest.
In our impatience over the modest work we seem to be able to do in the
face of so much isolation and deprivation we get to remember what Italian
author and peacemaker Danilo Dolci said, “There are moments when things
go well and one feels encouraged. There are difficult moments and one feels
overwhelmed. But it is senseless to speak of optimism or pessimism. The
only important thing is to know that if one works well in a potato field,
the potatoes will grow. If one works well among men, they will grow. That’s
reality. The rest is smoke.”
Joe Ferry
