Robert L. Terrell

This is a propitious moment to try to influence the national dialogue regarding endemic poverty and homelessness here in the United States.   Three factors in particular lead me to this conclusion: the $700 billion bailout for Wall Street engineered by the U.S. Congress, the global financial crisis, and the mandate for change recently extended to Barack Obama by voters in virtually every section of the nation.

The bailout, which some refer to as “George Bush Socialism,” requires that we rethink current assumptions about the role of government vis-à-vis major societal problems. Before the bailout was approved by Congress–and virtually every other significant segment of the ruling class– conservatives consistently managed to impede virtually all substantive efforts to alter national policies regarding the use of government to eliminate social problems.

Thus, in addition to asserting that there was no money for major, new social programs focused on poverty and homelessness, they routinely argued that any such programs would violate the capitalistic principles on which the nation’s financial system allegedly rests.

Fortunately, the massive Wall Street bailout exposed the bias inherent in that particular form of resistance to change.  Immediately after it became apparent that “the Street’ was in trouble, largely due to its own addiction to self-serving financial chicanery, the full might of the federal government was quickly mobilized to provide assistance.

The swift manner in which the $700 billion bailout was approved and allocated validated the point so-called “bleeding heart liberals” have been making at least since the Great Depression–government can, and should, be used to solve major social problems.

As a result, it is now apparent that huge sums of money, and the full array of government resources, could be efficiently deployed to address poverty and homelessness—if the will to do so is sufficient.  Unfortunately, there is no critical mass of public support at this moment in support of such action.

This is largely due to the deeply entrenched biases that exist in the United States which consistently favor the wealthy.  The Bush tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit those at the top of the nation’s increasingly steep economic pyramid, constitute a particularly egregious example of the biased nature of national policy regarding the distribution of resources and opportunities.

One of the most unfortunate results of such bias is continuing neglect of the huge segment of the populace composed of poor people, including those who are so poor that they are forced to live–and all too frequently die–on the streets.  Any reasonably honest person has to acknowledge that this absolutely deplorable situation is immoral.  It is also illegal, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which holds that every person has a right to housing.

Spokespersons for poor nations with limited resources frequently assert that they can’t afford to provide adequate housing to all their citizens.  There’s some validity to such claims.  But even in the case of poor nations, much more can and should be done to house those who are too poor to afford to do so themselves.

Wealthy nations such as the United States can’t reasonably claim that they can’t afford to house the homeless—because this is obviously not true.  The truth of the matter is that the United States can easily afford to house every person in the nation who is too poor to do so for him or her self.  In order to build support for government reforms of the sort needed to eliminate poverty and homelessness, pressure needs to be applied in the citadels of power.

This effort should include coordinated efforts to get the incoming Obama administration to place poverty and homelessness higher on its list of domestic priorities than seems to be the case at this moment.  My best judgment is that those who pursue this course of action should coordinate their efforts.  They should also consolidate their dialogue in support of three key reasons why national policy regarding endemic poverty and homeless people need to be radically reformed.

The first is that arbitrary, preventable suffering of the sort typically experienced by poor people and the homeless is immoral.  As such, it degrades the character and quality of life for everyone in the society, the wealthy included.

The second major reason why endemic poverty and homelessness should be eliminated is that they are, as indicated above, illegal.  U.S. proponents of human rights have not pursued prosecutions in domestic or international courts up to this point. Nonetheless, my best sense is that it is just a matter of time until human rights laws begin to be taken more seriously in this nation.  Thus, it is possible to foresee a time in the not too distant future when charges of criminal neglect will be lodged against major political figures in the U.S. for their callous treatment of those who are poor and/or homeless.

This point should be made as clearly, and diplomatically, as possible to members of the incoming Obama administration.   Given the fact that the President-elect has already asserted his belief that healthcare is a human right, getting him to add economic security and housing to his list of rights that will be supported by his change-oriented administration seems to me to be an achievable objective.

The current global financial crisis is the third factor, which should be cited by those seeking to get the incoming administration to commit to the elimination of endemic poverty and homelessness.  The key point to be made is that this ominously expanding crisis should be seen as an early warning of big, unavoidable problems ahead.  Hundreds of millions of workers from developing nations such as China, India, Brazil, and scores of other rapidly developing nations, are beginning to participate in the integrated global financial system.

Those workers, who can and do prosper even though their wages tend to be only a fraction of those paid to their U.S. counterparts who are similarly employed, are destined to displace a huge swath of the U.S. labor force.  When this occurs, the current mortgage crisis roiling the U.S. economy will appear small by comparison.

Most important, it is almost certain that the number of U.S. citizens forced into poverty, out of their homes and into the streets, will grow exponentially as the transforming impact of these new workers becomes more widespread.  The sooner the Obama administration begins to prepare for this eventuality, the better.  And the best preparation they can engage in will include an updated, radically expanded domestic social safety net.

Whenever and wherever possible, proponents of an updated, radically expanded social safety net should emphasize the point that new programs, priorities and initiatives designed to eliminate endemic poverty and homeless are critically important to this nation’s long term viability.  They should also note that the longer it takes before the U.S. establishes a 21^st century social safety net, the bigger the task will be when it is eventually addressed.

My fervent hope is that the hordes of bright men and women hovering around Barack Obama as he prepares his governing agenda possess more understanding of these matters than is apparent to me at this moment.  I also hope they are discussing with the President-elect the nation’s urgent need to begin work on the necessary social reforms as soon after he take office as possible–because city streets across the nation are being flooded with jobless, penniless, homeless people.

Unfortunately, many of those destined to be members of the nation’s ominously expanding population of destitute, homeless people are currently convinced, as is “Joe the Plumber,” that government should not be used to address their problems—because they are not millionaires, nor billionaires of the sort who hang out on Wall Street.

How utterly tragic…