LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Business community is in favour of ending homelessness
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Regarding last week’s letter to the editor by Art Enns, “No room for the Inn’ the writer says that the man walking down the road in Luke 10:30 could well have been a homeless person, a drunk or someone who has overdosed on drugs. Nowhere does it indicate any of the above. This was a man on a mission with determination. He was on an 18 mile stretch of road in rough terrain during Bible times. He had valuables on him that were worth stealing and nowhere does it show that he had previously made poor life choices that would invite this attack, leaving him for dead.
In fact, the chances were much higher that this could have been a businessman, maybe a real estate agent going to sell a house in Jericho, (if you wanna put a title on him.)
All this to say, please don’t read into scripture to have it say what suits our point or opinion when it isn’t there.
Regarding the homeless people the writer is referring to in Steinbach, many of us in the business community have taken opportunity to speak with them and taken opportunity to help. Let me assure you that the people you are calling out in your article, the business community and the city councillors, are also concerned for these homeless people. They are someone’s children that need help.
In personally speaking with some of them, I can tell you what these people have told me and that is that they don’t want help, they want money. Many want to live their lives without anyone putting on any kind of boundaries. We all know the only way to live healthy, productive lives is to live within boundaries.
To truly end homelessness is to help them by offering them a way to end the lifestyle they are in, and that help comes with rules, just like the ones we all live under.
Most of the homeless people we saw in Steinbach this past summer had the mental capacity to build tents in creative ways. They had strength to push carts all over the city. They had the ability to ask for food and some even had the courage to take things from businesses without being caught.
Too often showing love is helping someone to the point of enabling them. As a parent, it’s been my experience that the most effective way to show love during times of poor choices, was doing the hard thing, implementing tough love, having and enforcing rules and boundaries. As parents it pains us to see our kids go through the process, but we know it’s for their long-term benefit.
It’s hard to walk alongside someone through the tough love process, but rewarding at the end, when we see them reach this hard earned accomplishment, one that has also provided tools for life.
The writer lists many charity organizations all with a similar mission, to end homelessness and/or to end poverty. However, what I struggle to understand is when all of these organizations tell us that the number of the people they serving is growing, meaning poverty is rising, that handing out more hampers every year, is considered success. Wouldn’t lower numbers than the previous year be considered a success if we were truly are ending hunger?
The business community isn’t opposed to ending homelessness, but that will take some strong advocates to speak politically incorrect.
The government needs to stop giving money to people who are capable of working and to hold people accountable who have committed crimes (including petty crimes). What is wrong with making these people pay back to the owners of the property for the damage they caused to the buildings from the break-ins and for the theft they commit by making them work to pay it back? And then keep the job to earn a living. That would show tough love. Take responsibility for their actions. Accountability. Consequences.
That would be the first big step to helping people make better decisions.
The writer challenges the business community to show love. Maybe creating a group of people to who genuinely want to help, who would explore avenues of real help, help that could bring these people a new life, and tools to help them a build this new life, would be a start.
Giving the homeless a place to sleep for a night does not end homelessness. It provides shelter for a night, it does not bring help for a better tomorrow.
I believe Adult and Teen Challenge is a fine example of an organization helping people who want help to get help. They are well known and received in their community here in Steinbach.