Opinion
Human beings are not economic terms to be maximized.
Economics asks how scarce resources are allocated. So how are we allocating one of our most basic needs: housing?
Apartments may sit empty while owners wait for the highest rent and keep expenses low. People who need homes are told the advertised “affordable” rent is still too high. The apartment waits for the right price. The person waits for paperwork, the process, the damn open-enrollment period in her country and city. At least the apartment knows where it’s sleeping tonight.
It’s always hurry up and wait: wait for a list to open, an application to be reviewed, another appointment, another decision. The paperwork appears to have more housing stability than I do. Meanwhile, life keeps moving, and my belongings keep coming with me. I’m tired of the homeless shuffle. I’m afraid it will wear me down — or kill me — before the system finds me a home.
If rents are too high for ordinary people while apartments remain vacant, something has gone badly wrong. Housing isn’t affordable to me if I need assistance just to afford to live there. That’s like advertising a sandwich as affordable, then telling me to find a grant for the bread.
We call America the leader of the free world. We have extraordinary wealth and ingenuity. We put a person on the moon. Yet a senior can spend each day refreshing housing websites, waiting for lists, forms and lotteries to open. We can launch astronauts into space, but apparently can’t get a homeless woman through an application portal without a mission specialist.
Something has gone very wrong when greed is called good and humanity feels like a privilege reserved for the wealthy. Is that right? Is that the America we want?
“Forgone revenue,” “inefficient allocation” and “opportunity cost” may explain the numbers. They don’t explain what it feels like to be 65, homeless and wondering whether cancer will return before housing arrives. A spreadsheet has a column for vacancy. It doesn’t have one for fear.
Fear is joined by anger and overwhelming disappointment in America right now. I’m angry that a country with so much wealth makes me keep proving I deserve shelter. I’m disappointed that the promise of freedom can feel so distant when you’re homeless, waiting for a list to open and hoping the shuffle doesn’t take everything out of you.
An empty apartment doesn’t feel cold, frightened or exhausted. I do. It doesn’t carry its belongings from place to place, search for a safe bathroom, miss medication or wonder where it will sleep tomorrow. A human being does.
Homelessness also made getting to court a struggle. I missed my second court date while trying to get a restraining order against my oldest brother, whom I describe as abusive. He is also my trustee. I believe a trustee has fiduciary responsibilities. It shouldn’t take a homeless sister with money for an attorney to make those responsibilities matter. Some days, this feels like Bizarro World: I have to prove I deserve protection, while legal help feels out of reach. The joke would be funnier if I weren’t living in it.
My faith keeps bringing me back to one question: What would Jesus do? Would He tell a homeless senior to check a website until a list opens, require her to earn twice the rent, or put her name in a lottery and call it compassion? I imagine Him asking where she will sleep tonight while the website is down for maintenance.
Jesus saw people in pain and responded with care. He didn’t ask them to prove they were suffering efficiently or calculate whether compassion offered the best return on investment.
America can do better. We can put people before paperwork, make housing affordable to those who need it and make justice reachable for people without money for an attorney.
An empty apartment and a homeless senior are two problems capable of solving each other. Between them stands a system that has forgotten why housing exists.
Housing exists so human beings can live.
Not compete. Not beg. Not win a lottery.
Live.
Renee Belinda Cooper, MBA
Santa Rosa