Helping those in need

Helping those in need 

 Affordable housing or known as subsidized rent, section-8 vouchers, SNAP, utility assistance the list goes on. Many will ask how our brothers and sisters find themselves in this position. Today there are no housing vouchers for those in need. Thousands wait for the application process to open; thousands wait for a home. In James City County there are about 200 vouchers available for subsidized rent while thousands wait. My observations, lead me to many different scenarios as to how people find themselves on this impossible waitlist. According to our school system, a person is homeless when the family does not live in their own home. Meaning a family can be living with family or friends, living in a hotel/motel, and be considered homeless. Broken families, high divorce rates, a lack of an education that can lead to gainful employment, there are those who should have never had children to begin with due to mental health issues, contributing to the crisis of homelessness. In my view, these are the leading causes of homelessness in our community. Then there are those who are disabled. Citizens who were once self-sufficient and through no fault of their own, succumb to disease, debilitation of the body, or mental health issues. A soldier coming home from a war that old men sent them to fight is a good example. Our brave young men and women come home with limbs missing or mental trauma finding themselves homeless after giving all to our country. If we as responsible citizens of America continue to ignore the homeless, the mentally ill, the physically disabled, their children suffer irremediable harm. A cycle of poverty exists from one generation to another. 

I look at our pollical views of extremism when applied to this cycle of poverty. One side wants to make people responsible for themselves, “pull yourself up by the bootstraps.” The other side wants to give away the farm and make people dependent on the government. Both stances create division in our country and promises broken, all the while the less fortunate suffer. Children cannot possibly become productive citizens in this scenario and thus the cycle continues. People from our Urban Centers to our Appalachian poor need our help, you will find few who do not want a better life, we need to stop generalizing our less fortunate as lazy for they are not. They just need a helping hand, but the hand we lend does not always help others progress in large numbers. 

 Solution: We need to invest in centers of learning where affordable housing is a part of the campus of learning. This campus will have mental health experts, academic experts, where we can reeducate and indoctrinate a vision of a better way to live. We remove candidates from areas of high crime and influences that contribute to poor decisions. We move them across the state if we must. This opportunity is for those who want to be better tomorrow than today. We take under our wing those who want a better tomorrow and give them a safe place to live and grow. That means being proactive in policing these centers of learning and housing. Being quick to expel those who break the rules and or continue to make poor moral decisions that do not meet society's ethical standards. We need to stop ignoring the issue and we need to stop giving away the farm. I would rather help someone for four years become a productive citizen than pay for them the rest of my life. It’s simple really and your bible gives you the answer. “Feed a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and eats for a lifetime.”