No Excuses

Our friend, Joel Roberts of PATH Partners in LA, viagra tabs writes an interesting blog regarding homelessness.  http://www.lahomelessblog.org/

Recently he wrote:
And likewise, sadly, responses to such encounters are not new. I’ve received responses from people who were not part of the survey: “Those people on the streets choose to be homeless.” “If they only got a job, they wouldn’t be there.” “They are just a bunch of drug addicts.” “The poor will always be with us.”

I want to join Joel in this discussion because I have been working with people who are homeless for the past 23 years.  I say people who are homeless because one of the first disservices we do to people is to describe them by their condition.  We could do a lot to help people who are homeless by first always describing them as precious people who are currently challenged with homelessness, rather than saying “those people” or “the homeless”.  People are made in the image of God, are of great value, and are always more than their current condition.

In my 23 years of work I have never really met anyone who has chosen homelessness.  If they appear to have chosen homelessness, or even say that they choose it, it is a choice made out of no other choices.  It is a choice of “why try to get another start at life when every time I try to get on my feet I fall flat on my face!”  I have made a career out of and had some success in getting people to give life yet one more try.

I have often heard the excuse that Joel shares—that even Jesus and the Scriptures say, “The poor will always be with us.”  Before using this as a reason not to get involved in solving this issue, people need to dig a little deeper into Scripture and take a look at the passage from the Old Testament that Jesus is quoting:

Deuteronomy 15:4-11 (ESV)
4 But there will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess— 5 if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today.

7 “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, 8 but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. 9 Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. 10 You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11 For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

To paraphrase:
There should not be any poor among you, if you are obedient.  If there is a poor man among you, you should do what it takes to assist him in climbing out of his poverty, whatever it may be.  Don’t look down on him.  Meet his need with a joyful heart, and God will bless you.  There will always be poor in the land, so open wide your hand to your brother.  Be generous to folks in need and people in poverty so they can find a way out of poverty.

This is a call to action, not an excuse to leave things in the status quo.

In this day when so many average Joe’s and everyday families are falling into homelessness.  It is time for us to take action—to make sure that no one suffers the devastation of homelessness.