Cyrus Javadi recently wrote something about homelessness that struck very close to home for me: housing may not be everything, but without it, everything else becomes harder.
I know that from experience.
There was a time when I was a single mother raising three children, earning roughly $7.00 an hour, with no child support. I made exactly $13 a month too much to qualify for food stamps.
Thirteen dollars.
Apparently, according to the formula, that $13 meant we were doing just fine.
We weren’t.
I arranged to make my rent payments twice a month because if I paid the entire rent at once, there would not be enough money left for groceries and utilities. I worked. I paid my bills. I took care of my children. And every month was an exercise in figuring out which dollars could stretch just a little farther.
I also have family members who have experienced homelessness, so I know there is rarely one simple story behind it.
That is why I appreciated Cyrus’s willingness to challenge the comfortable assumption that homelessness is primarily about addiction, mental illness or bad choices. Those things certainly can be factors. But he points to something much more basic: when housing is scarce and rents are high, people who are already hanging on by their fingertips have nowhere to fall. (Tillamook County Pioneer)
Cyrus describes how deposits, credit requirements, rising rents and limited vacancies can become wall after wall for people trying to remain housed. His conclusion is refreshingly practical: if housing scarcity contributes to homelessness, then we need to build more housing—apartments, duplexes, starter homes, manufactured homes, workforce housing, senior housing and other options ordinary people can actually afford. (Tillamook County Pioneer)
That makes sense to me.
There is a tendency in politics to divide people neatly into the deserving and undeserving, the responsible and irresponsible, “us” and “them.”
Life isn’t nearly that tidy.
Sometimes the distance between being securely housed and being homeless is not a drug addiction or a bad decision.
Sometimes it is a rent increase.
A medical bill.
A divorce.
A lost job.
Or $13 a month.
I want representatives who understand that difference and are willing to look beyond slogans for practical solutions.
That is one of the reasons I support Cyrus Javadi.
Barbara Billstine
Tillamook, Oregon
