The Debate

The following is mostly the work of Kathleen Popa. She first interviewed me about the book “Squat” by Taylor, and then moderated an online conversation between Taylor and me, about the book and homelessness in general.

I originally panned the book on two counts. I found the book to be not well written. And, I found the characterizations of the homeless in the book to be unrealistic. I would now also add that I found the book, “Squat” to betray certain prejudices against the homeless which the author tries to legitimize by voicing them through the homeless character named, “Unc.” At first I only expressed my disappointment in that I believed no homeless person would ever say the things Unc says in “Squat.” But now you know why I said that.

Squat by Taylor Field

By Kathleen Popa:
When I turn to the first page of a new novel, I begin a search for the one passage that will cause my breath to catch in my throat, the one moment when I’ll stop scanning pages and start earnestly to read, drawn by a question I must have answered.
When I read Squat by Taylor Field, that moment came when a seasoned homeless man asked a young volunteer:

“Do you think that other hardworking people should start work at six in the morning so that we can have that chance to sleep through the morning? Do you think it is good that kindhearted churches like this one give food to people like me so that I can read all day and have money for drinks? …Did you know that because there are several mission-type churches here in this neighborhood, people come from all over because they can stay in an abandoned building for free, get free meals with people like you serving them, then spend taxpayer’s money for crack?”

I’ve heard these arguments from blue collar workers, business owners and politicians, but never from a person like Unc, who would suffer more than he already does, if all volunteers took his advice, packed up the sandwiches and soup bowls, and left.

But that’s not why I turned the next page. I kept reading because I wanted to know how Taylor Field, a minister who works among the homeless in New York City, would answer the question.

And I hoped against hope the answer would not come too cheaply. So often when a minister writes a novel, his book ends up looking more like promotional material for his ministry, simply because his passion is not fiction but the work he performs from day to day, and it shows in the writing.

In my opinion, Taylor did a good job, and Squat is a wonderfully readable novel.

But I couldn’t help wondering what The Homeless Guy would think. Blogger Kevin Barbieux has been homeless off and on since 1982, and I’ve observed that he never hesitates to state his opinion. So I sent him Squat, and asked a few questions.

Here are his answers:

In a recent interview, Taylor Field said he wrote Squat because he “wanted to tell a truthful story about (the homeless of New York) in a redeeming way.” In your opinion, how did he do?
Kevin:
I guess that depends on how you define redeeming? But that’s another point. In deciding to write it this way, he ended up writing the book backwards – with the conclusion first and then trying to make everything else conform to it. And thus, instead of the story being fluid, organic, it comes across as very contrived.

I find it interesting that Field took a typical argument against ministry to the homeless, and spoke it from the mouth of a homeless man. For instance, in one of many arguments with a young volunteer, Unc says, “The iron rule is that you never do for someone else what they can do for themselves. Otherwise you create people like me.” Do you agree, or do you side with Jason, who says such talk “Opens the door for a kind of hardness and greed that is taking over the whole world?” How would you reply to Unc?

Kevin: It’s the whole idea of “enabling” which from what I’ve seen is just a myth born out of an excuse for people to lay blame on the homeless for being homeless, and thus avoid any sense of culpability. Has our society, in its design and function created a path for some which leads to homelessness? We know that each person’s individual actions has an effect on others. Can these actions be so detrimental to others as to cause, or lead to them becoming homeless? Being that most people have a tendency to avoid appearing/feeling guilty, they deny such possibility. Yes, there are some homeless people who would agree with Unc. I personally disagree with the concept of enabling. We are not solely the product of our own actions/decisions.

In another place, Unc says homeless people don’t like to be treated like projects. Do you often feel you are treated like a project by well-meaning workers? If so, what one change would make the biggest difference?

Kevin: Yes, in most cases where people have extended a hand, I have been their personal “project.” The biggest problem of making a project of a homeless person is in placing either unrealistic expectations on the project, or by holding the homeless person to some expectations without informing him/her of those expectations. It’s crucial that there be very open communication between the worker and the homeless person, so that everyone is on the same page. Especially, most workers have an unrealistic timeline as to when life-changing events will take place. Even in the best situations, changing a homeless person back into a homed person takes a good deal of time.

Unc seemed to get all the best lines in this book. In a conversation with Squid, the main character, he says the reason people end up on the street is that “…they are not very good secretaries. They are not the kind of people who say, ‘OK, it’s nine o’clock. I’ve got to go see my caseworker. It’s ten o’clock, time to stand in line for admission to rehab…. These people, Squid, just don’t think like that. They are not good at shuffling schedules and keeping a string of appointments.” Has that been your experience, or your observation of other homeless?

Kevin: That has been an issue of mine. Even today, I almost missed an interview with a student from MTSU, who came several miles to meet with me. Luckily I caught her just before she left. But, I think that has more to do with my own poor memory. I easily get lost in thought and forget about time and other obligations. My mother used to call me “the absent-minded professor.” This may interfere in my getting off the streets, but I don’t believe that that is the cause of my becoming homeless, or of anyone else’s.

Unc says he believes in “Courage in the face of randomness.” Later, Squid comes to a different faith. What do you believe in?

Kevin: I really don’t get that. Are they talking about being flexible in a constantly changing world? Homeless people in general have rejected society because of the difficulties they’ve faced while in it – but not because society is difficult, but, because of the difficulties, they have been injured by it in some way. In leaving society they are removing themselves from further possible injury.

Would you recommend this book to volunteers seeking to help the homeless?

Kevin: Nope.

Would you recommend this book to someone looking for a good read?

Kevin: Nope.

The best “faith-based” read on homelessness that I’ve encountered so far is Under the Overpass which I still recommend to people who ask.

The best book of any kind, including so-called secular books, is this one. In my opinion, this book best relays the realities of homelessness.
Thanks, Kevin.

The Kevin and Taylor Show, Part 1

One thing leads to another.

About a month and a half ago, I interviewed Kevin Barbieux about Taylor Field’s new novel, Squat. Kevin has a thoughtful, informative blog entitled The Homeless Guy. He has been homeless off and on since 1982.

I found Squat to be an engaging novel that asks important questions about homelessness. But I was frankly more interested in what Kevin would think, and I figured you would be too. So I asked.

And how did it go? Well, just to give you an idea, I’ll excerpt part of the interview here:

Would you recommend this book to volunteers seeking to help the homeless?

Nope.

Would you recommend this book to someone looking for a good read?

Nope.

Oh dear, the poor author. It hurt, just posting it, but after all, Taylor works among the people he depicts in his book. I figured he could take it.

I didn’t figure Taylor would come asking for more, but that’s what he did. A couple of weeks ago, he wrote to ask if he could invite Kevin to a dialog which would then be published to this blog.

I liked the idea, and so did Kevin. The result so far has been an insightful exploration into some difficult issues, and I feel honored to host it here.

So this is the first part of the Kevin and Taylor show, with more to come as the discussion continues. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I have.

(If you’d like all of the Kevin and Taylor posts on one page, just click here.)

Dear Kevin—

Thanks for reading the novel, Squat, which I wrote, and for consenting to be interviewed by Kathleen Popa. I appreciated your taking the time to read the book, and the fact that you did not like the book caught my attention. You made a comment about me that was entirely true. You said, “he ended up writing the book backwards.” I was delighted that you made the statement, even though you meant it as a critique. I actually started with a story from the Bible, about a man who was homeless for a while and used a stone for a pillow. I worked backwards from that story into the experience that squatters had in New York City.

Although no other reviewer of the book made such an observation, this process of writing the book backwards was very important to me. Thanks for bringing that insight to your interview.

So this is what I would like to hear from you—you said that the whole idea of enabling “is just a myth born out of an excuse for people to lay blame on the homeless for being homeless.” Are you serious when you make that comment? The novel you read includes a character, Unc, who is very well-read and sleeps until noon and lives by begging and soaking off his friend and eating at missions. He taunts the people who help him and claims they are making him, in effect, dependent for their own selfish purposes. From your own experience, do you find the portrayal of such a character offensive?

Honestly, have you not seen times when people who are homeless use someone who is providing help in order to accomplish their own overtly self-destructive purposes? Haven’t you seen helpers provide help with fairly obvious self-serving motivations? You said that we are not solely the product of our own actions/decisions. Are you making that statement in order to respond to people who use the idea of personal responsibility as an excuse so that they don’t have to do anything to help the homeless? Don’t you sometimes see people who use the idea of being victimized as a continuous habit of thought, a destructive habit that keeps them in a dependent life?

I would love to enter into a conversation with you because I believe that people who take a helping position, especially Christians, need to have the chance to think deeply about the issues of environment and personal responsibility. When I started working with helping meet tangible needs in New York City twenty years ago, I would bring up the subject to others providing food, and shelter. I would comment that perhaps sometimes our best intentions provided a place for people to become even more dependent. The other helpers would sometimes work to avoid the subject. I think we need to talk about it. You commended a book called Under the Overpass, which I think is a courageous book about a young man seeing what it is like to live on the streets. Yet his book is a true account of a young man’s own journey in thinking about the homeless. It is not a novel, and it ends with specific proposals for actions the readers can take. It’s that kind of book.

But don’t you think that sometimes we need to read fictional stories that help us think about characters and issues, without immediately drawing a conclusion concerning what we need to do? Don’t you think we need stories that portray the homeless as real people with mixed intentions, some evil and some good? Do we render a person in difficult situations a service if we make that person a two-dimensional poster child for our good intentions? I appreciate your thoughtfulness and would love to hear your response in a public dialog.
Taylor Field

Taylor,

Your letter mentions dependency at more than one point. and the concept has certainly been kicked around in the homeless industry. But I also sense that you have developed a moral imperative (if that’s the proper phrase, I’ve never actually read Kant) concerning a “life of dependency.” It would probably help if you expounded on your thoughts on the morality of dependency.
Kevin

Kevin–
A good question. I will answer from a faith perspective rather than a philosophic one. We are all interdependent–”Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Also, we all bear some responsibilities, depending on our situation–”For each person will have to bear his own load” (Galatians 6:5–three verses after the previous reference). When the truth of dependence and the truth of responsibility are not held together, something has gone wrong, don’t you think?

That’s where I stand. Perhaps you could clarify something for me. What did you mean when you said in the interview that enabling was a myth? How do you understand personal responsibility?

Taylor
Ok, lets not get too far ahead – lets talk some more on the dependency issue as it relates to homelessness. That is, what is your response to the following. (Sometimes analogy is the only way I can communicate a point.)

When a doctor came upon the scene of an accident he found that the boy who fell out of the tree could no longer walk. Every time the boy stood up, as per instructions from the doctor, the boy was not able to walk but would fall over. The doctor’s cursory diagnosis was that the boy was not moving his legs. The doctor told the boy’s mother, once the boy decides to move his legs again, he will be able to walk. And then the doctor went away. So the boy’s mother moved him to a bed and told the boy, it’s all up to you. All you have to do is start moving your legs again and you’ll be as good as new. The boy told his mother, “but I can’t move my legs. I have tried and they just don’t move.” The mother replied. “Well, you heard what the doctor said – it’s all up to you.” Days turned into weeks and weeks into months, and eventually the boy’s broken legs healed, although they were not quite set right. Eventually the boy was able to move his legs again and to walk, although he did so with a noticible limp. And his mother replied, “see the doctor was right all along, all you had to do was start moving your legs again and you’d be able to walk. And the boy could not help but agree with his mother and the doctor. And he did feel regret for not believing them in the first place. And in his feelings of guilt, he blamed himself for the way he hobbled along the rest of his life. (end of story)

Ok, there’s a lot in that story, but the point I want to make right now is that the claim that the problem of homeless people is their dependency on others is also a cursory diagnosis – a diagnosis that declares the symptom as the cause, and fails to get at the root of the problem. In considering dependency in homeless people we must ask, “why are they so dependent on others?”

Yes, I agree with the team spirit of interdependency. If an entire society practiced in unison, the act of lifting each other up, of putting others before ourselves, then every individual would be supported equally by the group and no one person would fall. What usually happens in the life of a homeless person is that they become injured in some way (I’d suggest it’s mostly a spiritual injury), to the point they can no longer be counted on to fulfill their role as part of the support of his society. And, instead of his society helping him to heal so that he can return to his place in his human network, his society decides to shun him, and shut him out of his society.

Oh, but now I’m getting ahead of myself a bit. First I’d like to know what you think of my proposition that the dependency we see among homeless people is not the problem, but a symptom of a yet deeper problem.
Enjoy the holidays,
Kevin

The Kevin and Taylor Show, Part 2

Author Taylor Field ministers among the homeless in New York City. Blogger Kevin Barbieux has been homeless in Nashville for some years.

Have you ever heard the remark first voiced by John F. Kennedy, that too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought?

Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way, not if we care more about solutions than opinions.

This conversation is Kevin’s and Taylor’s earnest attempt to hold their own observations, questions, and concerns about homelessness up to the scrutiny of the other.

If this is the first you’ve seen of the series, you may want to start by reading Kevin’s and my review of Squat, and then continue on to Part 1 of the discussion.

(Or if you’d like all of the Kevin and Taylor posts on one page, just click here.)

Here they are again:

Dear Kevin,

Your analogy concerning the boy who couldn’t walk and takes guilt and blame on himself is insightful and I feel important for every human being to consider. On the other hand, of course the analogy could take a different turn. Suppose this same boy, whose legs never adequately heal, notices that he gets extra attention when he limps. He finds that if he talks each day about the pain in his legs, his mother will bring him his food to his bed. As he voices the true injustice in the treatment of his legs, the doctor begins to come each week apologetically and gives him free medications. The boy’s statement of the injustices are true, and yet as he stays in bed, his legs atrophy further, until finally he cannot walk at all. Have the mother and the doctor really done him a service with their kindness?

You speak from your experience, which I respect. But I also speak from my experience working with people who are in difficult circumstances during the last thirty years. My co-worker, who spent a lot of time on park benches in New York City and in the mental institutions here, does the best job I know of keeping things in balance. He never denies the evils of the system, the racism, the attempts to blame the victim, the oppression. However, he emphasizes that a self-pitying blaming of the system is an internal killer. When someone seeks to justify himself by blaming the system, my co-worker simply says, “I won’t bite down on that hook.” He is understanding, but clear in his need for an internal faith perspective. Each day he faces the difficulty of his own mental illness and helps many people here. “I have moved from a religion of ‘give up’ to the truth of ‘get up,’” he told his group a few weeks ago. In the spiritual journey, don’t you think there is a time when one must take the uncomfortable step of getting up?

So yes, Kevin, I agree that dependency among the homeless is not the problem. But perhaps there is where we part ways. I do believe that there are deeper problems. But it may not be just one problem, but many problems. That perception is one reason I wrote a novel rather than an essay. Obviously, there are many kinds of homeless with many kinds of problems, just as there are many kinds of capitalists and many kinds of humanists and many kinds of Catholics and many kinds of Baptists. I wrote about an older person who used the system, but at least acknowledged his manipulation of others, taunting those who helped him. My hope was that the story of the young squatter in the novel, who was seeking for something, would point to some deeper things…

Now it is your turn. You have portrayed dependency among the homeless as a symptom of a deeper problem. So from your framework, what exactly is the deeper problem?

Taylor Field

Dear Taylor,
I will reply to your latest email as two separate discussions. Your first paragraph is a response to my analogy, (perhaps “allegory” would have been a better word). You agree with my premise that “dependency” is a symptom of a yet greater problem, but then you rewrote my analogy in a way that attempted to bolster your own views, but in so doing you weakened perspective that seems to lack the strength of logic. And, of course I will give examples of what I mean by that. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to preface today’s email by quoting the immortal song writing team of Lennon and McCartney. (Notice how it reflects the first Chapter of the book of John.)

Love, Love, Love.
Love, Love, Love.
Love, Love, Love.
There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.

It’s easy.
Nothing you can make that can’t be made.
No one you can save that can’t be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.
It’s easy.
All you need is love.
All you need is love.

All you need is love, love.
Nothing you can know that isn’t known.
Nothing you can see that isn’t shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
It’s easy.
All you need is love.
All you need is love.

All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.

Love seems to be key to the message, eh?

It’s the key to the dilemma of our little boy with legs broken. And though it sounds like I’m just quoting another song writer, I really do believe in the power of love – unadulterated, unconditional love. It has the power to heal. And that’s crazy power – the power to change lives – the power to create miracles – the power of God. God is love. And, it is Jesus, the son of God, who helps us understand the nature of love, and how to apply it to our lives. There is no verse I know of within the Bible where Jesus says we should respond to anything or anyone without love, to withhold love, or to exercise “tough love.” Love that is “tough” really isn’t love.

In your version of the analogy, the boy in question is a liar, a manipulator of others for personal gain – in Biblical terms, he is being sinful, evil, he is the enemy of God, and thus our enemy. So, how would Jesus have us respond to this scenario?

In Matthew 5:38-42 we read:

38″You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[ g] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”

In Romans 12:14-21 we read,

“14Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. 15Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. 16Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. 17Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. 18If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.19Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord 20Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.21Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

In these examples, and others, of Jesus’ mind on the subject, I believe that we can only give love to our little boy broken, regardless of his lies and deceit. We are not to withhold anything from him, for so doing would be an act less than love.

So, we have this boy who continues to limp, or perhaps exaggerates his limp, all for the sake of extra attention? Why would he do that? Why would he need extra attention? Certainly it would be because there is a void in the boy’s life, a need that has gone unsatisfied, a need for attention which is really a need for love. So why deny that? If we were to give love overflowing to this boy, his need for attention, for love, would be satisfied. He would no longer feel compelled to fake the truth of his injury for the sake of love. He would no longer feel a need to lie and cheat.

The logic flaw comes in this line, “As he voices the true injustice in the treatment of his legs, the doctor begins to come each week apologetically and gives him free medications.” Perhaps you just need to flesh that out some more. What is the injustice in the treatment of his legs? What is the “free medications?” If the boy voices the true injustice of the treatment – which would mean that the boy is aware of how he really should be treated – why wouldn’t the doctor take this into consideration and adjust treatment? If the doctor continues to do the wrong thing after being made aware of it, then we are perhaps witnessing a situation of the doctor suffering from a case of co-dependency, where the doctor is actually facilitating the unhealthiness of the boy, so to fulfill his own needs, whatever those may be. Perhaps the doctor suffers from a lack of love in his own life – the need to feel needed – and purposely avoids providing the real cure. If his patients are cured, then he is no longer needed. It is in being needed that some people feel they are loved. Doctors need love too. If the doctor found another way to be loved, he wouldn’t feel the need to get it through his patients suffering.

The joy and happiness that comes from true love would provide all the motivation necessary for the boy to recuperate and get out of bed and get on with life. And with love, the doctor would give the proper care, and accurately diagnose the boy’s ailment so that the boy could go on with a healthy life fully healed.

Now on to the rest of your last email. You touch on a lot of different ideas and they are only loosely tied together, so my reply might be no better.

Truth is the only route to understanding the cause of a problem. Your co-worker is wise to give place to negative aspects of life – and yet not deny them. But blaming the “system” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If the system has caused a problem we might as well admit it. But we are stuck in that we cannot expect the cause of the problem, the system, to admit it’s fault, reverse its actions and make restitution to those it has injured. And now a word on the system. Using the phrase, “the system” implies that it is a lifeless mechanism, like the engine of a car. But the system is really a collection of humans, doing very human things, being imperfect, being evil, being selfish, etc. And as such the system is not outside the realm of God’s judgment or God’s salvation. It is good to let those who have suffered at the hands of the system rightly define the cause of their problem, so that they may then move on to the cure. As long as people are attempting to influence the injured towards denying the true root cause of their problems, they’ll never heal properly.

A person who has gotten off the streets has not necessarily overcome the problems that led to his/her homelessness in the first place. Recidivism among the homeless is extremely high. And they are bound to have more problems later. And that’s the problem with misdiagnoses. Broken legs may eventually heal, but if not set right will cause a person to be crippled the rest of his/her life, and re-injury would be expected. In today’s world, where every person is expected to do everything for himself, by himself, denial of the need for others is par for the course. But we are made to be social. To deny this is to deny our humanity. To deny our humanity is to deny for ourselves the fullness of life, it’s a form of spiritual malnutrition. Bones certainly don’t heal well in the malnourished. It is the malnourished who experience discomfort when “getting up.”

Despite the different types of homeless people and the different paths they take in becoming homeless, I am finding more and more a commonality between them all. In the most abstract terms, it is the effect of a lack of humanity when the need for humanity is greatest. We live in a society that expects people to sacrifice themselves and each other for the supposed greater good. Those who survive the abuses of the system are still damaged – those who can’t survive are considered nothing more than common debris – a natural bi-product of living, or failing to live.

By the way – you once asked me if I was offended by your portrayal of the Unc character in Squat. I wasn’t offended, I just found it to be unrealistic. In all my time on the streets, I’d never seen a homeless person try so hard, and with such purpose, to bite the hand that feeds him. But perhaps that’s what we should talk about next.

Kevin

The Kevin and Taylor Show, Part 3

The conversation continues. One man is homeless, the other is a minister among the homeless who asks himself at what point his helping ceases to help.

Generally in an exchange like this, one of two things will happen: someone will get angry and leave, or else he will cower and agree to everything the other says–but not really.

Either way, the discussion’s over before its begun.

I’d hoped this would be a discussion, and not a boxing match, and these two are doing a great job.

So here they are again.

(And by the way, if you’d like all of the Kevin and Taylor posts on one page, just click here.)

Dear Kevin,

I am humbled. You are right. As I look at Jesus, I see that I haven’t even begun to love. We both agree that dependency is not the problem but a symptom of a deeper problem—a lack of love. I think the place where we disagree is concerning what love is.

You state that nowhere in the Bible do we find Jesus instructing us to use “tough love.” I see tough love all over the place. Jesus tells a person who wants to go bury his father that he must let the dead bury the dead. He tells his disciples to take up a cross, of all things. He calls the Pharisees a brood of vipers. He tells the woman caught in adultery that he does not condemn her, but then he clearly instructs her to go and sin no more. He tells another person to sell everything he has. These things sound pretty tough to me. To continue in the broken leg analogy, we have an example of how Jesus addresses a man who has been lame for thirty-eight years in John 5:1ff. He doesn’t say, “You poor thing.” He doesn’t attack the system of uncaring people who won’t put him in the water at the right time, which is the way the man himself sees the problem. He simply asks, “Do you want to be healed?” Then Jesus tells him to get up and walk. Don’t you think that a strong word is sometimes a part of love?

Don’t misunderstand me. As someone who works with homeless people every week, I don’t think anyone will come to change by having someone simply tell them they need to try harder. As in the story of the prodigal son, in the end the father has to let the son go his own way and can only welcome him home when he returns. But I do sometimes see an unrelenting superficial mercy that can be cruel. In my version of the story, bringing the boy food in bed every day when he could and should be exercising his hurt leg is cruel.

You point this out yourself as you look at my version of the story. You said that “we are perhaps witnessing a situation of the doctor suffering from a case of co-dependency, where the doctor is actually facilitating the unhealthiness of the boy, so as to fulfill his own needs…” Isn’t this a situation where the doctor is “enabling” the boy? If a doctor could do so, and you have pointed out that systems are composed of people, couldn’t a whole system be enabling? If so, how could you refer to the idea of enabling as a “myth”? That was the comment that upset me in your original interview.

You say that you find the portrayal of the Unc character to be unrealistic. Fair enough, and I believe readers will have to decide that question on their own. But in my experience through the years, I have seen people be grateful, kind, humorous, and sometimes mean-spirited in their response to people who help out. You sound so harsh in your judgment of poor Unc. At least he is honest. Sort of.

Taylor Field

Dear Taylor,

The real beauty of having open and respectful dialog is that we learn and grow from the experience. For example, your questioning of my idea that “enabling is a myth” is helping me to develop a better explanation of what I mean by that.

Again, I believe the idea of “enabling” the homeless came about by people looking for an excuse to withhold assistance to the homeless -as justification for not fulfilling Jesus’ commandment to help the poor and needy – an exercise in perpetuating selfishness. They declare that, by providing assistance to homeless people, they are actually extending, if not causing, homelessness – beyond what a person would naturally experience without this assistance. But I don’t agree with that notion. And perhaps now I have a better way of explaining it.

What causes a person to become homeless takes place, or is in place, before they become homeless. A person does not become homeless the moment he loses his employment. (Neither does he leave homelessness the moment he regains employment). And, a person does not become homeless because he lacks food, or clothing, or access to a rescue mission type shelter. So, it just doesn’t make sense to think that giving a person food, or clothing, or access to a rescue mission type shelter, will make him homeless.

Take your average citizen who has a job and place of his own to live – perhaps consider yourself – and say that beginning today someone starts providing you with all the food and clothing you need, and he pays your mortgage, and your utility bills, and gives you all the furniture you need, and provides you with transportation, and whatever you lose or break he replaces for you. Is this going to cause you to become homeless? No, it won’t.

Homelessness is fueled by something completely different than material things, or the lack thereof. So the giving of such things does not add fuel to it. The source of fuel for homelessness comes from within the homeless person, developed by negative life experiences and situations in the person’s life. Well, I guess there is a way of perpetuating homelessness. And, that would be by perpetuating the negative experiences and situations which initiated the person’s original homelessness.

Now about the definition of Love, and how to manifest it. We have experiences of tough love in the Bible, but they are in the Old Testament. One form of tough love was to have a woman stoned to death if she was caught in adultery. Being that God is Love, and the Bible is God’s word, we should have no problem with this. Well, things have changed since then, and it was Jesus who changed them. Yes, Jesus forgives us of our sins, but additionally he gives us a way out of our sinful situations. Though we do fulfill the law, we are no longer under the law, being that we are under the Grace given to us by the Christ, Jesus. In the situations that you put forth as “tough love” I only see Grace. In each example there was some “law” required. The law required that the adulteress to be stoned to death, but Jesus released her from that. In the story in John 5:1, the law required that a person be the first to enter the pool after the waters had been stirred, so to receive the healing. But again, Jesus released the man of that requirement and so was healed.

In Old Testament times, people were compelled to fulfill the law for fear of the punishment. They did what was right because they had to. Today, given the Grace of Christ Jesus, we no longer fulfill the law because we have to, but because we want to. It is the intentions of your heart that are judged by God. Do you put yourself, your needs and desires, ahead of other people?

Today, people set all sorts of requirements on poor and homeless people, (even some truly unattainable), before acquiescing to Jesus’ commandments to help them. And, these people must change their ways if they expect God’s blessing and the end of homelessness. But, in
today’s world, what people claim to be God’s blessings is just the product of their own selfishness, and I believe He will eventually exact a price for it.

In our story of the injured little boy, if we give him the same love and forgiveness, free of charge, that we have received from Christ Jesus, then that boy – that is, all the homeless people we are talking about – will have the desire necessary to get up out of bed and move on with life. They will do it because they want to, because through our much giving, they have received the motivation to continue living. But, if we attempt to force the boy to get up, much in the same manner that most rescue missions force homeless people to read the Bible, and force them to pray to God, and force them to worship, we will be as unsuccessful as those homeless service providers.

You created Unc as a means to justify your claim that people enable homelessness by providing them with assistance. But I tell you the truth, the concept of “enabling” is just as fictitious, just as erroneous as is Unc. Unc does not exist in real life. And to suggest so does a disservice to people who happen to be homeless.

Kevin

P.S. Have you ever known of a healthy, happy, and loved child spend one second more in bed than necessary? And I do mean to emphasize the “healthy, happy, and loved” part.

The Kevin and Taylor Show, Part 4, Guest Appearance

I couldn’t help myself. I joined in the conversation.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, some months ago I enlisted Kevin Barbieux’s help in reviewing Squat, Taylor Field’s novel about the homeless in New York City.

Taylor has worked with the homeless since 1986. Kevin has been homeless since 1982, and Kevin’s review led to a revealing, insightful dialog between the two of them which I’ve been privileged to post on this blog. You can read here all that’s gone on in this conversation up to now.

I thought I’d stay out of it, but it turned out I couldn’t help asking just one teensy little question. And so the dialog picked up between Kevin and me.

This will likely be our second-to-last post in the Kevin and Taylor Show. We plan to wrap it up in one more closing statement after this.

Kevin,

May I throw out a question of my own? What if the boy’s not a liar and a cheat, and he doesn’t stay in bed for the extra attention? What if he stays because he is afraid to go outside now, because it’s a dangerous world, full of trees that drop you, and fly balls that hit you, and children who make fun?

Furthermore, what if those first many steps hurt like crazy? It would be so much easier to stay in bed, and his mother understands. But if she loves him she will do what she has to do to get him on his feet and out that door, won’t she? She may see what she can do about those other kids, but there’s only so much she can do in one lifetime, and meanwhile, the boy’s got to live.

My point is that sometimes (usually?) healing is painful and frightening, but the alternative is worse.

Kathleen

Kathleen,

As I’m trying to get across – whatever difficulty there is in rehab, the pain of it all, will not be a factor in the boys rehab – if the boy is truly loved, receives true love. he certainly would not perceive any difficulty in learning to walk again as an excuse to not walk.

When the first apostles were persecuted, tortured, sent to jail, generally harassed, they were happy about it, counted it as a blessing, and were filled with joy – all because of the grace they received through God’s love.

Amen,
Kevin

Kevin,

I’m not sure you’re right, that the proper amount of love will motivate a child to do the thing it pains and frightens him to do. Ha! Ever try to love a child into accepting a vaccination?

I once worked at a detention center for juvenile girls. Over the first months I worked there I was required to read every file on every inmate, and it shocked me to learn that 75% of those girls were victims of incest. Turns out, I understand that’s true of adult prisons, as well. (In contrast, the figure for the general population is 25-30%. Always be compassionate Kevin, because you never know.)

So what if we could just convince everyone to keep their grubby mitts off their children? Does that sound so hard? But it seems to be. Because when you find the person who hurt a child this way, you find that he or she had some traumatic thing happen, and so on it goes.

It’s part of my Christian belief: we are a world of cripples, and every good thing that happens, happens because someone proceeded despite fear and pain. Especially Jesus. And even the guy who stops looking away from the homeless and begins to help.

Kathleen

Hi,

You bet, there is so much craziness going on, people being so awful to each other, especially to children. You would think that eventually people would “get it” and would stop being so judgmental about these things. I think that people’s judgment has more negative effect on the children than the actual act perpetrated against them. When a kid braves up to tell mommy that uncle soandso has touched them inappropriately, and mommy responds by calling the kid a liar, oh Lord what a mess is made of that kid’s life.

And so now the kid has a discipline problem. Is this the time to stop loving that kid? Is that the time to reject the kid? Because he is acting out? No way! Added punishment will NOT encourage better behavior. The kid will only develop a deeper resentment still. You have to prove to the child that the world is not as bad a place as he/she has currently experienced – must learn that there are people in the world they can trust.

And besides, my story was an analogy about adult homeless people, it was not to be taken literally. To deny homeless people food will not motivate them to get off the streets. To deny homeless people shelter will not motivate them to get off the streets. Yet, to deny these things to a homeless person will only fuel their desire, to give him even more reason to justify his homelessness.

Whether actually spoken or not, or admitted to or not, the basic mindset of homeless people (excluding those who only become homeless due to financial reasons) is that the world is a cruel place, and as such they want no part of it. When someone then denies that homeless person food or shelter, it only reinforces that belief. The only way to turn around such thinking is to show the homeless person a different perspective of life and people. – they need proof that being part of the world, part of society is actually worth their effort, especially when overcoming the difficult parts.

Prisons are full of repeat offenders – where prison is used as a punishment – the denial of access to real life. Prisons do nothing to change a person’s bad behavior, prisons can only get criminals out of the way so they will not interrupt the activities of society.

Yes, a murderer should be put away so that he can’t murder any more, but what crime has a homeless person committed? There are people who are actually trying to make homelessness declared a crime. And that crime is that they’ve become an inconvenience to the rest of society. The threat of prison does not motivate criminals to stop committing crime. Denying services to the homeless will not motivate them to stop being homeless.

Kevin

Kevin,

The weakness of our analogy of the crippled boy is that we don’t know when we’re talking about different things. You evidently thought we were talking about denial of food and shelter. I was talking about expecting some sort of movement toward recovery.

In our first interview about Squat, you said that people who try to help the homeless to recover often expect too much, too soon. Fair enough, but I think there are times when each of us must be pushed a little, because the necessary steps toward recovery are so painful and frightening we don’t see how we can take them. How much pushing is too much, I don’t know, and to complicate matters, it’s probably different in every case. I also believe that some people are incapable of ever holding down jobs and caring for themselves, and I don’t think we’re always good at distinguishing who those people are.

My point in bringing up the statistics on abuse, by the the way, was that broken people are hurt by other broken people. When children grow up in good homes it is often because one or both parents decided, by the grace of God, that they would break the family tradition of pain. Volunteers who help the homeless are often wounded people who somehow turned their wounds into love, and energy to give. It’s not a case of the whole helping the broken. We’re all broken.

Kathleen

The Kevin and Taylor Show – Conclusion

This post will conclude The Kevin and Taylor Show.

It takes amazing courage to expose your assumptions to the person who bears the brunt of them. That’s what Kevin and Taylor have done here, coming from radically different sides of the homeless issue as they have. I’m proud of them both.

There’ll be no press conference. We have no new solutions to present that will wipe out homelessness forever.

I’m not even sure we’ve changed any directions, at least not on the surface. We started out with a homeless man, a minister who spends his days serving the homeless, and a woman who spends a few hours a month as a volunteer in her own community. We’ve ended up with the same.

The needs are overwhelming, both to the homeless and to those who serve them. Volunteers wish they could do more than hand out food, laundry vouchers and the occasional tired smile, and the homeless wish they could, too. Frustration turns to resentment, with each side saying to the other, “You could try harder.” And maybe both sides are right.

I invited Kevin to continue The Kevin and Taylor Show in a new direction, one in which he would do most of the talking, explaining what he thinks caring and dedicated people could do to end homelessness. I would keep quiet (seemed wise) except to ask the occasional question for clarification. He declined, but said he would address such questions in the articles he’s writing for Associated Content. Watch his blog for new articles. Kevin’s a good writer, and he has a lot to teach us.

What we’ve produced here is a record, a demonstration of an honest, respectful conversation, and there’s hope in that. Perhaps this series will inspire like discussion on street corners and in coffee shops. Such things might change the way we see each other, might change the things we do tomorrow. It might just matter that we had this conversation. I hope so.

Over before it began,
It is one of my firmly held beliefs, that with time and dedication enough, all the issues and concerns can be fleshed out, and real solutions can be made known. There are many variables involved with the issue of homelessness, but none of it is difficult to understand -it only requires people willing to do the the work. But there continues to be a great deal of reluctance, on the part of everyone, to get the job done.

Before this conversation began officially, I requested a greater commitment to this project but was denied. Still, something, regardless of how small, is better than nothing, so I went along with what I could get. One of the things I requested was the laying of a foundation, that is, the creation of definitions. I know from my own efforts on Internet debates that a lot of difficulty can be avoided by establishing a common vocabulary, of words and ideas. And because this particular exercise was dismissed, the conversation almost immediately fell into confusion and the misinterpretation of people’s intentions was blamed on everyone. And this certainly did a lot to stifle the conversations.

I started out with a simple analogy, (or was it an allegory), to highlight the issue that people do not understand the true causes of homelessness, and therefore prescribe a remedy that is ineffective in overcoming homelessness. Yet, instead of just dealing with that analogy, perhaps to try and prove it incorrect, Taylor, and then Kathleen, instead gave their own analogies, using the same setting but telling different stories. In both cases, they created unrealistic scenarios of homelessness, making their analogies unworkable in the real world.

At this time, I will decline to provide a breakdown of what I believe are the inaccuracies of Taylor’s and Kathleen’s analogies, I’m still a bit under the weather. My cold and congestion have seemed to have developed a holding pattern. My illness is not getting worse, but it’s not getting better either. And, I am tired.

The point I would like to make, as we wrap this up, is that homeless people need someone to unlock the chains that bind them to the situations that have them living homeless. However you want to put it. Homeless people cannot escape homelessness on their own. The homeless need dedicated and caring people in their lives who can lead the way, not just point out the way.

Regardless of whatever moral or ethical judgments may be passed on this type of approach to ending homelessness, the truth is, this is the only way that works – the only way that brings a permanent end to homelessness.

My thanks to Taylor and Kathleen for going at least this far along the way.

Kevin

Kevin and Kathleen

Last night I heard a speaker at New York University speak about reconciliation. He grew up in Uganda and talked about being a child and seeing many dead bodies on the streets. He actually joined the forces to fight Idi Amin, but was directed elsewhere. As he struggled to talk about what to do with the brutality of his messed-up past, he made this comment: “Somehow we need to find ourselves in a wider story.”

The phrase struck me. I believe that one reason I wrote a novel about the heartache I saw in New York City was because I couldn’t talk about it in conceptual terms. As someone who has been a part of providing food for the homeless for a long time, I wanted to write about the people I saw without putting them in some expected theoretical grid. As I had helped provide food, I experienced firsthand a mentality in some people that seemed to me to block any growth, to paralyze the individual in bitterness and blame. I wondered if what I was doing by providing food was sometimes continuing the paralysis. I touched on some of my own conflicted emotions as I wrote a novel involving a disturbed young man, an alcoholic older man, and a young do-gooder.

After having a dialogue with Kevin and Kathleen, I would say this in conclusion. I will continue to help provide food for those in need. I will not only encourage, but sometimes prod those I know well to move ahead. In the end, giving food or prodding may do very little by itself. But sometimes, in the process, a tiny crack in our armor lets us glimpse that we are all a part of a much larger story, a powerful transforming story, a story we can hardly put into words.

Thanks for the chance to talk and listen, Kevin and Kathleen.

Taylor Field