Why No Second Chance For The Homeless?

THANKS for your coverage on SHARE - the coalition of homeless people - and the move to the Aloha Inn Motor Hotel. Seattle needs to know about this groundbreaking effort. I am angry and distressed to learn of the decision to delay the move of homeless people into the motel.

In the seven years I have worked with homeless people in Seattle, this is one of the most exciting programs I have seen. We are proud of Seattle's loose network of services for the homeless, and I have seen or been involved with many good programs; but no other program has empowered homeless people as has SHARE.

The SHARE coalition has set up a democratic organization to govern their own shelter and transitional housing.

Not every homeless person is ready for SHARE, which requires sobriety, cooperative management, and at least 15 hours of work to maintain the community and facility; but the people involved have a sense of being in charge of their own lives.

I have been excited to see the change and growth in self-worth that some members of SHARE have experienced, and 30 percent of the people who have been through the Bus Barn Shelter have found more permanent housing.

I ran a shelter in Queen Anne for five years and found the community a good place to work. Community members either supported us or else ignored us because our presence did not affect them. Thus I am disappointed to see some of the Queen Anne residents react in a negative way to SHARE, and I only pray that the present process of planning the program does not take out all the guts.

I agree with those who don't want homeless people in their neighborhood - none of us should have homeless people in our neighborhoods, in our city, or even in our country. Not because we don't want "those people" in our neighborhood, but because everyone should have a home. Homelessness reflects more on the country than on the person without a home.

Homelessness is a sign that something is wrong with our country. In the past 10 years, low-income housing has been devastated. In downtown Seattle alone, we lost over 4,200 low-income dwelling units due to rent increases and demolition.

Furthermore, the economy has changed to less industry and more services, and salaries have dropped. We buy Japanese and Taiwan imports to maintain our high standard of living because we don't have to pay high salaries to workers in other countries, and this practice affects salaries, too.

Individual taxes are going up and corporation taxes are going down nationally, while in Washington, people with the lowest income pay the highest taxes and people with the highest income pay the lowest taxes.

The middle class in eroding, and many middle-class families live from paycheck to paycheck, only a slim margin away from being homeless. People on welfare don't even have that margin, as welfare is set at 62 percent of the minimum standard of living and many spend 50 to 95 percent of their income for housing.

Homeless people are not perfect - who among us is? But the people in SHARE are trying to change and to help themselves. As a therapist, I am aware that we can keep people from changing by our unwillingness to change ourselves. If people really want to change, they can; but we can make it very difficult for them.

Why is it that when people have money, we can forgive them their mistakes and give them a second chance? Look at Nixon. Why can't we do this with people who are homeless? Why is it so hard to forgive people for being poor?

I understood that SHARE would be self-governing, yet I hear some in the community asking that "professional shelter workers" oversee all that SHARE does. That is not self-government!

I hear people questioning whether the homeless really can govern themselves - this bunch of raggedy rabble-rousers. When I hear this question, I'm reminded that 200 years ago the same question was asked by King George III regarding another raggedy bunch of rabble-rousers. And we are still trying to prove ourselves.

Maybe the nay-sayers were right - democracy, which claims "equality and justice for all," doesn't seem to be working all that well.

Josephine Archuleta is program director for the Task Force on Housing and Homelessness, Church Council of Greater Seattle.