Will Plant Trees for Food

The other day I saw an air guitarist earning his daily bread.  Or pizza, whatever.

He was on a street corner, holding a sign for a pizza place… it might have been Little Caesar’s or Pizza Hut.. and he was doing what street sign holders do—holding a sign.  Nothing special, except that the sign was in the shape of a rock guitar.  And instead of just holding the sign, or dancing around, or waving at us passers-by, he was rocking.  Yep, he was playing that air guitar for all it was worth.  As a former air guitarist, I really appreciated his work and that he was allowed to do it in public.  Nay, even encouraged.

It makes me consider the many occupations that might gain no heed were it not for forward-thinking employers.   Think of the many mimes hired by the Disney Company to dress in costumes and wander around their parks.  Think of the thousands of artists hired by animation companies (mostly in Korea, but still).  And the many English majors hired by fast food companies… I mean Huffington Post… I mean… wait, how do English majors earn any money?  Think of all the useless theology majors hired to be pastors.  That’s some innovative hiring.

Then I thought of all these folks I know with practical skills.  I know plumbers, electricians, handymen, landscapers, cooks, factory workers… all of whom are on the street.  These aren’t people who are lazy or stupid.  They are good workers and know their business.  But they can’t get work.  Some of them are poor businessmen.  Some of them moved when they should have stayed.  Some of them changed jobs when they should have remained at the one they were at.  Perhaps they made poor decisions.  But their skills are necessary, and they are essential for keeping our society running.  Yet they are left to languish on the street, not even knowing where they could possibly find employment because no one is hiring people who are on the street.

A new friend of mine told me his story the other day.  He was a union construction worker and made 23 dollars an hour.  He had a family, purchased a house and settled into a good middle class life.  He made an error when he passed the ownership of his house to his brother, as a financial decision.  His brother sold the house out from under him.  He then lost his family, and decided to try his hand in another state as a ranch hand.  They underpaid him and gave him horrible living conditions.  He decided to go back to his hometown, but there was nothing there for him.  His family didn’t want him, and he couldn’t find work.  Now he is on his own in a tent and he doesn’t know what to do with his life or even if he should continue to live.

Why can’t we find work for people with skills?  Perhaps their people skills are something to be desired, and perhaps they are not employable by corporations.  But shouldn’t the church be willing to do alternative hiring, to provide people with work who otherwise can’t find work?  If each person saying “get a job” were willing to hire, the number of homeless could be cut in half.

Teach How to Fish Revisited

Probably the most popular blog post here is the article by Pam Wilson of Operation Mercy about the phrase "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."  It's a great article you can read here if you like.

Even though I have a lot of questions about this proverb, people have been quoting it a lot to me lately.  A friend of mine recently posted on my Facebook page, "We need to teach the homeless how to fish."  This is a summary statement, which really means, "We need to train the homeless so they can get jobs."   Getting the homeless work is essential, no question. Labor is a big issue among the homeless, especially with the increased competition as many people are losing jobs.

But do the homeless need to be retrained?  Sure, some could benefit from some training.  But frankly, almost all of the homeless have skills that could be used in jobs today.  I know mechanics, landscapers, carpenters, roofers, painters, bike mechanics, general handymen, and many other occupations.  These are jobs that need to be done and there is a lot of work for this kind of work.  Perhaps having regular work this way takes some time, but our folks are ready to build up a clientele.  They've got time and aren't in a hurry.  But they'd like work.  Today, if possible.

So why don't they work?  Because no one will hire a homeless person.  Employers are looking for people who are already settled.  They don't want to hire someone who might be difficult.  Even people looking for work for a day are nervous about hiring a homeless person to do work.  Or perhaps they think that a homeless person would do shoddy work.

Let's face it, the homeless don't need to "learn to fish." They need to be given a chance.  They need to be given jobs, or at least some day labor.  

If you have ever even thought about a homeless person, "That person needs to get a job," then stop and reprimand yourself for your hypocrisy unless you have hired and paid a homeless person for work. Do you want to have a church ministry? Hire the homeless to care for your church property, even if only for a day.

Don't know where to find homeless people to hire to do work for you?  If you are in the Portland area, contact me.  I'll get you a worker.  They can clean your house.  They can clean up your yard.  They can repair.  They can build wood tables.  Don't think that the homeless are inadequate.  Most of them aren't.  They just need a chance.  And maybe a little patience.

Homeless Culture: Respect for Hard Work

Often being homeless throws one into such a depression that there is only enough energy to survive and not more than that. Other homeless work hard to maintain whatever kind of positive life they can. Some homeless work hard so they can have a few beers at the end of the day. But pretty much without exception, all the homeless respects those who work hard and accomplish something for their work. They do not always respect those who have jobs. But they respect labor, especially manual labor. If that manual labor just means a nice camp, it is respected, even if no money comes from it. The work is enough. And the homeless might do volunteer work just for the self-respect it brings (although they would prefer to work for money).

"Get A Job"

Many people think that the homeless should just "get a job". The homeless, especially in holding signs looking for money or work will be told this. However, it is very difficult for the homeless to get a job. I had been planning on writing an essay on this, but Steven Samra has done it for me! Check this out:

http://homelessness.change.org/blog/view/dont_be_homeless_get_a_job

Work and Lifestyle

Work is a strange concept.

Not all by itself, mind you. To work is either to produce something or to serve someone. To work is to discipline one's mind and body toward a particular goal. Athletes work when they train to defeat their competitors. Mothers work when they care for their children. Artists work when they produce their art. Gardeners work when they plant, weed and harvest their plants. Administrative assistants work when they type a letter their employer has dictated. That's simple.

But we have another concept of work in our age, and it has to do with the division between work and leisure. This division isn't about how hard one works, but rather the result of the work. There are gardeners and artists who spend hours a day at their craft, honing their skills and perfecting their labor to create magnificent beauty and even practical use-- food to eat or a picture for water-- yet it is leisure, not work. Why is this? Because it is not laboring toward the basics of the modern lifestyle.

Most of us have a pretty basic concept of work: that which obtains for us a paycheck, or at least a livable income if one is self-employed. The object of work is to obtain money and the object of that money is to maintain the modern lifestyle. It doesn't matter how difficult it is to raise three children, the stay-at-home mom doesn't "work" in this use of the term. Nor does the artist or gardener who doesn't get paid.

So the CEO who spends part of his working day at the golf course "works", but his wife who has to care for a toddler and an infant at home, cleaning after them, cooking, caring, comforting, making sure that they don't eat any pencils left on the table by her thoughtless, and "overworked" husband, doesn't "work".

And as much as we might often decry the hypocrisy between these two differing definitions, our society grants honor to those who "work" in the second definition, not the first. A man might have two children: His daughter works as a computer programmer, who spends most of the day lounging about, hanging out on Facebook, talking with non-cyber friends in the office, playing cards and then, in the last hour of the day, writes out a set of brilliant programming. She gets paid a fair salary. His son also spends his day in front of the computer, but he works eight to twelve hours a day writing his novel. He hasn't found a publisher yet, but he has sent out parts of his manuscript to many. He has gotten positive feedback from others, including some in the writing industry, but fiction is a difficult and crowded market. He lives at home, but he knows his break is just around the corner. The father is proud of his daughter because of the income she receives, even though she works little. But he considers his son lazy and no good because all he does is sit in front of his computer, writing.

Honor is always given to the successful, even if they don't deserve it. Honor is granted, not to those who produce, not to the disciplined, not even to those who excel at their craft. Honor is given to those who more successfully have the means to live the lifestyle that is approved by one's community.

To not live in accordance with the community's lifestyle is a grave sin against the community. You can be working positively for a community, serving the community, producing things that is beneficial for the community, but you will always be outside the community unless you live their lifestyle, or a version of their lifestyle they approve of. The middle class version of this is to have a job, receive a paycheck, use the money to pay one's bills, rent and groceries. One must have a permanent place to live, electricity, running water, and a phone.

People can live in a different lifestyle. We know that people in third world countries do. We know, intellectually, that some live in mud huts, but it is difficult for us to imagine it. We know that some people choose to change their lifestyle for idyllic or spiritual reasons, but we know that we could never be like them and that, fundamentally, they "aren't one of us." The polite way of saying this is, "Oh, I could NEVER do that."

The impolite way is to say, "Why don't those people just work?" Which is said about the homeless all the time.

This is the source of the false idea that the homeless are "lazy". They have a different lifestyle, one not acceptable to the middle class. Of course, anyone who really thinks about the homeless lifestyle know that it takes a lot of effort to be homeless. You walk for miles from your camp to a meal site. You stay all day in the weather. You may not get much sleep on any given night.

You might recycle or dumpster dive, which means walking across the city to collect items, climbing in and out of trash cans. If you recycle, then you bring the items back to one or more stores in order to get paid for your work, which might get you a few bucks an hour.

And you are doing the community a service if you perform this kind of labor. If you dumpster dive, then you are taking things out of a landfill in order to reuse it in a productive manner. If you are recycling then you are taking items that would have gone to a landfill and turning it back to industrial use. Other homeless spend their days cleaning trash off of sidewalks.

But rather than look at the "work" of the homeless, most people only see the non-"work" of the homeless. They are considered part of a "leisure class" those who are living off of society without serving it. It isn't true, however. The fact that their labor isn't leading them to a lifestyle that they are comfortable with. The amount of effort required to live a homeless lifestyle doesn't impress most of the populace. Rather, they are disgusted that anyone would live in a third world environment in their golden empire.

The fact is, most people on the street don't want to be there, but all their effort has done nothing to obtain the middle class lifestyle. But even if some do choose to be on the street-- who are we to judge? Who are we to say that everyone must work 40 hours a week to support someone else's goals and to prop up their inflated lifestyle so we can have an inflated lifestyle of our own?

Being homeless is hard work. Really. But perhaps it might be worth it if we took on some of the simplicity of that lifestyle on our own.

Are The Poor Lazy?

 

This is certainly a common idea: the poor are poor because they won't get up off their ass and do something about their life. People quote the book of Proverbs to confirm this belief-- that the sloth has poverty creep up on them. Of course, those who quote this about the poor are mixing up the cause and effect: The proverb states that the lazy man becomes poor, not that the poor man is so due to their laziness. In our society, many of the lazy can become very well off. And certainly the well off are encouraged to gain a sense of privilage and so become lazy.

In my experience, the poor are rarely lazy. They expend a lot of energy to survive and to meet their basic needs. The non-poor, on the other hand, take their survival needs for granted.

If the poor were given opportunities where their effort would accomplish just half as much as the non-poor, then they would work hard. Some poor work very hard, such as immigrants (especially the illegals) and the newly homeless. They work eighty hours a week, to accomplish the proverb that Americans love to quote: "Work hard and you'll get ahead."

It is when the poor realize the lie of that proverb that they give up working. When they realize that they are never going to accomplish their goals in life-- as small as they are-- because they lack that other ingredient so necessary for getting ahead: good luck.

Then you see the poor laying about with no drive to persevere-- because they know the drive has no means by which it must be accomplished. They lack hope.

If the churches and middle class created opportunities for hope, then the hopeless poor would again be ready to work. I have just seen a long term homeless heroin addict get an opportunity to work landscaping part time for a hospital. If he skips a day, they still keep him on. But the joy and hope in his life because he has accomplished that which was fruitless for so long is priceless. Just because of a real opportunity, with no strings.

So next time you hear someone claim that the poor are lazy, ask them if they have ever given the poor a chance to work.

The Working Poor

I was asked on a survey about my experiences with the working poor. This was my response:

How much space do you have?

I have been working poor since 1997 when I quit my job and started living on donations. However, my children have never gone hungry, even one meal, nor have they had to sleep on the street. God has provided for us, and now even a house and our daily food, although we often eat food from dumpsters-- but not filthy food.

I have seen people who don't want to beg and so they look for cans to recycle. They may make 30 dollars a day for working five hours in independent recycling.

I know of some people who work for phone sales. They get hired in one place, work for a few weeks or months, get laid off and then they have to look for work again. They never get enough to get an apartment.

I know of others who are on disability at about 500 or so dollars a month. They try to work as often as they can, but their physical or mental disabilities don't allow them to work for long, so they soon have to quit or they get fired. Eventually they find another job.

People who live on the street all want to work. Everyone is looking for work to do. But they have mental or physical or social limitations that don't allow them to work as long as they would like. I know of some people who look for work, but then they have an attack from their mental illness, and they are unable to work for two days to a week after that. They can't hold down a job like that.

What people on the street and some folks on disability need is work that will be flexible with their situation. Work that will allow them to take off and who will help them to fill out the necessary paperwork. Not just a day labor place, but a social assistance project that gives people work as they are able to work so they can make more income than they currently get-- even if they don't have enough for an apartment.