What if we changed how we see the homeless?

Let’s treat them with dignity. That’s part of helping them.

My involvement with homelessness changed when my relationship with homeless people began. 

I had lost my job and wanted to “do good” in my home city. Larry James, the head of CitySquare for over two decades, saw my naïve fervor and wisely wanted me to meet the men and women he served through his nonprofit. I traveled down U.S. Highway 75, into Deep Ellum and over Interstate 30 where I saw bright-smiled, gray-mustached James in front of a boarded up single-story home. I learned that day that part of his routine was to greet men and women getting off of the bus in the midafternoon heat who were headed over to Austin Street Center to stay the night.

I stood as close to kind Larry as I could, awkward in a setting outside of my norm. Larry was different. The men and women whom I stereotyped he spoke to as his friends. He knew their names and stories. He laughed and joked with them, and offered a comforting hug when they cried. As I left and reflected on that day, I felt out of sorts, out of place, and yet, something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Then I realized … I felt alive.

Larry’s look grew more quizzical with each passing week I showed up at 2 p.m. on Thursdays. Many volunteers he’d invite; few would return week after week. I surprised myself as much as him. If all of us took a lesson from Larry James, we might all surprise ourselves. 

Homelessness is one of our intractable problems in the United States. We’re always trying to solve for them. They are the issue, we assume. They invade our downtowns. They’re bad for business. They’re addicted, mentally ill, lazy. “Let’s ship them all to Chicago,” one businessperson told me a few years ago. Most people won’t say what he said that bluntly, but on the whole, we see them as a problem we want gone.

But what if that is the real problem? What if we — how we think about them, treat them, see them — are the reasons we can’t solve homelessness?

People rarely make eye contact with the homeless, and many go months without hearing their name. They’re our society’s “untouchables.” To solve the issue of homelessness, I believe we have to change. We have to stop pointing the finger at them and instead take a hard look at ourselves.

For more than a decade, I’ve been working in southern Dallas, on the streets with men and women who stay outside at night or in shelters, and what I’ve learned may surprise you. Greater than causes like mental illness and addiction for the chronically homeless are issues of loneliness and social isolation. The root cause is most often the lack of a support system, a social structure, or family and friends to uphold the person as they travel difficult paths. 

Think about members in your family or extended family who struggle with addiction or mental illness, or have made poor decisions at times. How are they able to remain off of the streets? You. You are how your family members who struggle don’t join those, most of them raised in poverty, who fall into homelessness.

I don’t mean to suggest that these neighbors don’t need tangible help. They do. They need shelter and treatment and employment and health care. 

But they need more. Struggling people also need kindness, someone to listen, someone to sit with them, drive them to their psychiatrist or counseling appointments, cover rent when they can’t hold a job as they recover from depression. They need relationship, friendship, people to believe in them when they’ve given up, to pray with and for them.

The majority of the men and women on our streets I’ve come to know in my work fall into such a category. Life hit hard, both in adulthood and childhood. Almost every childhood story I hear includes neglect, abuse or trauma.

I’ve yet to hear a story where the beginning of long-term homelessness wasn’t the loss of someone important, through divorce or death. The first cause most of my friends name is the loss of a loved one; the alcohol abuse, the sometimes-poor choices, the depression — these ensue from the grief.

To mend homelessness, we must mend hearts. To mend hearts, we must change how we think about the homeless and how we treat them.

Here’s a quick guide to how you can be a part of changing this issue, leading with what’s easiest to do. Make eye contact. Wave. Say hello. 

Don’t approach someone unless invited over. For people dealing with mental health challenges; an uninvited approach can feel like a threat. 

Roll down your window, introduce yourself. I like to say, “Hi, I’m Elisabeth, and I don’t have anything to give you right now, but I wanted to say hello. What’s your name?”

Sit on a curb or take a seat in the dirt. Give your time. Listen to a story. Set down your judgment. Ask curious questions, and just listen. If a person cries, offer a hand on a shoulder. If they are open to it, offer prayer.

Changing homelessness in the United States requires a revolution — ours. In how we see the men and women on our streets, in how we care — and ultimately, in how we love.