BRATTLEBORO — As the days get longer, and the sun gets stronger, we may breathe a collective sigh of relief thinking that the worst of winter may be behind us. Certainly our neighbors who have spent the winter making do without a roof over their heads are looking forward to more tolerable weather.
And while we should all be proud of the way our community has banded together to provide overnight shelter and hot evening meals for the homeless through the heart of winter, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that we have failed miserably to address the problems that lead our friends and neighbors to join the ranks of the homeless in ever-growing numbers.
While we extol the virtue of those who assist the needy, we seem to abhor the idea that government should have a role in providing housing or other necessary services to those who are unable to provide for themselves. The mythology of the self-reliant American spirit has enabled us to see our aid as an act of generosity, not a civic duty.
Brattleboro's overflow nighttime shelter will close its doors at the end of this month. But on April 1, just as many homeless people will remain in our midst as there were on the last day of March.
And even if spring should blossom with warm and friendly weather, that doesn't diminish the gravity of the growing problem of homelessness.
We must remember that, although mental illness and substance abuse play a role in the ever-expanding numbers of the homeless, in more and more instances, these ranks are being swelled by folks, many with families, who are still holding jobs, who are still working hard, and whose wages no longer suffice to support housing for them and their dependents.
And if government refuses to adequately address the problem, then do we as citizens have to do some soul searching and, more importantly, some hard work to devise solutions that at least ameliorate the problem here?
Windham County is rich with active and vital faith-based organizations who, along with a number of civic groups, have tried to tackle this problem. And we laud the results of those efforts. But we must remember that just because homelessness makes the news every winter, it is a 12-month-a-year problem, and it would behoove us to ask what we can do to foster a culture of housed and cared-for citizens.
Donating a tent to someone for nine months a year, supplemented by some civic/religious charity for the three or four coldest months of the year, is a start. It is certainly no solution.
Homelessness not only damages those who experience it directly, it is a cancer on our society and the commonweal. We would at least like to see our elected leaders engage those organizations who have been working in the trenches in a search for solutions. These organizations understand the problem more fully than most, and elected officials would do well to work with them and heed their advice.
We can do better.