Why Should We Care About Homelessness?

Homelessness, Law Enforcement, and Human Rights Homelessness, Law Enforcement, and Human Rights | In this video, Human Rights Organizer Kelly Cutler discusses one of the key points you'll learn in this article: homelessness is a human rights issue. Load video

First, let's get clear about what it means to care about anything.

If Sarah, a philosophically savvy kindergarten teacher cares about animals, for example, what exactly does that mean?

It means that Sarah thinks that animals are important. She may say something like,

"I believe that the experience of all living beings is important. The reason is that experiences matter. So because animals are living beings with experiences, animals matter. Therefore, I care about animals."

When pressed about what it means for an entity to have experiences, the philosophical side of Sarah might add,

"to experience is to perceive the internal and external world through the senses. The reason why animals matter, and so, therefore, I care about them, is because they perceive things like pain and suffering from being slaughtered, and feel love and joy from being held."

So to Sarah, to care is to view something as important because we believe it matters.

But how does homelessness matter? For what reasons should we view homelessness as important?

If the question was "why should we care about homeless people," I think Sarah answers that quite well.

We should care about homeless people because they are living entities that can perceive sensations.

But the question instead is, "Why should we care about homelessness?" Not why we should care about people experiencing homelessness.

Why should we care about the problem of people lacking adequate housing?

HOMELESSNESS INVOLVES HUMAN RIGHTS

Anytime an innate liberty is taken away from us, a human right is involved. The basic question of human rights is what innate human liberties can other people justly deny we keep?

In the case of existing without a home, the question of human rights is a question of what innate liberties the government can take away from the homeless.

People are born innately free, innately free except by the oppression from their society. The only laws they are born to abide by are the laws that are laid down by morality, or God if you will.

Yet people in our society aim to control one as they please. Federal and local governments aim to restrict one of his innate propensities to act as an autonomous being.

As the great Chinese philosopher of the 300 B.C.s wrote:

"Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow... Such is the real nature of horses...

Po Lo appeared, saying: 'I understand the management of horses.'

So he branded them... pared their hoofs,... trotting them and galloping them... with the fear of the knotted whip...

Those who govern the empire make the same mistake" (✓1).

As they do with horses, the rulers of the empire sometimes infringe upon the people's innate liberties, innate liberties that are even sometimes as natural as sleeping outside.

They get together and form alliances, create laws, and pay citizens to enforce them, even by force if necessary to gain compliance. Some of those laws, (though you're never going to believe this,) may even be perceived by some as immoral.

So we need to weigh every law that restricts freedom for its utility against its advantages for all people.

We need to weigh prohibiting sleeping on "the public's property" against its advantages for every one person.

For if it is an innate right for people to sleep outdoors, to sleep outdoors in the world in which they are born, if it is an innate right to do so just so long as it is done so on public, and not on private property, then we can conclude that the imposition of laws related to illegal camping on public property is a violation of human rights.

So one reason why we should care about homelessness is, at least in regards to where people can sleep, homelessness is a human rights issue.

HOMELESSNESS INVOLVES OUR TAX MONEY

Next, we should care about homelessness because it is costly. We pay a lot of taxes to our city, town, and federal governments. And one of the reasons why we do, is we provide food and services to the homeless.

Exactly why we do is important to know. Knowing why we should and should not help the homeless is significant because it can guide us in deciding whether or not we should be spending all this money on homeless people, whether we should be spending even more, or even spending none at all.

In democracies, this is especially important because we have the power to vote for politicians that guide tax money.

So another reason why we should care about the homeless is that it involves tax money.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It might be reasonably argued that we should not care about homelessness.

We should care about it because no decision to care empowers us to affect the way things are anyway.

And I'd partially agree with you. You might expect me to tell you that if we only try, we can make an impact, that if we only understand the complexities of homelessness and its significance to human rights, we can alter society's malicious course concerning homelessness for good. You might even expect me to offer some empowering words of wisdom, some indispensable insights into how we can make the world more good.

But that would be too predictable. So let us let it burn.

summary

We should care about homelessness because it is a problem that affects us all.

First, it is a human rights issue. If we, as people, possess the innate right to sleep outdoors, just so long as we do so on not private, but public property, then laws related to illegal camping are violations of human rights.

Second, we should care about homelessness because it involves the taxes that we pay. We spend a lot of money on taxes, so we ought to care enough to stay informed about where that money goes.

So the next time you're favorite news station runs another boring story on homelessness...

Think, "maybe I should care about homelessness because it's a problem that affects us all."