“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...” (The United States Declaration of Independence)
The problem with unalienable rights is that someone has to protect those rights and, at times, provide for them. When complexities occur that make the protection and provision of these rights unclear, obstacles, agendas, and conflict abound.
Take, for example, the disastrous outcomes in the homeless crisis. It is not news that ground continues to be lost on this issue in spite of the robust investment of passion, creativity, and dollars.
The missing ingredient is a True North that has the ability to calibrate the compass of everyone navigating these complex issues and guide all stakeholders in alignment, in spite of passionately held and diametrically opposed views.
That simple True North? Human Dignity.
I believe that all people really are created by God and bear His image, possessing the mysterious, beautiful, and eternal glory of their Maker. Truly there is no such thing as a “mere mortal”. Therefore, every solution to every aspect of community development, and especially the development of our most vulnerable citizens, must be guided by the commitment to human dignity. This can provide amazing clarity in confusing times.
For example, our housed citizens cannot simply insist that we push our vulnerable citizens back into the woods where they can exist out of sight and out of mind. That lacks human dignity. Neither can we allow glorious human beings to defecate on public sidewalks, live like animals, and create serious health hazards for all. This lacks human dignity. Not one of us would allow our children to live this way. Why? Because we love them and want to empower them to live up to the potential they have, whatever level of potential that turns out to be.
Here is an idea: Let’s require program, partnership, investment, and solution for our vulnerable neighbors to be developmental in nature. That is, they empower people to move towards greater autonomy and dignity, at whatever step is possible for that citizen.
Ironically mistaken is the notion that protecting the residence of tent cities and allowing disastrous and dangerous living conditions to prevail is thoughtful, helpful, or honoring to these citizens. Allowing human beings to live in squalor with rats, sewage and trash is the furthest thing from human dignity. It is instead a passive declaration that these people are a lower class of human who cannot be expected to take even one tiny step toward personal development because they are incapable of any personal responsibility and growth.
This is the height of personal insult.
To be sure there are among our homeless populations people with life controlling problems and debilitating issues that grossly limit their capacity for successful autonomy. The dignified answer for these friends is residential care, developmental treatment and effective transitions into an empowered life. Letting people live like animals fails the dignity test.
It is simple, but not simplistic, to apply the dignity test to every solution considered. Non-developmental assistance creates co-dependence, not independence. Everyone knows this, yet we keep ignoring it in the case of homelessness. Co-dependence is not a dignified solution for any human being, unless their best life includes living in an institution or community for those who cannot provide for themselves.
Our most vulnerable neighbors have unalienable rights and we must provide for them in developmental ways that increase dignity, pride, and personal growth. It is time to stop sabotaging their progress with toxic and undignified charity.