I was extremely disappointed to read “Out in the cold” in the Jan. 2 edition of Illinois Times. The choice to portray Helping Hands employee Jilnita Johnson in such an unfair and villainous manner was irresponsible and unethical. As a person who served as the executive director of Helping Hands for five years, I implore our community to stop this “open season” on social service agencies and their employees, particularly those organizations serving people experiencing homelessness. Not just out of respect for people who give their professional (and often personal) lives trying to help those who are vulnerable, but also for the good of the people in our community who experience homelessness.
Springfield isn’t alone in pitting groups against each other when it comes to the issue of homelessness – but we are especially adept at doing so. Neighborhoods versus encampments, agencies versus agencies, Facebook vigilantes versus agencies, and clients versus agencies are all ways we divide and blame. Meanwhile, people continue to suffer and what progress is happening is drowned out by shouting matches in public forums and on social media.
In my years of working alongside local professionals in the field (including Johnson), here is the summary of what I learned, and what the community must understand: emergency shelter alone cannot solve the issue of chronic homelessness.
Yet, “fixing” homelessness is the expectation everyone seems to have of emergency shelters. This flawed thinking is the equivalent of blaming the hospital emergency room for increasing rates of heart attacks in a community.
Chronic homelessness is the culmination of a long and painful series of events that individuals experience. One event – a missed paycheck, an unexpected health setback – does not immediately result in a person becoming homeless for an extended amount of time. Chronic homelessness may be triggered by a catastrophic life event, but it is almost always compounded by a series of traumas, including physical, mental, social and emotional health crises. Addictions often develop as the person attempts to cope with the problems, which are then exacerbated by the trauma of losing stable housing. There’s the shame of social rejection and stigmatization, and the fear of crime on the streets or in sketchy housing options – because research shows that people experiencing homelessness are far more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than to commit one.
We also must consider our society changing from one that is collective in nature to one that is individualistic. Vulnerable people and families no longer have the social networks they used to – neighborhoods, extended families, churches – that would take them in and ensure their basic needs are met, no matter if such support is needed for a few days or a lifetime. Those social networks and commitments do not exist as they did even 50 or 60 years ago. Nowadays, social service agencies have been designated the replacement option to take care of people no one else knows what to do with.
Social service agencies, particularly those that provide emergency services, were never designed to meet a person’s physical, social and health needs. Social service agencies cannot replace deep, committed, social relationships. Social service agencies cannot accept complete and total responsibility for the lives of adult men and women. Emergency shelters cannot “fix” homelessness for individuals, and the expectation that they do so (and vicious criticism when it’s even suggested they are not) is illogical and harmful for everyone involved.
We also see a growing negative social attitude toward people who are not historically in the majority. Our country simply does not believe that all people have a right to affordable health care – including mental health care – or housing. We don’t believe that a person working 40 hours a week deserves a wage that supports decent housing and food. We maintain deep inequities in access to education and professional advancement, and we refuse to acknowledge histories of racism and discrimination that prevent entire groups of people from building wealth (or claiming wealth that is rightfully theirs). We have a prison system that relies on recidivism to gain profits and stimulate the economy, while not even pretending to care about the people and communities it keeps locked up and pushed down.
Is it any wonder that we have high rates of chronic homelessness in America? Do you see why an emergency shelter cannot single-handedly address this complex social and individual health issue?
However, we can – in our own community – take action to alleviate these problems:
We can prevent homelessness through insisting on social policies and laws that promote equitable access to health care, education and work for all people.
We can prevent homelessness by supporting the people in our lives and communities who are at risk and fostering a sense of inclusion and belonging through respectful social networks.
We can make homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring by designing our community to include safe, affordable housing options and ready access to mental health and addiction care.
These are not simple or quick fixes, and every single one of these options requires each of us to put our own interests and biases aside for the good of others. So maybe that’s why it’s a whole lot easier to take cheap shots at people like Jilnita Johnson in the newspaper or on Facebook instead. She didn’t deserve that sort of disrespect, and neither does anyone else.
We must do better, Springfield. There has been a lot of progress made helping people who experience homelessness but we have a long way to go. Instead of attacking each other, let’s choose to see this as an opportunity to build community and respect those who are trying to do something to help.
Erica Smith lives in Springfield and was the executive director of Helping Hands of Springfield from 2017-2022. She currently serves as the executive director of Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach.
This article appears in A critical loss for District 186.
