Compassion is a workable solution

Jim Desmond's opinion piece "Time to enforce common sense solutions for homelessness" is nonsensical, as is the legislation that he is applauding.

I am homeless. I am a mom of grown children and I have a Masters Degree. Homelessness is a problem that I've dealt with more than once in the last handful of years and one that I overcame and am in the process of again overcoming through the community that has loved and supported me; not through being punished for it.

And that is exactly what the Supreme Court has decided to do. In this legislation, cities are not being given resources to make meaningful change, but the power of smoke and mirrors. They are being told they can now officially criminalize the state of being homeless.

And criminalizing someone for being homeless is another step in the direction of control for the government while disempowering those who are seeking to get back on their feet.

What does it help to be able to ticket someone for sleeping on the sidewalk when they have nowhere else to sleep? Oh, and by the way, they likely don't have any disposable money with which to pay that ticket. And it may not be the best idea to strain them with the need to worry about spending the little money they might have on such a thing when they have the concern of trying to find a way to pay for more important things, like, for example, a place to live.

On top of this, if someone gets "caught" doing it again (mind you we're talking about falling asleep) after being ticketed, they can go to jail. Jail? This is how we are going to help people build their lives after losing their homes?

He said this is "progress." It is progress in a socialist agenda that will only keep spiraling into more and more homelessness, creating this cast of people who are increasingly hated by society, under the thumb and at the mercy of big government, who are the excuse for the churning out of agencies and "solutions" for which politicians are applauded, and which are the gateway to billions of dollars that are lining pockets of those who legislate and create these "solutions" but are an increasing nightmare for those subjected to the "enforcing" of the control of those who are going to "fix" this "problem."

Also, Desmond's article directly equates “the homeless" with addicts. Paragraph one talks about "the homeless" and then with no segue, paragraph two opens speaking about addicts .... but he's not talking about addicts in general, rather "the homeless."

I know many homeless people, or those who have passed through homelessness, who are not addicts and many many more professional and "respectable" people who are.

I have never used illicit drugs and stopped abusing alcohol decades ago when I met Jesus in college and found a source of solace that helped me end that habit. Yet I am homeless. Besides, homeless or not, crimes related to the possession and distribution of drugs have nothing to do with where a person sleeps.

And if we are going to focus the attention of the federal government on curtailing illegal drug activity, shouldn't we set our aim where it is stemming from in contrast to putting the target on those at the bottom of the food chain of that money making mill?

Those strung out on the streets, or in homeless 'solutions' that allow for illegal activity, should be punished if they commit crimes, but so should those who are sitting in white castles making money off this degradation, and both according to the severity of the crimes they commit. I personally think the second is much more deplorable.

The reasons for homelessness abound. And the ‘solutions’ should support and protect the vulnerable rather than punish them senselessly. And better yet, provide them with a just society in which they’d be protected from preventable factors in the first place.

The first time I lost my home followed the abrupt loss of child support in 2019. That's a story in itself, but one that again leaves me scratching my head over the contradictions of a system claiming to protect the vulnerable.

In its current state, family court is easily manipulated in favor of the one who has money and a lawyer who is comfortable being fraudulent, and all that seems blind to the one who gave up a career to raise five natural born children (and a few other kids I'd taken in) over a 24 year marriage.

Thank God I had friends who truly loved me. That was a couple weeks of couch surfing followed by my family friends who offered me a place to stay till I got back on my feet. Those family friends were the Reeder's who own and operate the Village News in which this article is appearing.

Once I was able, I began paying rent, but it was reasonable because they were not looking at me as a way to monetize; they were walking with me as a fellow bearer of the image of God and as a friend.

A few years later, I also was able to recover a portion of the two years of child support that I was cheated out of. That is because Fallbrook local, Pierre Domercq, assisted me. He is a family lawyer, but he is also a decent man and has that touch of what makes the heart of Fallbrook so special.

Though I did not have money to hire him to represent me in court, he acted out of motives beyond the financial and gave insight into how I could represent myself effectively. It was his humane support and compassion, not some cold agenda, that gave me a voice in that arena.

And though the money it cost me through the court process pretty much offset the 'settlement,' his help was a huge step forward in my own healing journey as I was seeking to find my footing. The word compassion literally means "suffer with."

In contrast to political agendas that make "the homeless" a faceless mass, and one that is increasingly being made out as an enemy, human sympathy and support, and divine grace and mercy, is what suffering people need. Not to be made further outcast by being fined because they are a stranger who needs to be taken in.

This time I lost my home after a series of events. Among them, I lost my job about a year ago. I had recently lost spousal support. The law says I'm entitled to that for a minimum of half my marriage, so at least 12 years, and we were only five or six years in, but it was going to be another fight and after a year and half in court for what left me barely breaking even in regards to lost child support, I was not up for that toll, financially nor emotionally, so I relinquished.

Then one day, I took three hours unpaid time off at my job and that led to a conversation. I was trying to grow an events business because, without spousal support, I was not making enough to cover the one bedroom apartment in which myself and my 18 year old daughter were living.

Corporate saw that as a 'liability.' I found out I was being fired. They said I quit. My general manager, a deeply honorable man and genuinely good employer, spent two months going to bat for me to try to get me either severance or at least for them to lay me off so that I could get unemployment.

The woman in Human Resources did what happens among those who think companies should care more about their bottom line than their people and she sought to manipulate the situation in more ways than one and to paint me as "the problem."

I was working for Bearcom, a corporate giant, and in the two years I worked there I had earned my way to becoming the second highest paid office manager in their more than 80 branches. The CEO, also a decent and God-fearing man, sought to intervene when I went to him for assistance.

In response to this, the woman in HR contacted legal and I got an ugly letter telling me they were “expediting my resignation" (but still denying that they were firing me) and when I went into the office after receiving this letter, an in-house corporate executive called the police because he said that legal had told him to do so if I were to come by.

The general manager, who remained utterly sympathetic in attitude and action but who also has a family who depends on him remaining employed, kindly explained to me that everyone was told to have no interactions with me and even call the cops if I came to the office.

He also said they had frozen any email communication from me to those in the company, which was in addition to cutting off my access to letters from HR and legal in my email that revealed much of the fraud I'd dealt with.

It then took me six weeks of fighting, with no income, to get unemployment. When I had a lawyer (from a non-profit) contact Bearcom's legal department about their fraudulent claim that I had quit, they told the lawyer I would have to take it to court.

I was being buried and when she made it clear that they would not negotiate, that didn't look like the time to call another Goliath into battle. But "coincidentally," just after that, the federal unemployment office alerted me that the company was no longer hindering the process for me to receive unemployment.

I will not go into too much detail of the "identity theft" that emptied that account after it began to be funded and the inept response of law enforcement as I was told why the thief would deal with no repercussion, but I think it's worth noting that I was told that there is a rampant issue of EDD funds being stolen after the government deposits them onto the prepaid cards they issue.

That’s an additional loss of resource that only increases the vulnerability of those facing a job loss; these compounded attacks on a person’s livelihood only increase vulnerability for losing ability to stay on one’s feet.

In the midst of an epidemic rise in homelessness, perhaps we should be offsetting the things contributing to the crisis rather than continuing to create industry thriving off its existence and punishing those suffering from it.

But surely in the first order, we should act with decency and compassion toward humans who have been swept off their feet and treat them as we would want to be treated.

Lisa Winkleblech