Every now and then, someone asks me a question that not only jars me but stays with me. Such was the simple question Olive Kinga asked me one day in 2019, when I visited The Dallas Foundation, where she was serving as an intern.
This young woman, born in Cameroon, had graduated with honors from the University of North Texas at Dallas, and was headed to a master’s program in International Relations and Diplomacy at the International University in Geneva, Switzerland. (She has since graduated and is on to a second master’s program in European and International Governance at the University of Geneva!)
Olive Kinga in a UNT Dallas video
Her question was simple: How did, we, in the United States, the richest country on the face of the planet, have homelessness? Back in Cameroon, they had nowhere near the amount of wealth that the United States has, and yet homelessness was not that common. It just did not make sense.
Come to think of it, her question is such a good one, that it could be asked about many of the problems we have today. How do we, in the United States, the richest country on the face of the planet, still have poverty? How do we not ensure that each American has everything they need and more? How do we allow for the persistence of income, and wealth, when we have more than enough to go around? It just does not make sense.
Now, it is not that there are no answers to these questions; it is just that they all ring hollow and seem more like excuses. If we are really honest with ourselves, we have to admit that it is not that we can’t solve these problems; we just have not wanted to.
This might sound fatalistic; it is not. If the only thing that is preventing us from solving a problem is lack of will, once that will is found, the sky’s the limit. As Theodor Herzl wrote (and Walter in the Big Lebowski repeated), “If you will it (Dude), it is no dream.”
With the onset of COVID-19, we can see this with our own eyes. Our Federal Government has suddenly “found” $4 billion for a homelessness program, to which it could only allocate $280 million, mere months before that. Local governments, across the country, have stopped wasting money on encampment sweeps, which only exacerbate unsheltered homelessness, and are instead investing in housing. Funders, public and private, have come together like never before to invest in solutions that have the potential to not only prevent homelessness from rising, but lower the rates of homelessness.
It may have taken a global pandemic for us to admit it, but you were right, Olive. Homelessness makes no sense, and we are going to end it.
