An Imperfect Duty

Before I left Springfield to embark upon this journey into the non-profit world, my friend Katie warned me that I was headed into an "imperfect duty." Homelessness cannot ever truly be ended. It's just not going to happen. The world will always have poor people. There will always be people who have no one to care about them or for them. There will always be starvation, and there will always be hurt. So why bother?

It's an issue of forests and trees, my friends. Sure, we cannot end homelessness altogether in our nation. The problem is too complex, the solutions too uncertain. But we can empower people, one by one, to improve their situations and find better lives. We can shelter them, feed them, love them as they come.

One of the major implications of homelessness is social isolation. I don't even like to sit in a restaurant and dine by myself. I cannot imagine a world in which people passed me by en masse without even acknowledging my presence. Yet this is the daily experience of our neighbors. One of the things I love about my organization is that policy of referring to everyone who comes through our doors as "neighbors." We believe that our homeless neighbors need to be acknowledged as individuals, that it's important to look them in their eyes and speak to them as though they matter. It's not enough to provide services, we must provide them with dignity and respect to truly empower them to succeed.

I will admit that my working tendency is to see the tasks before I see the people. But I think the individuals matter more than the statistics. I want to love like that, anyway. I want to learn the stories of Frank and Will and Julie and Carol. I want to meet them where they are - homeless or housed. Loving people, in the end, is itself an imperfect duty. We can never do it enough.