My heart will go out . . .

When public tragedy strikes, it understandably sets people on edge, highlighting the vulnerability of safe places and insulated populations. Events like the Newtown massacre and today's bombings at the Boston marathon set my Facebook page twittering with heartfelt outreach, with the sending of thoughts and prayers, and with people fearfully finding themselves able to relate to the circumstances and the victims. I hate to admit it, but since the Aurora shooting, I am frightened of going into movie theaters, especially for popular, high-profile films. And I feel for those who were affected and continue to be. We have seen too many sad events both in the US and abroad in recent years.

But, each time I am faced with people's anger and philosophical questions that stem from these incidents, I find myself reflecting upon why we, as a society, are not infuriated and heartbroken every single day. Because, the fact of the matter is, we live in a world where the the tragedies are rampant and the inequities are astronomical. As Americans, we live in a country where the wealth gaps are among some of the largest in the world; where we have accepted the fact that some people will die because they cannot find, or afford, safe, appropriate shelter; where some of our cities have some of the highest gun murder rates in the world (America's 10 Deadliest Cities; Gun Violence in US Cities). In Baltimore, in the past 30 days, 22 people were murdered; all of these people were Black; all but three were men. My guess is that most were poor. In Detroit, a city that gets roughly 3,000 fires annually, firefighters seem to disproportionately (compared to other cities) risk their lives entering dilapidated and ostensibly vacant structures in an effort to save the have-nots who have too likely taken refuge within. Yet we do not seem to regard these systemic, structurally-rooted, forms of violence as violence, we do not view them as a call to reproach the system or challenge the culture.

I certainly grieve for the many victims of these highly-publicized incidents; I am sad for those who lost their lives, for those who lost their loved ones, for those who lost their sense of security; but my outrage runs much deeper, and finds its roots at the many daily tragedies we just accept. I am baffled, not by the occasional "crazy" or the periodic sociopath (or group of sociopaths), but by a country that so systematically oppresses entire groups of people, that abandons them and blames them and deems them "undeserving", not only of our tax dollars, but of our tears. I am angry because at the end of the day, it feels like nobody cares enough about those people to question society. We, as a culture, have expanded this "deserving vs undeserving poor" mentality to "deserving vs undeserving" period . . . "innocents" are deserving of our grief, they're the reason for reflection. The poor, the oppressed, we can sweep them under the rug again and again and again. I'd like to think we're just so numb to it now, that it's been too painful, so we can't react to (structural as well as physical) violence on such a scale, with such regularity. But I don't think that's it. I think, at the end of the day, we just don't care as much about those folks.

Many people will make the argument that an awful lot of these people were not "innocent", that they were embedded in systems that create and perpetuate violence. Others may cite moral transgressions or "weaknesses" as justification. But we cannot fool ourselves or construct ourselves as innocent by denying our own complicity in such systems. With very few exceptions, we - even the most oppressed, even the well-meaning, among us - are part of the problem, if for no other reason than we all work harder to get by (to succeed even) within the structure when perhaps we should be dismantling it (thank you to Paulo Freire for this image of the oppressive oppressed).

And this is, of course, where I get bogged down. As an anthropologist, I seek to understand: I ask myself, has my home culture has always been this way, so callously favoring the wealthy? I seek to understand the larger structural systems that have set us all up in opposition to one another, that seem to require some to suffer so others can succeed. I ask whether xenophobia is a cultural or a human phenomenon. But when I try to think just as me, just as a person, not as an academic, I don't know if I care why. I want to know what we are going to do about it. Then, feeling too vulnerable and ineffective, I bring my inner-academic back out and wonder, is it possible to effect meaningful (and desirable) change without answering these other questions? And that I don't know. For now, I know only this, and I will choose to reflect upon it every day, not just when the media decides something awful has happened: My heart will go out to the poor, to the suffering, to the daily murdered or beaten or frightened, to those who find themselves oppressed, exploited and excluded. I will think of them every single day. And maybe one day I will have an answer.

Putting a roof over one's head

I have finally reached the point in my life when I have surrendered to the idea of home ownership. The purchase hasn't happened yet, but the process and the search have begun. In America in particular, there is a very powerful significance to purchasing a home. It symbolizes adulthood, domestication, and success. The idea that one has not truly done well in life unless one owns a home is by no means unique to the US, but it is certainly very deep-seated here. In much of continental Europe, for example, one can be considered a respectable, successful adult and still rent the roof over her head. In the US, renting has often been left to the young, the transient, the very urban, and the poor or otherwise socially marginalized. Some have gone as far as to say that the attempt to extend the "American Dream" of homeownership to folks of limited economic means contributed to the housing crisis we saw several years ago. (More likely, it's to do with lending to people based on their projected rather than actual incomes, but that's another discussion altogether!). What we do know is that, in the US, it is the cultural norm for an "adult", especially one living outside of the major cities, to aspire to homeownership.

As I go through this rite of passage myself, my research actively reminds me of the fact that, in the US, despite our cultural preference for homeownership, this is simply not a reality for many. Most of the participants in my current research rent their homes, if they have one. Many, at some point during the study, have become (or been to start with) homeless. For most, this means they couchsurf, staying for several weeks or nights with friends who do, for now, have a roof. Several, however, are on the streets, which means that most nights they must fend for themselves to find a place to sleep. This may be in a tent along the river or in a hidden field, on an acquaintance's front porch, or in a shelter. On really cold nights, it often just means walking walking walking.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and research participant died. She died in a park, maybe because of the cold, maybe because of a medical condition, but she went that night because for some reason, she didn't have a place to stay. It broke my heart, and continues to do so every time I think of her or the very many and very sad friends she left behind. I know for many of the homeless (I'm talking about those who are homeless involuntarily, not the Travelers who pass through town every summer) in my community, especially if they have lost cars or friends with homes, one of the top goals of a day's hustle is often to scrounge up enough for a hotel room for the night. This is especially true when shelters don't have enough beds, winters are cold, and local authorities have been giving out lots of tickets for camping.

Much of the social science literature on homelessness in the US looks at major urban environments, where people rely on (semi)permanent camps. Whether people's roofs are campers or cars or tents or boxes or just the underpass, these camps provide a sense of stability that is blatantly absent from so many other areas of their lives. These settings provide the backdrop to well established systems of reciprocity, mutual assistance to facilitate daily survival, safety in numbers, familiarity and social support. I can't help but wonder how the lack of permanent camp in my town undermines these social needs. The world is home to many many nomadic people, to people who wander by choice, out of need, and because it is simply what they do. But, most of these cultural groups move together - home moves with them. In my little community, many of the folks who don't have their own homes come together during the day but they must scatter at night. Sometimes, I hear about couples who camp together - for the safety and companionship - but rarely any other groups or pairings. "Home" for these folks changes nightly and is for a single occupant.

I can't help but wonder, if people hadn't had to go their separate ways that night, whether our friend might have lived. Maybe someone - other than her loyal and now heartbroken dog - would have been looking out for her. I can't help but wonder what we are saying, as a culture and a society, when we ticket a person for not having a home.

Last spring, I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Dr. Miriam Boeri at a conference. Another drug researcher, we had great talks about controlled use, addiction, and options for treatment. Dr. Boeri talked extensively and enthusiastically about the potential benefits of a Housing First model in reducing the consequences of addiction (and often in reducing addiction itself). In this country, we so often think of homelessness as the consequence of something - addiction, criminality - that we forget that it is often the cause of something - addiction (one friend told me she never drank until she became homeless, but she needs something to kill the time; another told me that as long as she uses drugs she'll always have a place to crash off the streets), criminality (after all, it's a crime to be homeless in many communities!). According to most of the local models for ending homelessness that I've seen, we work backwards, trying to make people "worthy" of having a home - we clean them up or find them jobs and encourage them to pull themselves up, save money, and move into a place with a permanent roof. This model certainly works for some, but many are left out in the cold so to speak. The Housing First model suggests that if we offer housing first, other things are more likely to fall into place - for example, substance use treatment is more effective.

And this is when the anthropologist in me kicks in again, wondering whether having housing is simply a structural benefit. Does a roof of one's own simply make a person less dependent on systems of reciprocity that keep them embedded in what epidemiologists would call "risk" networks? I think there is something to this, but it is incomplet. Many of the folks I know who have housing use it to give back to individuals within those very "risk" networks who have helped them out in the past. So, while I think there is a pragmatic structural benefit to providing housing first, I think there may be more to it than that. I wonder if it isn't also about subjectivity. Perhaps the very demoralization - both imposed and internalized stigma - associated with being homeless in the US has such a profound impact as to undermine agency to make changes in other aspects of life. Perhaps the home has become so central to our own sense of self-worth that, regardless of one's other attributes, to be homeless is the most severe cultural abomination.