Homelessness Week is an occasion for seeing ourselves as persons, linked by our humanity to people who are doing it hard, writes Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ. Source: Catholic Outlook.
Two things stand out about homelessness today. First, the level of homelessness in Australia is intolerable. It is a sad statement of our values as a wealthy society.
Second, it is complex. There is no simple solution to it. For that reason, it needs determination, serious planning and a clear and demanding program to ensure that everyone seeking a place in which to live and raise a family can find secure accommodation.
As a society, we have allowed homelessness to grow because we have ceased to regard housing as a human need.
Instead, we have allowed it to be treated as a financial investment. We have allowed biased regulation of taxation, investment and security of rental tenure, and the reduction of government investment in social housing to make it impossible for most families to buy houses, and for people without reliable income to rent accommodation.
That we have allowed this to happen and do so little to change it states our priorities as a nation. We are more concerned with profit than with people. This attitude leads us logically to make homelessness a crime and to pass laws that conceal it by banning people from sleeping in parks and on city streets.
There is, however, no simple and quick solution to the lack of housing. Simply to build more houses for new owners will increase their prices as wealthy investors buy them.
To reduce rapidly the cost of houses, however, will bring economic turmoil and political suicide.
There needs to be a staged combination of removing the incentives for investment in houses, much more public investment in social housing and protection of people who rent.
To support these changes, we need a different attitude to housing. We must see it as about persons, not dollars.
This change of vision from seeing housing as an investment to seeing it as a human right highlights how essential secure accommodation is.
Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ writes for Jesuit Communications and Jesuit Social Services.
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A reflection for Homelessness Week (Catholic Outlook)
