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The temporary lifetime of the Ghost of Christmas Current handed upon the stroke of midnight on Wednesday, and kids started the countdown to the looks of his brother, one yr from now.
This Christmas, as I do each Christmas, I learn Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” There’s a scene, proper after the departure of Marley’s ghost, the place Scrooge sees disembodied spirits, doomed to wander the earth. These spirits are begging and pleading, unseen and unheard, with the poor, homeless and disenfranchised. What they lament is their lack of ability to assist — a tragic irony, as that they had the chance to behave whereas alive however, now with out bodily our bodies, can do nothing.
This obtained me enthusiastic about homelessness. Is it the identical factor? Because the mayor of El Cajon, California, I’ve been an outspoken critic of how the state has dealt with the homelessness disaster. I requested myself, “Is it potential, like Scrooge, that I’ve been forging my very own ponderous chain each time I criticize voucher packages, lawlessness and housing-first insurance policies?” I questioned: if I got the identical reward that Scrooge obtained, what revelations may my hauntings reveal?
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The Ghost of Christmas Previous, which brings to thoughts the Seventies, would present me a California largely devoid of homelessness. Again then, California was a relative paradise, marked by a way of legislation and order.
California’s future homelessness will solely worsen if we do not change insurance policies. FILE: The Metropolis of Berkeley, California is being sued by a number of companies for failing to take away homeless encampments. (SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF ALAMEDA)
However didn’t Christ say, “The poor will all the time be with us?” I do know the Seventies have been stuffed with poor individuals — I used to be one in all them. Most everybody I knew was poor. But we might stroll downtown with out operating a gauntlet of homelessness. Crime existed, however police have been empowered to guard communities. Seashores have been locations of magnificence, not encampments crammed with filth and despair.
Why? What modified? In my view, it was a aware resolution to make homelessness a viable choice — by subsidizing the homeless life-style financially, eliminating legal guidelines that saved communities protected and clear, normalizing dependancy and de-stigmatizing vagrancy (utilizing the blunt language of the Seventies). In my creativeness, the ghost would make no judgment however would let me draw my very own conclusions.
Would the Ghost of Christmas Current present me the darkish, harmful encampments, rife with rape, violence and hopelessness? I imagine he would. However would the blame fall on these trapped on this hell, or on the politicians? Would he present me the backroom offers and growth contracts that maintain the homeless industrial complicated — a system during which a choose few revenue from $25 billion in wasted funds whereas the issue solely worsens, leaving NGOs begging for extra?
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Would the Ghost gaze upon the wretched and say, “Blame me not for this distress. That is man’s doing”? Would he level to the individuals dying on sidewalks and say, “I see a tent left empty. If these insurance policies don’t change, this can be their destiny?” Would he present me Christmas dinner tables the place individuals chortle, shake their heads and lament California’s self-destruction?
The ultimate ghost, like Scrooge’s, can be the one I worry most. He would present me a California the place cities are uninhabitable and residents are scattered throughout the nation as refugees. He would reveal lawless anarchy within the streets, the place sexual assault and overdose deaths are predictable and accepted outcomes. He would present shuttered retail shops, overrun hospitals and public areas rendered unsafe. He would lead me to the ruins of the house the place I used to be born. And, along with his skeletal hand, he may level silently to locations like Haiti, forewarning what lies forward.
It’s my Christmas want that the true recipients of such hauntings can be the political decision-makers accountable for this disaster. Could they get up on Christmas morning with a brand new imaginative and prescient and vitality — one which prioritizes the welfare of all Californians over greed and failed ideologies.
If I have been Dickens, I’d write an ending the place the homeless industrial complicated is dismantled and changed with efficient options. Most significantly, I’d write a contented ending for these trapped by homelessness and dependancy — not by enabling them, however by imposing legal guidelines that stop avenue dwelling whereas offering, and typically requiring, acceptable remedy. I’d see municipalities regain the instruments to wash their cities and reverse insurance policies which have made California more and more unlivable.
Why? What modified? In my view, it was a aware resolution to make homelessness a viable choice — by subsidizing the homeless life-style financially, eliminating legal guidelines that saved communities protected and clear, normalizing dependancy and de-stigmatizing vagrancy (utilizing the blunt language of the Seventies).
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In reflecting on this, I see a disconnect between the poor and homeless of Victorian England and the disaster we face right now. In 1843, there was no security internet and choices have been few. I imagine Dickens’ poor would have embraced trendy shelters, work alternatives and rehabilitation packages — not as a result of they have been higher individuals, however as a result of harsh circumstances demanded it. “Are there no poor? Are there no workhouses? Many would somewhat die than go there,” they mentioned. This was their grim actuality.
Right now, nevertheless, our obligation to the poor and homeless have to be matched by their obligation to take part in their very own restoration. The actual Scrooge on this story is the political class that has imposed a failed social experiment on Californians — a failure by each measure. Could all of us see the reality so we are able to proclaim, “God bless us, everybody.”
