Vargas is president and CEO of Father Joe’s Villages, and a member of The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Community Voices Project. He lives in La Jolla.
I know a local woman who became homeless for the first time in San Diego at the age of 59 in 2020. Like many seniors, she lived on a fixed income and could no longer afford her apartment when the rent increased. With nowhere else to turn, she moved into a tent in an empty field. Soon after, her days were filled with searching for food and hauling heavy buckets of water to her tent.
“You’re starving all the time,” she said. “Everything is hard when you’re homeless.”
I also know a man who became homeless due to a substance use disorder in 2003. He would spend much of his time trying to find a nutritious meal or a safe place to sleep.
“It was hard trying to find shelter and something to eat,” he said. “I’d wait in line at churches, and by the time I’d get there, the food would be out.”
There is a pervasive assumption that sometimes leads society to blame such situations and homelessness in general on a personality flaw: that people who are homeless are lazy or unwilling to work. This flaw, they believe, lies not only at the root of their homelessness but also serves as the reason for why they and many others like them remain homeless.
The stereotype that people experiencing homelessness and poverty are lazy has persisted since the moment homelessness emerged as a trend in the United States. According to “Homelessness Past and Present: The Case of the United States, 1890-1925,” an article published in The New England Journal of Public Policy in 1992, homelessness was often “attributed to individual habits and character traits rather than to economic dislocation and extreme poverty.”
The idea that a combination of bad luck, mental illness, unaffordable housing, opioid epidemics and systematic barriers against communities of color and people living in poverty could cause homelessness is at odds with the American ideals of hard work and industry, financial success and equality for all. Additionally, the possibility that anyone could become homeless through a series of unfortunate or terrible events is frightening. So people turn to an explanation that is much more comfortable: It must be a personal failing.
However, people need to know that homelessness is a form of extreme poverty that erects numerous obstacles in the way of completing even the simplest of tasks.
For example, one thing many of us take for granted in Southern California is the ability to get from one place to another relatively easily. For someone living on the streets, transportation becomes an obstacle in accomplishing each basic need. If an individual cannot afford public transit or if it’s unavailable at that time or place, many individuals are relegated to walking multiple miles per day to access the most basic necessities such as showers, public meals, laundry, mail and even public bathrooms. This is made even more challenging for those with mobility issues, disabilities or chronic health concerns. What most of us take for granted as a quick chore soon becomes a time-consuming ordeal.
Those who are unsheltered also are required to spend hours of their day looking for safe places to sleep in local parks, along underes, on the streets and in encampments. Choosing the wrong spot can result in a territorial dispute; in wet, cold or unsafe conditions, or in making individuals more vulnerable to theft or attack in the night.
And all of that is just to ensure short-term survival and meet basic needs — the very bottom of the pyramid in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
To make steps to improve their lives, find employment and secure housing, our neighbors must exert even more extreme effort. Federal and state assistance programs can often be out of reach due to transience, instability and a lack of awareness of what’s available and how to apply. People experiencing homelessness also lack a stable address for agencies to send application responses and disability checks.
Homelessness is often the equivalent of starting from scratch. For example, many individuals have to begin by applying for new identification documents after they were lost or stolen as a result of homelessness. They don’t have professional clothing for job interviews. They don’t have easy access to computers for job searches, working on their resumes or submitting applications. The list goes on and on.
All of this is to say that homelessness is not a condition endured by the lazy. Homelessness is hard work inflicted on an individual because they cannot afford housing — whether that’s due to job loss or a death in the family, a health crisis or substance use disorder.
At Father Joe’s Villages, our whole philosophy of care is directed towards alleviating the barriers that prevent people from overcoming homelessness. That’s why our shelters and housing programs are paired with comprehensive services aimed at helping people move through each step on their path to a better future.
As a result, every day, we see people leaving homelessness behind.
After having her essential needs met by Father Joe’s Villages, the woman I mentioned at the beginning of this essay was able to secure employment and move into an apartment of her own. After 15 years of homelessness, the man I mentioned gained sobriety and housing, and now serves on the board of directors for Father Joe’s Villages. It was not an easy journey. However, with some assistance from Father Joe’s Villages and a lot of hard work, these two people have proved that anything is possible.
The perception of laziness only compounds public sentiment that people experiencing homelessness don’t deserve to be helped or are not worthy of a second chance. In actuality, the people we serve at Father Joe’s Villages demonstrate a perseverance, fortitude and resilience that is both inspiring and heart-wrenching. They’ve overcome issues of trauma, transportation, survival, health and disability, of job applications and housing approvals, of childcare, therapy and treatment, of countless laborious processes — all to arrive at the point where they can finally say, “I am home.”
In the end, our neighbors have enough hurdles to clear without additional harmful stereotypes. So let us lift the gates, the barricades and the bumps in the road wherever we can. Let’s leave behind the label of laziness.
