Change.

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves.” —Leo Tolstoy

Homelessness

"What kind of problem might homelessness be, if not a housing problem? One common although profoundly wrong theory can be dismissed at once- the opinion expressed by Ronald Reagan and others that the homeless are homeless by choice. The implication of this viewpoint is that homelessness results from an exercise of personal will, not from mental illness, substance abuse, or an inadequate supply of low-income housing. In this view, homelessness is simply not a problem and the homeless are perceived, perhaps, as romantic vagabonds who have traded the rat race of modern urban civilization for a life uncomplicated by mortgage or rent payments, ringing telephones, surly bosses, nagging spouses, and truculent children.

However widespread such a viewpoint may be, no credible scholar who has studied the problem of homelessness takes it seriously. One does read occasionally about a homeless person with a locker full of cash in the bus station, or about a former Wall Street stockbroker who cashed it all in for the romance of life on the road, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, homeless people live as they do because they lack the means to live in any other way, not because they have positively chosen a life of destitution and degradation over some attainable alternative means of living.


Consider what a homeless person would choose by choosing to be homeless. The rate of AIDS infection among the homeless exceeds that in the general population by a factor of 10; the rate of sexual assault on homeless women exceeds that of women in general by a factor of 20; the rate of tuberculosis among the homeless exceeds that in the population at large by a factor of about 100; and the average age of death for homeless men is somewhere around 53 years old. One does not 'choose' to sleep in the gutters or scavenge food from dumpsters."

-James D. Wright and Beth A. Rubin in Understanding Homelessness: New Policy and Research Perspectives

Anyone who doesn't believe there is inequality in the U.S. should read this article:

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"This is America"

I.


If a democracy puts power in the hands of the people,

America is not a democracy.

It is a place where Congressmen worth

Hundreds and millions of dollars

Vote more tax cuts of money that could have helped

The single mother, sickly child, or hungry worker.

 It is a nation whose leaders throw words like

Capitalism, Patriotism, Equalism

At its people and label the rest as

Socialism or COMMUNISM,

But really it is just greed and individualism.

It is a country where leaders distract the public

With thoughts of gay marriage and abortion

And avoid real issues of poverty, inequality, discrimination,

Shifting the public’s gaze from reality, and succeeding!

Suddenly the focus is on issues affecting some minority,

Instead of the systemic problems changing the lives of the 
      majority.

Everything in the name

Of money, power, fame;

That’s America for you.

II.

There is something wrong in a society where

Budget cuts take social programs from the poor

And leave untouched the excess of the rich.

I pledge allegiance to the Flag

Of the United States of America

Where everything must be made cheaper,

And consumers only get richer.

Fingerprints of India or China on every shirt and gadget;

These workers exploited, abused, used,

But no one cares because

Out of sight out of mind, right?

And to the Republic for which it stands

Accumulating wealth becomes an end in itself

Rather than a means to some societal good.

Overwhelming greed and individualism

In a nation marked by Christiandom.

One nation under God

Capitalism now a justification for inequality;

Racism and anti-migrationism

In this “melting pot” with its

Immigration foundation.

Indivisible

Equal opportunity promised in this nation

Where CEOs get richer, ignoring worker cares,

And half of our Congressmen are millionaires.

Sometimes I think I’m living in

A country of contradictions.

With liberty and justice for all.

III.

This country only one in two hundred,

A microscopic splotch on a map of the world;

One small piece, but we think it’s the whole.

Our vision of all else remains clouded,

And thoughts of others are hurled

Because compassion and understanding are not the goal.

Struggles in Libya or Egypt, no matter how urgent,

Are somehow made irrelevant.

IV.

We are like plastic dolls on a conveyor belt,

Emotion and pain unfelt,

Emerging from the factory that is America,

Cold and lifeless before they imprint data.

Uncle Sam furtively forming our minds

Through words and the media that blinds,

Having us believe we hold unique opinions,

But in reality we have no say in our decisions.

We are only plastic dolls;

Our inability and numbness appalls.

With Made in the USA stamped on our backs,

Uncaring of our actions and their impacts,

Clones of each other

Or, more accurately, of our political leaders.

Through the media, each person manufactured,

Each thought filtered

Of things like injustice and oppression,

Taught to respond but never to question.

Hearts beating, but never alive fully,

A prison of tamed souls in the land of the free.

Passion and wisdom not missed in their absence;

Oblivious to own ignorance and indifference.

None will accuse this country, where their ancestors dwelt.

Still just plastic dolls on a conveyor belt.

V.

Waiting for the scales to drop from your eyes;

Waiting, hoping, pleading, waiting,

But they never drop.

Left dwelling in some inauthentic existence,

Like abandoned matter

From some reckless child’s science experiment,

Threatened by screaming statistics

Of the discrepancies, inequalities, realities,

Only to forget them a moment later:

Forgetting as a method of protection.

Excuses handed to us

Like a lollipop handed to a child

To keep him from crying:

A distraction, deflection, deception.

Maybe tomorrow you will wake up

From this deep, deep slumber;

Maybe tomorrow you will ask questions

And find your own answers;

Then maybe this world will be a little better

And America will have some future.

Standing here

Dreaming and waiting for tomorrow,

But it never comes;

Tomorrow never comes.

By Kimberley Winther

February 2011

Azusa 101

This past week, from Thursday through Sunday, I went on a four day service-learning trip through the city of Azusa. The object of the Azusa 101 trip is to learn more about the social issues going on within the community and our role in it as APU students. We visited schools, non-profit organizations, churches, the police station, and other various places within the city of Azusa. We stayed with a family the first night and at a local church for the second and third night. It was such an amazing and enlightening experience. I gained such a different perspective on issues ranging from homelessness to the education system to immigration during this trip. I could not believe how much goes on in the city I have been living in for the past two years that I was unaware of. Here is a poem I wrote during and after the trip as a sort of reflection on my thoughts and experiences during Azusa 101. I am not completely satisfied with the poem, and at some point I will likely come back and make changes to it. But for now, here it is.

It’s Easy.

It is easy to voice your intense opposition
Of the law-breaking, foreign immigrant,
To insist on stricter laws in this nation
And across borders with little management,
Until you stare into the face of the man
Who has a family and no money for rent,
Who is shoved, abused, scammed, humiliated,
Desperate for work to provide for three children
But unable to pay the unaffordable fee for new documents,
He is thrown to the streets with his family, unliberated.

It is easy to rebuke the homosexual
For sinful, improper attractions
Which could not possibly be natural,
But choices, decisions, mutilations,
Until you look into the shamed boy’s eyes
Abhorred by his own feelings and life,
Desperate for acceptance and approval
But often the object of looks of despise,
Praying to God to be freed of this strife,
He is abandoned, condemned, left alone in battle.

It is easy to say racism is nonexistent,
A problem of other past communities,
That everyone has the chance to be content
In this land of equal opportunities,
Until you are told by a seven year old girl
That she’s not going to college because she’s brown,
Or the African-American teen
Towards whom hate crimes ruthlessly hurl,
Beautiful faces who, loveless, will drown,
Yet not reason enough to upset life’s routine.

It is easy to ignore these problems
And walk on past towards the American dream,
The white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and sparkling gems,
Money, fashion, power, a continuous stream.
But what about the hurting, helpless, oppressed?
How quickly backs are turned from their struggles,
So easy to continue life in ignorance of the hostility
In society, unwilling to sacrifice, protest,
Step up as God’s beloved, chosen peoples
And care even a little about this hurting humanity.

It is easy to push aside the statistics
Of poverty, homelessness, abuse, violence,
In a hurting world with a surplus of critics,
But no one willing to speak up amidst the silence,
Blind to the faces behind the numbers,
Outraged at increased taxes to relieve
The single, working mother with a sick daughter,
More concerned with my well-being than a stranger’s,
God crying for His children to act and believe
The solution is not violence, but mercy, love, laughter.