Posts

Showing posts from June, 2018

The Bane and Burden of Homelessness

Like most daily newspapers, the Colorado Springs Gazette has a section for readers’ letters to the editor. Recently the paper published one such letter that demonstrated a remarkable lack of knowledge and understanding regarding the situation of homelessness. In all urban areas across this country, there is a significant and increasing number of homeless persons, and Colorado Springs is no exception. Local and state governments, community-based social service organizations, and city residents are finding themselves ill-equipped to lower these numbers and resolve what many people think of primarily in terms of “problem.” In the letter to the editor, the Gazette reader wrote: “If we are going to solve the problems caused by the homeless population in Colorado Springs, then we need to address the root causes and not the symptoms” (emphasis mine). When I read this, I was crestfallen; the reader cared less about the circumstance of those suffering homelessness and more about the d