Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Or is it the devils’ workshop? I’m unsure. I could perform a web search – but I don’t care how many devils people blame this on… it’s all scapegoating and denialism.
As an atheist I profess to know very little about the supernatural. As a homeless activist and humanist, I see cruelty’s handiwork on a horrifyingly regular basis.
Recently, I heard from a person who one might say does the lord’s work. (No uppercase L on lord because I don’t believe in that either). This guy – this purveyor of kindness – just shut down his hospice for people experiencing homelessness. Care to guess why? If you guessed because folks experiencing housing insecurity don’t need hospice – well, you’re wrong. If you guessed funding – you get the prize.
For weeks, since he reached out, I’ve been in agony about how to help this guy. Mostly because – hard as I try – I can’t help. I don’t do much good. I’m too small for the size of the task.
Sure – I do a few helpful things – some days – and with a lot of help from others. But nowhere near enough to fill the need.
Now before you get started about all the things already in place for this man and his hospice work - you need to know that I hear the pushback in my sleep. So does he, I’m certain.
Sure, it comes from folks who think they’re nice. Who, no doubt, are nice. Nice and naïve! And that push back often comes in the form of a question. “Don’t they have Medicare?” (Assuming the person needing hospice is old enough to die in the sort of decency a universal-to-everyone-over-sixty-five healthcare system provides. And I’ve been there, with people dying in homelessness old enough to qualify – it is remarkable. They finally get the nicest beds they’ve had in years!)
Check the statistics. Chronically homeless people don’t live to Medicare age.
“But Medicaid! What about Medicaid?” Ahh, another pushback in the form of a question. Navigated that system lately? Especially since the pandemic “ended.” With the Covid crisis “over” – scads less Medicaid to be found.
May I digress and tell you a story?
Thanks.
When I worked in homeless shelters, I did lots of jobs. Some on the hiring description – most not. Like the job where adults of every age brought me things to read to them. Everything from legal notices to pill prescriptions. (Another fact from my time in shelters… of the thousands of people I encountered 55% had incomes and 30% more were their children. 85% of the people in the shelters were the working poor and their kids).
Doesn’t take a lot of literacy to mop a McDonald’s lobby. But it does require quite a bit to apply for and secure healthcare.
Let me explain how the system works: Go to work, make scant wages, need help – get none. None of the lowest wage earners can afford a home on their incomes – in any state – let alone buy into the company’s healthcare plan.
Another story, if I may.
Thanks.
One of my other bleeding-heart jobs was director of a Children’s Miracle Network franchise at a hospital. A couple of area concerned citizens came to ask me to help a local woman who worked at a national fast food donut retailer, because she was dying of cancer and could not work when getting her treatments and violently ill. She had two kids and limited time left with them. It was one of the saddest days of my life, because I looked into those kind faces and said, “I can only help children.”
Walking back to my office, as the sun lowered in the sky, I knew one fundamental truth… Helping that mom keep their home, would have been helping children.
Weep. Sob.
I digress.
The last thing about this guy’s hospice closing that’s keeping me awake at night: Is that I know what most people don’t know. There were people in my shelters so mentally ill that they thought they weren’t. They functioned. Showered and toileted themselves. Read books. Obeyed the law. Were kind. Were funny. But thought that because I couldn’t hear the voices they heard (or how ever else their issue manifested) – that I was the out-of-touch one. Wonderful people who wouldn’t sign the paperwork I produced that would get them healthcare or disability - because they didn’t think there was anything wrong with them.
A few years ago, I watched these people lose their food assistance when the Clinton/Kasich welfare reforms went into effect. I know they’ll die alone when they take their last breath. Maybe on the floor of a church. Or in a soup kitchen. Hopefully not in pain.
Welcome to the USA where it’s reasonable to pray to have aneurisms or massive coronaries – because that’s our pain management solution to death if you’re poor. It’s all you can do, if you’re too young for universal healthcare (Medicare) and too misunderstood to get any other kind of help.
Me? I try not to be idle. I look frantic — like I can’t sit still.
People think I’m too busy all the time. They wonder if I work on projects twenty-four hours a day. And they’re right. Because when I sit still, I think about what I know, and all that grim truth tortures me.
