No one becomes homeless on their own, it takes a society. Each and every step that led to someone being homeless profited someone else. We point to the homeless and say “It’s their fault”. The homeless aren’t the reason there are homeless people. The way we choose to run our society creates the homeless. It’s a rigged game where every step of the way someone loses and someone wins.

There was the landlord, or the bank, that took the roof from over their head because that’s how business works. There was the drug dealer that took their last dollar because the dealer would do most anything for money. There was the loan company that chose to claim compounded interest, daily, because they convinced themselves that they were offering a service instead of being predators. There was the grocer who decided that any crisis was a good excuse, so they upped their prices, all the while excusing their greed because their friends were greedy too. There was the government office that refused to forgive a loan that they knew couldn’t be paid back, because the person should have known better than to use the services the government promoted. There was the social worker who just went through the motions because they lost faith in the system’s ability to lend a hand.

Then there was us. Each and every one of us has profited when we took their last dollar, voted to cut their help, sold them the last meal that they could afford, or denied that they were worthy of assistance while we ran them out of town.

But we protest that we had nothing to do with their outcome as we eat a filling dinner in the safety of our home. Yes we may have denied them respite from their utility bill and shut off their heat, but that was just us doing our job. It wasn’t our fault that they couldn’t pay the bill. They should have gotten a better job; lived within their means. Maybe they shouldn’t have bought that cup of fancy coffee. We could have done anything except turn off their heat. But we didn’t. We looked out for ourselves instead. We don’t want to end up like them.

But we’re poor, we protest. We don’t have anything extra. We can barely keep the lights on ourselves. As we look down on those that have less than us. It’s not our fault that we work for a cleanout company and toss their life’s belongings into the street when they can’t make rent. They should have gotten a second job. They should have taken in a room mate. We have to work to keep from getting thrown out ourselves. Maybe if they had made better choices they wouldn’t be homeless. We still go get our paycheck; give 10% in tithes to the church on Sunday so we can hope to get our monetary blessings from heaven. Looking out for our own is the default.

This is the system as it stands. Homeless people are guaranteed. We don’t like seeing the homeless. They remind us how fragile our stability really is. They also remind us that we could have helped. If the system guarantees homelessness then the system needs to be blamed. We who profit from the system don’t want to blame the system. We would rather look away and point fingers at the others that the system creates.

But we’re powerless we say. It’s not our fault. We say this while the police we pay for, and the city whose council members we voted for, fence off the park, make laws to prevent feeding the homeless, and then criminalize being homeless. That’s our power in action. That’s our fault. That’s the system we keep voting in place.

When we change the system is when we will see the end of homelessness. It will take each and every one of us to fix it. It’s not the sole responsibility of some task force. It’s not going to be fixed until we are willing to share a bit more. Until we are willing to support each other through hard times, the cracks that people can fall through will only grow wider.