Early in October, the weather was unseasonably cold. Some nights the temperatures were in the mid-30s and it was rainy. One of those cold and wet mornings, a man was sleeping by the back door of the building where my office is located. He had some blankets, and a shopping cart filled with his possessions stuffed in plastic bags.
His health wasn’t good. He was in pain and was short of breath. For a week or so we all encouraged him to go to the hospital. His friends gathered around him, bringing him food, water and companionship. All of us were worried that he would die on the pavement, wrapped in his blanket.
He didn’t want to go to the hospital, he just wanted to make it to Nov. 1. That was when he and his girlfriend would get the keys to their own apartment. They had waited a long time, and the day was so close. He finally made it to a hospital, but he never made it home. At 42 years old, he died of homelessness. He was loved by his family and friends. Now he is gone.
This isn’t an isolated story and it’s not even necessarily a story of isolation. He had friends, and he had family. But for reasons that I don’t know, he was living on the street. Illness, trauma and addiction may be part of his story, but they may not be. One thing surely part of the larger story is the absolute dearth of affordable housing for low-wage earners, for people who are wrestling with substance use and for people in recovery. Too many members of our communities are camping in the woods and sleeping in doorways because there isn’t a place for them.
There isn’t a county in the United States where a minimum wage worker working full time can afford to rent an apartment. No one’s hands are clean — federal, state and local government all have made policy decisions that have locked low-income people out of safe and affordable housing.
The lack of a home complicates everything. Getting nutritious food is much harder when you don’t have a place to store it. Even people who have homes are struggling to feed themselves and their children. Our food pantries are seeing more people every day. Seniors in Massachusetts lead the nation in economic insecurity, and 14% of our children in western Massachusetts don’t have reliable access to nutritious food.
How much is enough in a country that glorifies billionaires and scapegoats the poor? According to economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley, in 2018, the average effective tax rate paid by the richest 400 families in the country was 23 percent, a full percentage point lower than the 24.2 percent rate paid by the bottom half of American households. And each White House budget proposal includes cuts to SNAP benefits and other nutrition programs so they can hand out ever-increasing tax breaks for the wealthy.
On the occasion of his second inauguration in 1937, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
There is an endless list of how we all can be a part of providing “enough for those who have too little.” There are large and small nonprofits (including Community Action Pioneer Valley) that rely on donations from the community to repair the tears in the ragged safety net. Donations are absolutely necessary, but not sufficient. I will continue to vociferously advocate for millionaires and billionaires to pay more taxes, but I will also be willing to pay more if that is what is necessary to create a humane community.
And there is housing. We need more of it and it has to be affordable. That means that things will change — on the block, in the neighborhood and in the city or town. I know that change is hard. But it was hard for the Pocumtuc people in 1654 that were living here when the white settlers showed up. Every generation has to balance preservation and change in ways that are unimaginable to the generations that come before. But it is our responsibility to take on those challenges.
It’s now the end of November — the season of Thanksgiving. If we are lucky, we will be in a warm place savoring a delicious meal with friends and family, safe with people we love. And somewhere in this Valley, there are individuals and families who have too little. Can we open our hearts and minds (and our wallets) to provide for them?
Clare Higgins, of Northampton, a former mayor of the city, is executive director of the nonprofit Community Action Pioneer Valley. She can be reached at columnists@gazettenet.com.