Thursday, 04 June 2009

• Will Generation “O” (Obama) Save Our Social Safety Net?

   

  Has my generation failed? As we see our country’s social safety net unravel before our eyes, we are teetering on the brink of collapse.

   

  I was born in the 1960s, a decade famous for riots, love fests, and liberating music. The parents and older siblings of my childhood friends were part of the anti-war, Woodstock generation that shook the foundation of American society.

                        

  I became an adult in the early 1980s, when homelessness in America began to rapidly rise. Many of the agencies helping the homeless in Los Angeles were created during this decade. Today, they celebrate 25 years of serving the homeless.

   

  Celebration, however, is not in order. The founders of the agency that I lead, PATH (People Assisting The Homeless), genuinely thought homelessness would end within 5 to 10 years, by 1990. They never imagined that they would be still helping homeless folks 25 years later.

   

  Not only is homelessness still in existence, the number of homeless have tripled to where there are now reportedly over 70,000 people living on the streets of Los Angeles County today.

   

  With one out of every five persons in the county on public assistance, 1 of 100 homes are in foreclosure, today almost appears as if we have reverted back 25 years when homelessness was out of control.

   

  Nationally, the National Alliance to End Homelessness currently projects there could be 1.5 million more people becoming homeless around the country due to this devastating economy.

   

  Numerous people we see living on our streets of Los Angeles have been homeless for decades, as if society had forgotten about them. Last year, a key study on homelessness by Shelter Partnership, a Los Angeles-based research group, revealed that a growing group within the homeless population is older adults.

   

  Sure, there are signs of hope.

   

  Some in the County are proposing a homeless service paradigm by identifying 500 of the most vulnerable people on the streets and giving them permanent housing. The City of Los Angeles is funding millions of dollars into building permanent supportive housing for chronic homeless people, called “Housing First.”

   

  Many cities within Los Angeles County are becoming more strategic in their efforts to address homelessness through new types of alliances, like the Council of Governments (COG) joining forces to address homelessness in their local cities.

   

  But hope will only occur if a new paradigm helps tens of thousands, not 500 people; and if billions of dollars are invested into housing, not millions; and if all of the county’s 88 cities join forces, not just a few dozen.

   

  Much attention has shifted to the hundreds of tent cities propping up all over the country, thousands of RV campers parked in suburban neighborhoods, and the scary fact that thousands of middle-class families may lose their homes through eviction and foreclosure.

   

  This bleak perspective is what my generation is handing off to the next.

   

  Some call them Generation O, for being actively involved in President Obama’s election. They are between 18 to 34 years old, and do not know a world without blogs, Facebook, Twitter, AIMing, and texting. 

   

  Through their zeal and energy toward electing the first Black President, they saw a historic chance to change the norm of a society that appears to be overwhelmed with poverty, homelessness, and hurt. I’m sure they were thinking, “Those old Caucasian men in the White House weren’t able to do it. How about a change… Next!”

   

  So as more and more Generation O leaders begin to fill leadership positions in government and top positions in the nonprofit world, how will they approach the sad state of America’s dream of prosperity and middle-class existence?

   

  Will they become like a generation before me? What news anchor Tom Brokaw called the “greatest generation” who rescued the world from communism, fascism, and Nazism? Will this new generation save our world from homelessness, poverty, and economic ruin?

   

  Tens of thousands of people living on our streets is a sign that my generation is reeling in its effort to save hurting people. But if a fresh crop of leadership can provide new solutions to a decades-old social problem like homelessness, then just perhaps our American society will prosper once again.

   

  I still have a couple of more decades before I retire. I hope these years include empowering the next “O” generation of political and nonprofit leaders. This could very well be the final mark of success or failure for my generation.

   

  • 8:19 AM
  • 9 Views
  • 0 eProps
  • 0 Comments