By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — In an accompanying column, Rabbi Ben Kamin tells of the deaths of 61 homeless people on the streets of San Diego. He says “something has to be done” and he is right. I’d like to offer a proposal for consideration, but first let me offer some background.
Recently, I learned from a student at Grossmont College that he occasionally beds down in various nooks and crannies near the campus in El Cajon because he is homeless. Sometimes fellow students will allow him to stay with them, but sometimes he has to resort to nearby streets or the parks. Staying on campus overnight is strictly prohibited. He told me there are approximately 20 students in similar circumstances to his at the Grossmont campus. If he and those other students didn’t want to improve their personal situations, they wouldn’t be students.
It’s hard not to contrast the situation of the homeless in the United States with that of uprooted immigrants from countries all over the world who are absorbed successfully in Israel in a well-thought process.
The Israelis set up modular villages for the new immigrants — parks filled with temporary homes known as “caravans” in which two families can live, if not comfortably, at least with the dignity that every human being deserves.
On each end of the caravan, typically, are bedrooms that the occupants can lock so they can have a private place that is their own. In the middle of these modular units are a common kitchen, bathroom, dining, and sitting areas.
Around these homes, the Israeli government places other modular units which serve as Hebrew-language classrooms, medical clinics, social workers offices. The government provides a galaxy of services for the immigrants, all intended to help them quickly adjust to their new country and to become functioning members of society.
This is a familiar concept to anyone who has volunteered or observed the “Stand Down” Weekend at Balboa Park every summer, to which homeless veterans are encouraged to come and get medical checkups, counseling, showers, haircuts, new clothes, toiletries and other necessities. For that weekend at least, they get to feel and be treated like menschen.
The problem, of course, is that after Stand Down Weekend is over, the homeless return to the streets, and for many of them, life reverts to unwashed and unwanted misery.
So what’s my proposal?
Education is a pathway to productivity and dignity, so let’s have federally-funded pilot projects on various college campuses throughout the United States in which modular villages are established for homeless people who are willing to enroll in courses and work for an academic degree or for certification in a given profession.
Around these campus villages could be established a panoply of services, similar to those established for immigrants in Israel and for the “Stand Down Weekend” participants in Balboa Park. These service areas would be staffed by professors and their upper division and graduate students as part of their work toward degrees in social work and related fields. As the homeless learn a trade, future social workers can learn about them–what works and what doesn’t in the rehabilitation of people who’ve hit the financial bottom.
Of course, rules governing such pilot projects would have to be established. The federal government knows full well how to make rules, so I am not worried about that. Among the more obvious ones would be that those applying for temporary residence in the villages would have to be certified as truly homeless. Narcotics and liquor would be prohibited in the modular villages. Campus police and fire protection for the villages would be a necessity. Residents of the villages would be required to make continuous progress toward their degrees or certificates.
All this could be administered under a program in which the federal government and colleges and universities would work in partnership. The pilot programs would cost money, but they could also save lives, ignite hope, and help to restore dignity.
*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com