Sometimes the voiceless have brilliant things to say

This post was nominated for the Just Post for a Just World round-up of blog posts for January 2010.

Only those new to the street life talk of the future as a progression from the past. When concrete goals are spoken, it is often of plans to travel elsewhere. Goals become associated with space rather than time; the hope becomes that a new location may make a difference in the knowledge that a “new time” will never come.

–Elberta, in the August 2000 issue of The Voice, a newspaper written to tell the stories of homeless people in Denver

I read this quote, an excerpt from Phillip Tomkins’ field notes in Who Is My Neighbor: Communicating and Organizing to End Homelessness, and couldn’t help but fall into deep reflection (p.124). I don’t think homeless people are the only ones who feel this way. When things are bad and we see no end in sight, it’s almost a natural tendency to think being somewhere else is the brightest possible solution. I frequently think being in a cafe by a white beach  in the South of France would solve all my problems.

And to that point, maybe being somewhere else is the brightest solution for people who live under a bridge or crash on a friend’s couch. Maybe being in their own home would help them re-establish order and dreaming–life that progresses from past to present to future. Maybe the stability of home, of place, is what gives us the ability to dream in the abstractness of time.

Maybe.

If so, it’s all the more reason for us to help people be somewhere safe, somewhere secure, and somewhere that affords them the luxury of more time.