It’s not often that the morning show of the local sports talk radio station spawns deeper political thought, but that’s what happened a few weeks back.
They were discussing the Showtime documentary Reversal of Fortune, where a homeless man is given $100,000. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to tell you that the man did nothing but play video games and drink, and was broke and homeless again in 6 months. The host who provides the comedy relief on the radio show talked about an event they had done where he had the chance to talk to a few homeless guys. He asked them what they would need to get back on their feet, and if they would take a job if it was offered. Both homeless guys said no, they wouldn’t take a job. All they wanted to do was drink. The host, who is liberal and grew up in liberal household, was understandably disillusioned. His parents and friends had drilled into him the often repeated mantra that homeless people were regular folks who had just fallen on really hard times, and that given some help, they could jump back up into society.
His disillusionment that many homeless people can’t/won’t be helped out of their situation got me to thinking that I haven’t heard a big name politician mention homelessness as an issue in a long time. Lots of Democrats like John Edwards talk about poverty, but not homelessness in particular. A quick search of “homeless” on the Democratic Party’s website returned exactly 5 results. Three were about Katrina, 1 was about immigration, and 1 was about a local mayoral race. Not a single thing about the party’s stance on the issue, or plans to combat the problem. Have the Democrats given up on this issue? Is it an issue that has been removed from the national agenda to become the sole property of local government and charities? Or have they, like the radio host, become disillusioned that the majority of homeless can be helped?
I didn’t bother searching on the RNC’s website.