by Geraldine L. Palmer

Brody (2010) in an article written for the Associated Content online network asked the question, “When will we demand that our political leaders think ahead, instead of simply reacting when there is a crisis? We need proactive, instead of reactive government!”  Ouch! Who thinks he has a point? Brody used the Katrina tragedy as an example of reacting rather than being proactive.  He argued that our government knew that there were serious structural defects in the levee system and that the “perfect storm” would cause devastation. However, instead of correcting the defect beforehand, the government took the, “hope, pray, wait and see approach, and unfortunately, the ”denial” method.  He doesn’t stop with Katrina but also discusses the Haiti earthquake tragedy as another example of “waiting to exhale” —sharing that our government also knew that Haiti is built on the Port of Prince fault lines–a disaster in the making. Mmmm, in the case of the epidemic of homelessness in our country, another ongoing tragedy of signicant proportion, it seems that our government has been in the reactive more than proactive stage. Otherwise how can we account for veteran homelessness being the massive issue that it is?  After all, the need for adequate veteran housing didn’t start yesterday.

By the summer of 1946, nearly 10-million men and women were released from the armed forces and faced a severe housing shortage. Many veterans “doubled-up” living with family and friends. Housing construction had come to a screeching halt during the war–which exacerbated the issue during this time.  Additionally the majority of existing housing was substandard and deemed “slum dwellings”.  The government looked to private housing developers who came through only to a certain degree. Developers did construct pre-fabricated housing in the suburbs–for as little as $7,000 per house (Lustren, 2011), but this action created another crisis—residential segregation (That’s another story).

In any case–certainly not enough housing of any kind was built and this factor still exists today. So, if we know that as far back as World War II, housing for veterans reached a crisis level—isn’t it reasonable to think after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, housing is going to be needed?  Yet, the VA just decided in October of 2011 that a concerted effort needed to happen to end veteran homelessness?  Now, I’m not anti-VA. In fact I support the VA totally and have no problem becoming a soldier in “the good fight” to end veteran homelessness. I know it takes a community ( governmental agencies, community and faith-based organizations, individual leaders, etc.)  to solve social challenges. Yet, the “wait-see” approach does leaves me perplexed and an inclination to agree with Brody about being reactive versus proactive. We couldn’t think that homelessness is going away without intervention–that somehow housing is going to magically appear–or do we?

I don’t know, but back when I was a young girl, growing up in those created south suburbs of Chicago–my mother had an old saying that I carry in my arsenal and use to this day. She did a fine job of teaching me to be proactive. She simply said, “It’s better to be safe, than sorry.”

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