Shine A Light On Homelessness

Shine A Light On Homelessness
by: Jamarhl Crawford, Blackstonian Publisher/Editor

I really don’t like this time of year.  I don’t celebrate Christmas for numerous reasons. It is not the birthday of Jesus Christ. I don’t do Santa Claus aka Sinter Klaas (if you would like to see why click here) and I am certainly against the commercialization and promotion of materialism to line the pockets and boost the profits of greedy corporations who bleed the people.  This is a time of great hypocrisy when people are talking about good will towards mankind, while jumping over old ladies’ backs to grab the last of the Black Friday sales. When people are talking about the birth of Christ and feeling all Christianny while literally stepping over the bodies of the homeless who often lie on the streets in front of our malls and commerce centers.

The whole thing is a sham to me. I know, I know, bah-humbug, but the facts is the facts.  We spend money every year decorating the city with lights and posters and signs and I often wonder, how much does all this cost?  There is no better example of waste in the face of need than the symbolic tree lighting and decorations of the Boston Common.  Right in front of one of our city’s seats of power, the State House and very close to  the other, Boston City Hall.  I have often lamented that our legislators and government officials at the state house have to literally walk over homeless people to get into the building.  Homelessness is in our faces every day.  It is a national disgrace that in the United States of America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, that so many are living in the streets homeless. It is a further disgrace that so many of the homeless population are veterans who fought for the very country that now turns a blind stank eye to them.  Now imagine that in combination with the fact that we are in Boston and not Florida or Arizona and the winters here are wickedly cold and brutal.

So here comes the kapow.. every year the City of Boston does what cities across the US do. They decorate and light their public area. In this case the Boston Commons. How much does this cost? Is this in the budget? Every year when I see this I cant help but think of our society’s overall complete fail dealing with homelessness. Now this problem is illuminated by actual Christmas lights.  When I first saw the photos this year immediately I thought “How nice. Now the Homeless people can read at night.” If Santa Claus was real I sure wish he would bring the gift of charity. If the Christian sentiment around the Christ child who grew to serve and work among the poor and was killed by the state I sure pray that we are blessed with the spirit of humanity. The bottom line is our society and our city is caught in an illusion of hollow feel good sentiments when the reality is people are suffering all around us and very few care.

We need to have an all out war on poverty. We need to eradicate homelessness.
If we can’t find the money and resources for that then much like a Christmas ham it is time to trim the fat.
Let’s start with the lights and the pomp and the circumstance.