The Elephants and The Room

Where are the real elephants in the homeless conversation?

The Room was large by some standards, much too small by others. There were no walls, just a space that for some felt ever-growing yet for others ever-shrinking. The Peoples in The Room behaved exactly as people will. They naturally gravitated towards those of like mind, rarely realizing that in doing so they increased the risk of seeing only what they chose to see as their ideals found compatriots and as such the room with no walls had many perceived corners and niches where indeed none existed in reality or design. The Room grew almost as if it were a living thing pulsating along its perceived borders and indeed it was just that. Growing in parts as some found what they felt was the “correct” path and shrinking in others when ideologies fractured, separated or just failed.

No one knows for sure when the first elephant appeared though the reality is they have existed as long as humans. In matter of fact humankind hastened the population growth of the elephants with a special mixture of denial, ignorance, finger pointing and co-dependency.

All that was known for sure was that once an elephant was identified as such by a person or persons many others from different parts of The Room subscribed to the narrative. The narrative went something like this.

“While we feel bad for the elephants they have no respect for the rest of The Room. They destroy everything everywhere they go (they resist our own ideals in favor of their independent thought.) They are all unstable, dangerous, selfish and unpredictable rogues.”

The False Homeless Narrative

As this narrative grew traction, particularly regarding the homeless, so did the unavoidable fallout of people pushing their elephants away and declaring them nonexistent or brought about by the fault of others or the homeless themselves whenever they appeared. They should have addressed them and the issues that brought them into that section of the room so problems could be identified and solved. Yet that is the very nature of an Elephant in a Room isn’t it? At best existing in the denial of others, at worst being recognized and ostracized by the various Peoples in The Room.

Most of the elephants were very smart yet felt stuck in their habitat or their habits. Some felt stuck from ignorance or feeling hopeless of regaining what it takes to exist independently again. Yet many were truly stuck because of the self-serving desires of those fueled by their own needs or self-interests, often using loud voices and public platforms to draw support from giving souls. The elephants felt (in a large part correctly) as if they were being swept under a rug for ulterior motives only to become someone else’s problem later or for short-term personal or political betterment of others with no one offering actionable solutions, only temporary ones. The thing was that the majority of elephants did not see themselves as a problem. They felt more like a car stuck in mud with no way to get out. The majority understood what they needed to reclaim a life yet could see no way to find the paths and the doors that would help them achieve those needs.

Once one is labeled an elephant, particularly a homeless one, they are immediately ostracized. Not by all though certainly by most. Even though many attempted to claim their own section of The Room the label of “homeless” tended to open more windows than doors of opportunity. Despite the well-meaning actions and intentions of those who sacrifice time and money many windows remain sealed and the homeless feel as if they are just onlookers to their own plight. In point of fact, the homeless label closes more doors than it opens and often causes the “elephants” to be swept away to “anywhere else.”

The truth is the homeless aren’t the elephants. They have nowhere left to go so you see them in camps and under bridges. Mostly hoping and ever scanning the horizon, their vision of hope fading a tiny bit with every day and rarely fully returning with the next sunrise. Yet they cannot die because they are willed into existence by the true elephants, the prejudice, fear, denial, and the ignorance to admit any of them might belong or exist in your part of The Room.

~Written from within this upper layer of Hades some of us call home.~

~Grateful to my family who has paid for a room during the cold months~

Philip