We Are In The Dumps

I became aware at the beginning of this semester of a woman who seemed to have determinedly constructed a life in Harvard's corridors.

I first saw her on a dawning Saturday morning in the basement of the Science Center. The four plastic bags which she carried with her bulged with items of clothing and personal-care accessories, cans of food and old newspapers. She seemed like an escapee from a nightmare scenario by Maurice Sendak.

I saw her occasionally, wandering wraithlike around the Science Center late at night, furtively performing ablutions in the women's room or seated in a front of a computer which informed the user to "Press Any Letter To Begin"--an instruction which went resolutely unheeded.

I saw her once sitting in Littauer Library, bags at her side, the Harvard Business Review spread uncomprehendingly before her while she doodled furiously on a scrap of paper--her very presence a terrifying reminder of life's precariousness.

I haven't seen her for the past few weeks and I suspect that I won't be seeing her again on campus--not if University security is doing its job.

Most of us are not unaware of the plight of the homeless. We ignore them for the most part, our disregard occasionally punctured by stabs of guilt. They fade easily into the landscape, impotent and faceless.

This woman radiated a vulnerability which highlighted the depth of her need, presenting a stark contrast with this institution's enormous wealth.

This crisis of homelessness persists in part because of institutional inertia and widespread "compassion fatigue." We're becoming increasingly resistant to appeals for charity. It's been "widely acknowledged that the "crusade for the public conscience has been lost."

Consequently, we continue to see inadequate social policies which fail to address the root cause of the problem. We see political nostrums. We see political nostrums which are meant to soothe guilty consciences and inadequate policy responses to a widespread and devastating social problem.

The toll which this crisis takes in human life and dignity is being largely ignored and we continue to refuse to confront the problem adequately.

Individual tragedies easily become subsumed within impersonal statistics. Their various plights are often the result of the accretion of missteps after which the descent into the bleak underside of life seems unstoppable.

It may seem that after living on the streets, on life's periphery, the task of reintegration into society must be formidable.

Yet it is crucial that collective responses to the problem be devised. Individual attempts to alleviate the problem of homelessness often find their expression in empty exercises of empathy. A quarter tossed into an outstretched cup will not solve the problem.

But it is abundantly clear that some action needs to be taken. We need to do more than become sensitized to the plight of the homeless sensitized to the plight of the homeless. While awareness of the problem is the first step towards solving it, clearly much more is needed.

Even if you are not terribly interested in the particulars of the lives of the disenfranchised, their plight reflects our values as a society and the importance or lack thereof which we assign to the less fortunate.

We desperately need to move from theory to action.

Lorraine A. Lezama's column appeares on alternate Tuesdays.