Marvin Olasky

Archives

The Lowest Depths

_{Marvin Olasky
September 1, 2023}

Back to California. Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths, first staged in 1902, focuses on run-down people living in a flophouse: Vaska the thief, Nastya the prostitute, Luka the tramp, and Kvashnya the meat-pie seller, along with a downwardly-mobile baron, a suicidal actor, and others equally miserable. But in the play, at least temporarily, they are alive and conscious. If fentanyl had hit Russia then, even famed Moscow Arts Theater director Konstantin Stanislavski would have been stymied in creating some dramatic action: Users of the synthetic opioid are often inactive, with stiff limbs. Gorky portrayed lower depths, but fentanyl drops users in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district into the lowest depths, close to death. I’ve walked many crime-ridden areas by day, but did not …

A Christian Approach to Treating Fentanyl Addiction

_{Marvin Olasky
August 25, 2023}

A California rescue mission rehabilitates people through love of God and fellowship. I spent four days and nights last month at the Orange County Rescue Mission, a Christian outfit serving the local homeless. I left with stories from 40 men and women about years of cycling through drug deals, arrests, jail, probation, parole violations, homelessness and prison. Andrew, 36, dropped out of high school and once had a job, but studying and working shifts at Jiffy Lube was boring. Meth was exciting. He enjoyed planning robberies and didn’t mind a few months every couple of years in jail: “Better drugs there than on the street.” He married and had children but wasn’t sober at their births. He came to the mission once and left after three days, but in February 2022 he realized …

What Happens With Homelessness When FEMA Doesn’t Come?

_{Marvin Olasky
August 25, 2023}

This is the second in a series. Read the first column here. Our tendency when we hear of a disaster is to ask when FEMA — the Federal Emergency Management Agency — will arrive. But because of some curious federal rules, Perryton Mayor Kerry Symons said his community will receive nothing. That’s because the threshold for FEMA help depends on meeting requirements that vary by state population. Damage that would be large enough to warrant help in Rhode Island doesn’t cut it in Texas. The logic is that a large state can bring to bear more resources than a small one. That bureaucratic rule hurts Perryton residents like Maria Marufo, who depended on income from renting out six mobile homes at $450 per month. The tornado destroyed all six. None was insured. It hurts residents …

In the WSJ: A Christian Approach to Treating Fentanyl Addiction

_{Marvin Olasky
August 25, 2023}

Homeless by Tornado

_{Marvin Olasky
August 18, 2023}

Perryton, a Texas panhandle city of 8,000, sits 17 miles south of the Oklahoma state line. Until June 15 it had almost zero homelessness, because two of the major causes of homelessness — overwhelming addiction and high housing prices — were not present. On June 15 a tornado wiped out 418 homes, more than ten percent of Perryton’s housing stock — and it still had no visible homelessness, as measured by people sleeping on the streets or in shelters. (There isn’t one in Perryton.) How can that be? I’ve just visited Perryton, so I’ll take a time-out from my California series to report on what happened and what hasn’t happened. I’ll come back to San Francisco and Orange County in September. Let’s look at causes of homelessness. Substance abuse is a big one through …

Heartless in San Francisco

_{Marvin Olasky
August 11, 2023}

This column is the second in a series. To read part one, click here. I’ll come back to the sights and sounds of the Orange County Rescue Mission, but after four days there I flew to San Francisco and walked around that city. The old song notwithstanding, few Americans these days leave their hearts there. Tourists still visit Fisherman’s Wharf and ride the cable cars, but books with titles like San Fransicko hit hard, and videos of addicts in SF’s Tenderloin neighborhood are stomach-churning. What’s happening in San Francisco is both better and worse than those dramatic presentations. The Noe Valley neighborhood, for instance, features Victorian houses, small markets, and cafes. Nearby Bernal Heights (sometimes referred to as “maternal heights”) is flush with children …

Eight days in the Golden State. First in a Series.

_{Marvin Olasky
August 4, 2023}

I’m used to hopeless stories about the growth of homelessness, particularly in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Last December LA Mayor Karen Bass declared her city to be in a “state of emergency” that demanded “a sea change in how the city tackles homelessness.” Fine, but six months later, on June 29, a Los Angeles Times headline blared about the change Angelenos has seen: “Homelessness grows 10 percent in the city.” Two weeks ago I headed to California to see for myself. I had already walked LA’s Skid Row, where 11,000 homeless people crowd into 2/5 of a square mile and create what locals call “a man-made Hell.” Didn’t need another look at that, and the hope of seeing a little slice of heaven had me first heading 36 miles southeast of Skid Row to 1 Hope Road in …

Enticing People to Change

_{Marvin Olasky
July 28, 2023}

If we define “home” as a solid dwelling fixed to a particular spot, many Native Americans were voluntarily homeless, as hunters and gatherers are. They would follow their food supply, which was on the move. How could they be convinced to change? European Americans wanted to convince Native Americans that a settled life was better. Their position was Housing, Food, and Clothing first. Their belief: If Native Americans saw they could be warm and well-fed in cold weather rather than freezing and hungry, they would voluntarily settle down. If they became accustomed to products of civilization like fine clothing and (some craftily said) alcohol, they would want to settle down. That worked for some but not for others. Native culture to a large extent was a culture of movement. …

Mixed Messages on Homelessness

_{Marvin Olasky
July 21, 2023}

Pundits who write about homelessness should recognize that America in this decade does not have 20-20 vision on the subject. My column last week analyzed a celebrated short story in which a homeless Native American and his friends haven’t changed at all, but the city of Seattle celebrates. If you’ve been watching Jonathan Choe’s videos on this Fix Homelessness website, Seattle’s homelessness crisis is not something to cheer. But in a New Yorker short story, the Noble Savage and his alcoholic crew can live happily ever after. Some writers cheer on homelessness, seeing it as a way to live off the land, hunting for sustenance. There are parallels between the way European Americans dealt with Native Americans two centuries ago and the treatment of humans experiencing …

Homeless in Seattle — in fiction

_{Marvin Olasky
July 17, 2023}

In 1993 Native American writer Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. published a short story collection titled The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. In 2003 he publisherd in The New Yorker an Alexie short story, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem,” that was one of the top three stories of the year, according to the prestigious O.Henry Awards. It has been anthologized and assigned to thousands of high school students. Although all the action is within one small area of Seattle, it’s a culturally important meld of the Noble Savage and Happy Hobo traditions I wrote about last week. The story begins, “One day you have a home and the next you don’t,” and then quickly identifies the narrator/hero as a middle-aged “Spokane Indian” who had multiple jobs, marriages, and children, …

Kings of the Road, Homeless Heroes, Noble Savages

_{Marvin Olasky
July 7, 2023}

It’s hard to develop a consensus on public policy concerning homelessness. One reason: Many Americans have decried homelessness but envy the supposedly care-free lives of those who don’t have to deal with mortgages, car payments, and health insurance. Eight decades ago Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe, starring Gary Cooper as the hobo hero, was a popular movie with positive things to say about the wandering life. Six decades ago country singer Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” glorified day-to-day hobo life and reached #1 on both the U.S. Country chart and Easy Listening surveys. Miller sang, “I’m a man of means by no means/ King of the road.” He summarized disadvantages and advantages: “Old, worn out suit and shoes/ I don’t pay no union dues.” That Happy …

Buying Prayers, Building Cathedrals

_{Marvin Olasky
June 30, 2023}

This year is the 500th anniversary of the death of Hermann Zierenberg. The wealthy man’s will in 1523 revealed he had set aside money so that each year on the anniversary of his death homeless people would pray for his salvation and purportedly save him years in purgatory. As Zierenberg was dying, though, the tradition of buying prayers to reduce purgatory time was dying out in much of Europe. One agent of change was Martin Luther, who said purgatory does not exist, so prayers for beloved ones to escape it are a waste of effort. Another was the enormous cost of grand cathedrals. I visited several years back the Seville Cathedral, known as the third-largest church in the world. It features the largest and richest altarpiece on earth, with 45 floor-to-ceiling gold-leaf, wood-carved …

Help the Homeless, Help Yourself?

_{Marvin Olasky
June 23, 2023}

Today, nonprofit organizations designed to help the homeless compete to be beneficiaries listed in wills. Some offer public relations after death: “Make your generosity live on after you! You can assist the homeless by supporting the work of ___ in your will.” Or, “How Will You Be Remembered? You can help… overcome homelessness, poverty, addiction and mental health issues — even after you’re gone.” Other requests for bequests emphasize helping ourselves as well as helping others: “Your charitable trusts can be established to help homeless families with children, and offer you a tax advantage,” or “Your bequests can leave a lasting legacy, secure tax advantages for your family, and help us to prevent and end homelessness for years …

After Reading Current Assumptions, Try Some Wisdom From the Past

_{Marvin Olasky
June 16, 2023}

C. S. Lewis once said, “It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.” The same goes for teaching about how to help the homeless and poor. Ever since 2013, federal policy has been “housing first”: Get homeless individuals under a roof with no pressure to get the mental health help many need, and no pressure to fight the drug addiction and alcoholism. We tend to equate compassion with giving-without-strings. That’s not the way influential poverty-fighters in the late 19th century thought. Maybe they were wrong, or cruel, or deluded. But for every three articles you’ve read trumpeting the 21st century …

Ranking Alternative Ways to Fix Homelessness

_{Marvin Olasky
June 9, 2023}

A lot of homelessness initiatives are 90 percent talk and only 10 percent walk. That’s why I’m impressed with the street-level experience of people involved in The True Charity Initiative, which champions “a national movement of voluntarily funded, effective charity at the most local level.” I asked local leaders involved with True Charity to rank the four views of fixing homelessness that I summarized in my column last week: 1) Housing first, 2) Improve mental health/stop substance abuse first, 3) Community first, and 4) Christ first. Bill Roberts of Love INC in Fishersville, Virginia, said ranking the four is challenging, but he’d give it a shot. He put housing first: Having a place to call home creates a sense of safety and security. Housing allows individuals …

Understanding the Homeless Debate

_{Marvin Olasky
June 2, 2023}

This column begins year two of my weekly writing specifically about homelessness: 52 down, 52 to go, and then it’s time to turn columns into a book. People new to the homelessness debate often find the recommendations of various groups confusing. So here’s a simplified, maybe over-simplified means of understanding the big four prescriptions: Housing first: Homelessness is primarily a lack of housing. Official policy of the U.S. government. See https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/ Improve mental health/stop substance abuse first: Homelessness goes along with lack of rational functioning brought on by drugs, alcohol, or mental illness. See https://pitinoshelter.org/ten-causes-of-homelessness/ Community first: Homelessness is largely a function of the profound, …

Homelessness and the Rushing Wind

_{Marvin Olasky
May 26, 2023}

Today, two days before Pentecost Sunday, is a good time to remember what works.

Where Are They Now?

_{Marvin Olasky
May 19, 2023}

My answer to the headline question: I don’t know. But Memorial Day is only ten days away, so it seems an appropriate time to ask about those who may have been victors in their own war on homelessness — or maybe not. First, some backstory. One reason journalists get a reputation for caring more about publishing than people: We write lots of one-and-done articles. We search for human interest and specific detail. We start stories with a “face,” someone whose personal situation brings to ground-level observation what could otherwise be an abstract story. But then we forget about the person we asked readers to care about. I’ve been guilty of that, but sometimes I check back after a few years, and am often thankful to learn that God’s grace really does make a permanent …

Five books on homelessness

_{Marvin Olasky
May 12, 2023}

My monthly OlaskyBooks newsletter comes out tomorrow, but I didn’t have room in it to write about books on homelessness, and it’s not a topic everyone cares about anyway. So here are mini-reviews of five books: two useful, two mildly interesting, one eminently skippable. Let’s go from best to worst. Cathy Small’s Man in the Dog Park: Coming Up Close to Homelessness (Cornell U. Press, 2020) has truth in titling, because it is a street-level view. Her description of homelessness onset doesn’t take into account the severe mental illness of some, but it’s a useful generalization: “a series of falls from successive slopes, set up by larger conditions, abetted by some personal decision or circumstance; each slip in a lower slope leads the person closer and closer to the edge …

The View From Chattanooga

_{Marvin Olasky
May 5, 2023}

By Marvin Olasky and Covenant College students Emma Fallmezger, Jacob Sonke, Elysse Carrillo, Anna McDonald, Charity Chaney, and Lydia Dorman. Los Angeles has been the poster child of homelessness. The first official act of new mayor Karen Bass was to place the city in a “state of emergency.” The Los Angeles Business Council scrutinized LA public opinion on homelessness and found almost unanimous agreement that the problem is serious, with 73 percent saying “very serious.” Most saw a lack of inexpensive housing as the prime reason for homelessness. National attitudes are different. Yes, a recent Rasmussen poll showed 92 percent of American adults saying homelessness is a serious national problem in America — and 65 percent said “very serious.” That second number is up …