Articles

On Monday evening February 2nd, I sat in the downtown library auditorium waiting for the community discussion to begin on homeless encampments. The first person to speak declared that homeless people were homeless because they wanted to be homeless and their homelessness was a consequence of their own bad decisions and addictions. Moreover, he declared, there were more than enough service programs and housing options and shelter beds to serve every homeless person in Nashville. Therefore, if anyone was homeless it was of their own choosing.

My first reaction normally would have been that of anger because such falsehoods only hurt people who are already suffering, and mislead those who don’t know any better. But that evening my initial reaction was that of sadness because I thought of “Lily.”