Homelessness started a long time ago, when we stopped providing housing and services and forced people “on the street.” You can look back to Ronald Reagan and his brutal cutting of social services, or the ending of “welfare as we know it” under Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. But the bottom line is we have increased the “hidden” problem that is hidden no more.

It has become acceptable to drive down Highway 99 and see people whose lives have been transformed by lots of serious issues, including self-medication by drugs and alcohol and living in dangerous conditions. They are all members of the community, yet they are disconnected from the social and economic systems. This may be a result of symptoms of decades of blaming instead of looking at failed economic policy.

These are people here! A hidden community that they have created to survive, an underground economy and social structure. They too are the children of God — yet we don’t act like they are in too many cases. Each has a story, and each is worthy.

Stop listening to leaders who have no soul, no answers, no actions that would actually do something to help. We were once the richest people on the planet! What happened to us all? We are comfortably numb.

Ryan Collay
Eugene