Carol, I would agree with you that illiteracy is, at best, a very minor factor in homelessness. I looked homelessness up on the web and found this url about the causes, if you are interested:
hshmission.org
While illiteracy is a minor contributing factor in some cases, along with a lot of others, substance abuse and mental illness are the primary causes. Homelessness is not really solved simply by providing housing, because unless you plan to subsidize these people in every way, of which housing is only a start, you diminish suffering to some degree but do not solve the major problems. Comprehensive treatment for their mental illnesses, and substance abuse treatment, are vital. Of course these require fairly large, coordinated governmental interventions in order to succeed. It is naive at best to believe that allowing private businessmen to provide substandard housing is going to make much difference.
Tonight I watched 60 Minutes, which had a segment about young homosexuals and their parents. Interestingly enough, they cited statistics that thirty percent of teenaged suicides are of young gay people, and that one quarter of parents of children who reveal that they are gay have parents who immediately order them to leave home.
Many of San Francisco's homeless people are gay teenagers from other, more conservative and less enlightened places in America where parents believe homosexuality is a sin, and reject their own children. This is impossible for me to even imagine, but still prevalent. Even the Pope is encouraging parents to love and accept their gay children. It's amazing to me how quickly some "Christians" are to pass judgment, while their understanding of homosexuality is based absolutely on total ignorance of the genetic and early developmental components, and how unlike Christ they are in their attitudes of judgmental nonacceptance. This prejudice causes so many children to die, or live miserable lives filled with self hatred, and it is pathetic.
I think the Indians are in another category of despair. The entire spirit of a people was broken, very deliberately, and also Indians (and Irish) have been found to have a genetic susceptibility to alcoholism. The news I have read about Indians lately is very good, however. Young Indian activists are becoming more highly educated, and fighting for the rights of their tribes. It's about time!! This is local California news, but I have been reading of much the same thing in Canada:
sfgate.com
P.S. A really lovely and thought-provoking poem about computers (and fish). Thanks a lot for sharing it here.
Chrissy |
