Guest View: The Eugene community needs to step up for homeless

Mary Sharon Moore, Chris Cunningham and Anne O'Brien

In response to The Register-Guard front-page feature “A breaking point for tolerance,” Church Women United of Lane County must add its voice.

Two Eugene Safe Sleep sites are in the works, but not in time for the recent rousting of unhoused individuals from their camp at Washington Jefferson Park.

The timing, optics and inhumanity of it all is discouraging for unhoused communities, advocates, activists and other concerned citizens, especially given the city’s reasons why addressing the issue is so hard: lack of budget, lack of usable land, zoning restrictions and neighborhood resistance.

More:Eugene Safe Sleep sites openings delayed, councilors worried community reaching 'breaking point'

People who are unhoused are collateral damage, the unsurprising outcome of society’s continued agreement to perpetuate an economy that works handsomely for some at the cost of hollowing out many others.

Eugene’s unhoused residents are the flesh-and-blood indicators of where systems have failed those who lack robust networks of access and opportunity — something that others of us may take for granted.

Eugene’s housed residents are understandably at a breaking point. But unhoused residents who suffer repeated moves to other sanctioned and unsanctioned properties have tumbled headlong into the abyss.

But breaking points are also invitations, opportunities for us to go beyond ourselves, to hold ourselves accountable to situations that are larger than us.

Creating housing for residents in the social abyss is an enormous challenge. It’s also an invitation to action.

More:Letters to the editor for Wednesday, Sept. 15: A sign of progress for the homeless

An economy that works for some at the cost of others is a challenge that seeks economic solutions, structural and systemwide.

Corporate tax waivers that leave our city coffers wanting are challenges that invite courageous corporate action that bucks the trend and expands the stakeholder net. Some corporations, thankfully, are offering incrementally higher wages.

Living with imagination, justice and generosity, applying creative solutions, rolling up the sleeves and getting to work to restore vitality to every part of the commons is a challenge and an invitation for change.

As a community we must:

Provide region-appropriate living wages
Physical and mental health care, especially for people who are unhoused
Wraparound services and case management for those who need ongoing support
Career mentoring and life-skills training
Meaningful ways to participate in society
A personal and collective commitment to replacing NIMBY attitudes with thoughtfully planned accommodation for people in diverse situations
Honesty about our disregard for the suffering of others

Of course, we know the magnitude of the invitation by the intensity of our pushback.

St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County, Square One Villages and a host of other nonprofit housing and social service organizations all show us what courageous, imaginative, just and generous responses can look like.

But the answer cannot fall only on the shoulders of nonprofits. We — including businesses that hire and pay wages in our community — need to step up. Charity is no replacement for justice.

Church Women United of Lane County, especially through its housing committee, advocates on housing issues and collaborates with social justice organizations such as CALC, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, Oregon Center for Public Policy and Oregon Housing Coalition. Here’s our ask:

That Eugene’s elected officials and staff treat adequate stable shelter as a basic need and a human right — and deliver with equal urgency
That city officials treat this ongoing anguish for unhoused residents as the human crisis that it is and fire up the will to respond
That the entire Eugene community, especially those with plenty, be part of the solution of justice and compassion
That the city convene a courageous conversation on just wages with corporate power-holders, along with housed and unhoused members of our community, at the table

Our unhoused neighbors are sick and tired of living in the Land of the Upside Down. It’s in us, and on us, who enjoy plenty, to courageously build the Land of the Right-side Up, now, this season, before the autumn rains and winter cold roll in.

A vacant lot is a start. Locating Safe Sleep sites convenient to public transit, shopping and basic services is essential, along with in-camp navigators.

We would want such consideration for ourselves. Why not for those whose lives are so much harder?

Mary Sharon Moore and Chris Cunningham are active on local housing/unhoused issues with Church Women United of Lane County. Anne O’Brien is the organization’s president. Church Women United of Lane County (cwulanecounty.org) is a Christian women’s movement dedicated to unity in diversity and working for world peace.