It’s the time of the year when many celebrate the story of a homeless family who sought shelter 2,000 years ago.
It seems ironic that the Bloomberg administration has selected this season to impose a new policy aimed at the most vulnerable people in our society. That policy requires homeless people to prove that they have no relative or friend who can offer them a place to stay before the city will allow them to stay in a shelter.
The City Council, in a rare display of guts, is taking on the mayor on this issue. Council Speaker Christine Quinn calls the new homeless policy “cruel” and “irresponsible.”
For years, councilmembers have behaved like little lambs waiting for their shepherd, Mayor Bloomberg, to tell them what to do. And now the lambs seem to be in revolt.
One explanation for the shift in attitude is that Quinn, as she prepares for a race for mayor in 2013, wants to show that she doesn’t kowtow to the mayor. But whether that’s true, it’s interesting to see the council behaving, at least for a moment, as an independent body ready to take on the most powerful government figure.
The council on Tuesday voted to file a lawsuit to stop Bloomberg from implementing the new homeless policy.
Under the new policy, the administration will be deciding whether or not a homeless person is truly homeless by demanding answers to basic questions: Is there no mother, brother, sister, uncle, friend available to give you shelter? Where did you last stay? How can the people who gave you shelter previously now deny you shelter?
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A bureaucratic boss will then decree that you are or aren’t eligible for city shelter. It seems indecent to clamp down harshly on the homeless, the most vulnerable members of our society. Beating up on the homeless may be easy. But it violates the most basic ethics of our society.
I spoke to retired Bishop James McCarthy, secretary to the late Cardinal John O’Connor. He said: “We are our brother’s keeper. We need to care for the mentally ill or incompetent, the many elderly people on the streets. It may be fiscally prudent to tighten regulations on admitting people to homeless shelters, but it is morally outrageous. A society should be judged on how its treats the most needy, the most at risk, the most defenseless among us.“
Our concern for the homeless can be traced back to the story of Cain and Abel. After Cain had slain his brother, Abel, the Lord asked Cain: “Where is Abel, thy brother? And he said: I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
We are our brother’s and sister’s keepers. As a city, a society, a nation, we need to adhere to the values preached to us in biblical times.
Not to do so diminishes not only the homeless – but ourselves.
