‘Those People’

By Ron Sinclair

Our little city passed an ordinance recently, designed to remove unhoused people from its streets. Yes, we, like every other community in America, have a problem with people who live without shelter, no place to call home. Businesses in town said that “those people” scare customers. “Those people” talk to themselves and make it an unsafe environment for families coming to do business or shop in town. So the city did what cities all over are doing, they passed the ordinance. Then they established a committee to study the situation and make recommendations on how to find a long-term solution.

It seems to be working for the businesses downtown. There is still some anger voiced towards one of the restaurants in town whose owner allows their customers to pay for meals “those people” need. The business owners say that if only the restaurant would stop giving out free meals to “those people,” “those people” would leave entirely. Marcia and I always pay for an extra meal when we eat at this establishment. Frankly, we should eat there more often.

There’s an exodus of sorts from the downtown area by “those people.” We live several miles south of town, and on multiple occasions, I have seen people pushing carts or pulling a wagon along behind them walking down a busy highway towards somewhere. So “the problem” is being moved away for a while, without any real long term solutions on the horizon.

We, like every other community in the country, are experiencing what happens when we demand our taxes be cut to the bone while still demanding services the government was once expected to provide. “Churches will take care of social needs,” we say. “Private enterprise will work out solutions. Strict laws will eliminate the drug issues driving all of our problems. Being tough on crime is the solution.” So our elected representatives enact laws to be super tough, while paying for enacting them by cutting spending on the social programs designed to help “those people” put into place by previous elected representatives.

The private, non-profit groups working in our county are fighting an uphill battle with the community’s attitude towards “those people.” There’s a callousness evident in comments on social media driven by the notion that “those people” are in the situation they are in because of their own decisions. While there may be some truth to that, there’s a greater underlying truth that many are in dire straits due to conditions beyond their control. Mothers and their children have been abandoned by husbands and fathers. Veterans with PTSD form a large portion of every unhoused population. Hurricane Helene, almost two years later, is still with us. Folks in temporary housing have seen that the government has not kept its promises, and the temporary shelters they find themselves still living in are being hit with surging rent increases. So these folks are paying rent while still having to make house payments on homes lost in the flood.

Local groups, including churches are doing the best they can. There are still non-profits rebuilding homes and helping as they are financially and physically able. But the safeguards we all thought were there, are missing. These efforts are necessary, but have further strained the available resources of every organization that would normally be addressing the unhoused folks we so easily designate as “those people.”

Since the social safety net was put into place as we came out of the Great Depression by the Roosevelt administration, there has existed a counter movement whose goal has been to eliminate those provisions, including social security. As some of the “Great Society” programs were enacted in the 1960’s and 70’s, the counter movement increased. And when those programs failed to solve the issues they were designed to resolve, instead of a natural evolution of refining them, the counter movement began promoting them as wasteful and unnecessary. An entire population of folks was portrayed as lazy, addicted and unworthy of aid. The counter movement picked up steam in the 1980s, and the war against government involvement in promoting the general welfare of ALL our citizens took off. Today, it is in full flight, and dictating policy. And with it, the income gap has increased tremendously. Attempts to stop the upflow are branded as socialism, and decried by an uninformed general population that doesn’t understand the differences between socialism, capitalism, communism and every other “isms” one could name. But we know we are against it. And we are against “those people” who suffer trauma, PTSD, drug and alcohol addiction, live in unsanitary conditions, and are the opposite of who we want to be.

I am a follower of Jesus. And “those people” are people to whom he preached and ministered during his earthly journey. His parables and indeed his entire ministry showed a preferential intention towards the poor and the least among us. I find it truly sad that the loudest voices in demonizing “those people” are coming from many who proudly wear the label of Christian; those who claim the faith of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of God. In every gospel account, he shows us how we are to live together as people. I don’t think we are doing a very good job. Do you?

© Ron Sinclair, August 25, 2026. Sinclair is a retired church musician and solo performer. Sinclair writes about aging, retirement, ‘the church,’ his farm, family and anything else he considers of interest.