Column: Hey, L.A. politicians — I know just the patron saint for you: A homeless woman on skid row.
Why? The homeless are the people most likely to be overlooked by politicians. That’s why your candidates must spend a majority of their campaigns focusing on them, and the more your candidates focus on the homeless, the more your politicians will ignore those they claim to be serving.
The homeless are not the most important public servants. They are not the most important voters. They are not the most important members of their communities or communities of faith. They are not the most important people with opinions about the world; there is no such thing. The most important people are the most powerful, and that’s why the public servants like you and me have to focus on them as much as possible.
It seems, however, that the homeless are most likely to complain about politics. It seems that the homeless are most likely to be angry about politicians. It seems that the homeless are the people to be most likely to complain about homelessness and the homeless are the most likely to complain about how politicians have made them homeless.
But the homeless don’t care about politics. They’re lazy. They don’t vote. They don’t participate in civic life. They don’t pay taxes. They are the most disposable class of citizens in our cities. They are the least important public servants.
Now you can blame them for being homeless. You can blame them for being angry about their situation. And you can blame them for complaining about you and me. But the truth is, you and I are their only hope, their only salvation. The politicians are our enemies. If we ignore them, they will ignore us. If we serve them, they will serve us. If we are good to them, they will be good to us.
But they won’t be good to us if we focus on their problems, their complaints, or their anger; if we tell them that their situation is their problem, and theirs is the only answer to the problem of homelessness; if we tell them that their anger is their anger, and their anger is the most important thing in the world, then they will become our worst enemies.
They will become the most powerful, and that’s
