Reflections from the region: We must help the homeless in the new year
SACRAMENTO - Saturday, Dec. 29, 2007 - The Sacramento Bee, Editorials Section
This holiday season The Bee's editorial board asked local residents this question, "What is the most important lesson that Sacramento or the region should take from 2007, and how can it be applied next year?"
The following is from the Rev. James Richardson, an Episcopal priest and the chaplain of the California State Senate: Our Sacramento region learned once again there are thousands of vulnerable people in our midst who barely have a roof over their head - and for many, not even that. This is not a new lesson, but the newest reminder came in 2007 with the wave of home mortgage foreclosures hitting primarily those with a toehold in the middle class.
The fact is that even before the bottom fell out of the subprime mortgage market, there were thousands of people in the Sacramento region living in substandard housing, or out of the back seat of their car, or in a cardboard box on the riverbank. Housing is a crisis that tears at the very fabric of our community.
How we respond in 2008 to the most vulnerable says a great deal about the heart and soul of our Sacramento region. Will we turn our backs and become obsessed with glitzy side issues such as building a basketball arena? Or will we act courageously with a full-court press to solve the housing and homeless crisis of our region?
We have a living beacon of hope in our community: Francis Quinn, the retired Roman Catholic bishop of Sacramento, who inspired our community to build low-income housing in midtown Sacramento – the "Bishop Quinn Cottages."
We need to build hundreds of new Bishop Quinn cottages all over our city, and we need to make housing affordable for young families with children. These are real family values that all of us should be able to agree upon.
The faith leaders from every religious community in Sacramento need to come together in 2008 on this one issue - housing - and push our political and business leaders into concrete action.
I am convinced that the purpose of life, no matter our religion or lack of religion, is being in a cause that is bigger than ourselves. We are each given a role in that cause, and a share of God's abundance to make our world a better place.
We are truly the hands, feet and active heart of God's grace, and we deepen our own lives by how we respond to the most in need.
