There’s been a lot in the news this past week about homelessness and about what various people have had to say about it. A couple of instances got my attention. I’m referring to remarks that former Mars Hill Church leader Mark Driscoll and City Councilmember Sally Clark have reportedly made concerning homelessness. What is up with these two people?
I guess I’ll begin with Mark Driscoll. We learned last week from The Stranger that Mark believes that without women, a certain portion of his anatomy, which here and henceforth shall be labeled “Little Mark” or “the Marklet” or “the number one Mars Bar,” would be homeless. But God in His Wisdom created Woman to house the Marksicle.
Mark Driscoll is very clear, the only proper home for Little Mark is a woman, and thank God therefore that He made women, or Little Mark would be out camping by the freeway right now.
This brings us to Sally Clark. City Councilmember Sally Clark is the chair of the Human Services Committee and on the Committee to End Homelessness in King County, and I know that when she speaks of finding homes for the homeless she does NOT mean homes in the same way that Mark Driscoll means them.
However, there is one way in which Sally and Mark resemble each other. They are both very picky about where they will consider housing those homeless that concern them. Where Mark insists his boy has to have a lady condo, Sally insists that the homeless people she claims to care about can’t live anywhere but regular houses or apartments, or at least ordinary shelters, even if they are unavailable.
Think about it like this: Suppose Mark weren’t married. Then his Marcolini would truly be homeless, until a new home could be readied for him. In the interim, until that new home could be readied, wouldn’t Sally think it reasonable that Mark wear pants?
Likewise, in a perfect world we could pass a law that said every homeless person has to accept the home we hand over to him/her or pay consequences. This is the perfect world that’s been envisioned by the leadership of CEHKC for the past nine years, with all their hot air about building housing for 9,000 homeless people in King County that would eliminate the need for outdoor camping and shelters.
Such a law can’t happen, because hot air doesn’t build houses. But neither can there be a law that forces homeless people to use a shelter system that Sally Clark and friends have only talked about expanding.
In the meantime, homeless people exist. They have real bodies. They have to be parked somewhere at night. The shelters are full and aren’t really safe anyway. Yes, camping outdoors is not ideal, but CEHKC has never brought forth the ideal.
Until then, I’d like to see CEHKC and its supporters work with homeless people themselves, instead of always against them.