Mercy without Severity is Not Compassion
It is possible to kill people with kindness.
I’ve been living in Seattle for about three years now. In that time I have primarily worked in homeless shelters, with a period of about a year where I was somewhat active in trying to assist the unhoused out at encampments on a volunteer basis- though that waned once I started working at shelters. It has been quite the adventure, and one I intend to continue on.
It’s not my first rodeo working with unhoused people. I’ve always cared for the poor, having grown up in poverty myself. Going back to my college days I would often take homeless folks to lunch if I could afford it, give them money, talk to them, etc. I would sometimes stand up for them against people who had a problem with their presence. My entire life I’ve cared about the issue, though it often took a backseat to personal struggles and other issues I cared about as well. In 2018 or so I took on my first social services job with the Arizona Department of Economic Security, where I did interviews for the SNAP and TANF programs and handled applications for medicaid. In that job I interviewed a lot of homeless people, heard their stories, and I got to know them. They weren’t the majority of my clients or anything, but they were a decent percentage.
I’ve also had my own run ins with homelessness personally. Growing up we were often struggling to pay for our housing, and there were times we’d have to flee to avoid evictions. I believe there was even a brief period we stayed in motels and occasionally camped up in Mt. Lemon, but I was probably not much older than three or four when that happened, so my memory of it may not be all that clear. As an adult, I was homeless in college a few times, though the resources at the university (the library, twenty four hour stores, student lounges, bathrooms, etc.) made that less awful than it might otherwise have been.
When I got to Seattle, I arrived with a few thousand dollars, a cat, and a plan. The plan was to get a job, get a room to rent, and build my life out here. I had done similar in Tucson with relative ease, and I believed I could do it here as well. Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out as I had planned, and I ended up running out of money and ending up on the street. I spent some of the last of my money on supplies once it became apparent what was about to happen to me, and I told myself I could handle it. I even tried to sell myself on the idea that I was going to go become a nomad, though I think deep down I knew it was going to be hell. I was not wrong about it being hell. It was absolute despair.
During my time out there, I was surrounded by other homeless folks. I was one of the few on that street that had a tent set up, though I actually intended to take it down and move along every other day so as not to wear out my welcome. While I was just sitting in the tent, watching people walk by, a pair of young men passed by. They sounded like they might have been college aged. They referred to us as “the detritus of Seattle.” Now I had expected to be called trash or insulted by people. I knew how people often treated the homeless. I’d seen it myself on many occasions. What I didn’t expect was such an academic, fancy sounding term as “detritus” to be applied to us. It just sort of stuck with me, in part because it sounded like a fancy Latin name or a title. Like Duke of Lexington. Detritus of Seattle. So I took it as my moniker out of spite.
Luckily, I had the privilege of having family that was able to bail me out of my predicament. Had I not had that, I probably would have still gotten out of it eventually, but it would have been very difficult and taken months, possibly even years. To my great fortune, the effort I had put into finding a job prior to my homelessness paid off. Not a lot of people are this lucky.
After getting myself established, I began to be extremely drawn to the issue of homelessness. I felt I had to pay it forward and try to help others in the same way I had been helped. It started with going out on the streets and just giving people things. Then I got involved with mutual aid groups. Then with other organizations. Now I work in the shelter system.
Throughout all of that I have always believed in simply giving people housing, food, water, medicine, and everything else they need. I still do believe in that. I still care deeply for the unhoused. If you had told me three years ago that chronic homelessness is a drug addiction and mental health issue more than just a housing issue, I would have gotten quite angry, as many other activists do. Usually, when people made these claims they did so not so much as a factual claim, but more as a moral claim, a way of condemning the homeless, framing them as less than or even deserving of their plight. I might have acknowledged the role drugs, alcohol, and mental health played in the crisis, but I would point to fancy stats that suggested that the majority of homeless people aren’t on drugs- which is true, unless your focus is on those who are chronically unsheltered. I would have, rightly, called out the housing problem as a big source of homelessness.
Indeed, the housing issue is still very important, and many homeless people end up on the street for economic reasons, but then become chronically homeless over time as they fall into drug use and trauma induced mental illness. They commit crimes while out on the street that then result in even more barriers to getting off the streets. Homelessness can be a particularly sticky and toxic spider’s web of despair in which the chronically homeless are trapped with little ability to extricate themselves.
When I started working more exclusively with the homeless, I always came from this place of non-judgmental kindness and compassion. I tried to understand them, love them as they are, and encourage them to better themselves. To that end I strongly opposed things like camping bans, sweeps, and other measures taken against the unhoused and would react with extreme anger when NIMBY types blocked the construction of new housing or shelters.
I still believe in that variety of kindness, but having worked in the shelters and on the streets, I have come to learn something about the nature of compassion, a form of love. Love is not just about kindness. Sometimes it is about accountability. Accountability involves holding people responsible for their transgressions, sometimes imposing consequences on them for bad behavior. It can seem harsh, even cruel sometimes, but it is necessary, for without it there can be no improvement. Compassion without accountability is really a type of malpractice. It’s not really compassion, but rather negligence and irresponsibility.
On a spiritual level, I call accountability severity. Divine love is compassionate and forgiving, non-judgmental, all encompassing. It is much like the father in the tale of the prodigal son who, upon seeing that his son who he thought was lost had returned, embraced him full of love and compassion, and did not judge him for his past sins. It is ultimately forgiving and embraces everyone in the purest love. But there is one component of divine love that is often overlooked. That aspect is severity, the need to hold people we care about accountable for their actions. Holding people accountable, letting them face consequences is how they learn and become better people.
The good father loves their son or daughter and would help them if they can. They forgive their transgressions and are there to support them. But a good father does not just do those things. Sometimes a good father calls out the bad behavior of their children, punishes them, or allows them to suffer the consequences of their actions so that they may make necessary positive changes. By discipline the good father moulds the child into something better, teaches them lessons, and eventually turns them into good, upstanding citizens.
A bad father may be a spiteful, cruel, hateful fiend that doesn’t love their child. They may abuse them, hurt them, or neglect them. They may even abandon them. One way a father can be terrible, however, is by allowing his care and compassion for his child to override that need for discipline. A bad father bails his son or daughter out of their own self imposed troubles time and again and never allows them to suffer the consequences of their actions so they might reform. A bad father spoils their child by never telling them no, never holding them accountable, and never punishing them when they go wrong. In so doing he may spare them from the pain of being punished, but he has allowed their very soul to rot, trapped in an infantile, entitled, selfish way of being.
Now the homeless are not children - well, not most of them anyway. Sadly there are plenty of literal children on the streets as well as people who are about as vulnerable. We are not their parents. However, society as a whole is, in some ways, a parental figure to all of its citizens. Collectively, we make rules that everyone is required to adhere to, and if they fail to do so there are consequences, sometimes very severe ones, all of which it is hoped will reform those who break the rules and turn them back into law abiding citizens. As a society, we also create systems that are tasked with taking care of our most vulnerable citizens, ensuring that everyone has their needs met. At least, we’re supposed to anyway. The United States often fails in this regard, hence the poverty of millions of Americans.
When it comes to the unhoused, the mentally ill, and drug addicts, the attitude of our society has been mixed. On the one side there is abject cruelty, with people thinking that the homeless, especially those with mental issues or drug addiction, should be punished for their problems, driven out of society, in some cases even killed. I’ve witnessed people laughing at homeless encampments burning, hoping that “bums” were burned alive in the blaze, viewing it as one less homeless encampment to worry about. Such sentiments are extremely vile, but not uncommon, especially on the internet.
On the opposite end of the coin are a lot of the homeless activists. Most of them are anarchists- as am I, though perhaps of a complex sort- or socialists, and they firmly believe that any sort of punishment, compulsion, or law enforcement involvement with the unhoused, those using drugs, or the mentally ill is wrong. They feel this because they think that it hurts them, that it is punishing them just for being poor or sick. They get very upset at encampment sweeps, are very critical of any kind of forced treatment for addicts or those with severe mental illnesses, etc., and get big mad when there is any attempt to curtail the negative externalities that come from homelessness. They often fail to be pragmatic in analyzing situations, which results in them putting their principles above actual working solutions. Their greatest flaw is that they have a tendency to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
For example, I once had a client with a very severe hoarding problem. We’re not talking belongings like a collection of rubber ducks or antiques or something. We’re talking festering, rotting, disgusting trash. Bottles of urine. Moldy food trays. Just the worst sort of rubbish imaginable, rubbish that created a horrific smell of rot and often oozed a foul garbage juice that would find its way into his neighbor’s quarters. The man had clear mental issues and would avoid talking about their hoard with canned lines of various sorts. Staff tried to help him for many, many months, and it never got better. It got to a point where our higher ups came through and gave the man twenty four hours to clean it up or he was going to be evicted. It was his last chance.
I tried to reason with him. I tried to impress upon him the seriousness of the warning and the direness of his circumstances. He was initially thankful and started to take out some of the trash. I thought I had gotten through to him. But then he brought the bags back in. He eventually started taking the trash out of the bag and using cleaning spray on each bit of trash, wiping it down with a filthy rag. I tried reasoning with him still, but it did not work. I became very frustrated, and I wanted to just storm in there and just clean it for him. But I couldn’t, because that wouldn’t be allowed by our policy. Despite the reality that upon his eviction we were going to do exactly the sort of cleaning I was wanting to do and all of that trash he so cherished would be thrown away. We were not about to store rotten food trays as belongings, so as soon as he got evicted those were going in the trash.
I got online and I explained the issue to my friends, expressing my frustration that we couldn’t just go in there and take the trash. I got several replies telling me that doing so would be stealing and would be traumatic, that it wouldn’t be right to raid his hoard and clean it out against his will. This made me even more frustrated because the situation was deeply stupid. Sure, “stealing” his garbage would be traumatic. You know what is more traumatic? Being put on the street AND losing the trash and probably his belongings. That was what was going to happen to this man if we respected his autonomy, because one way or another, this situation had to be remedied immediately for the health and safety of everyone.
A lot of organizations get their policies from people who, though well intentioned, are like some of these friends. As a result of that very dumb policy, we had to enact the stupidest and worst solution to the problem. The man was evicted onto the streets, and, as predicted, his space was cleaned, his garbage was thrown in the trash, and his belongings went into storage. I don’t know if he ever came and got his belongings, but if not, they were eventually trashed too.
Now, these friends, these activists were motivated by a sense of kindness, a desire to respect the autonomy of this man. I can understand and respect that to a degree. But I would ask them a simple question: Was that truly kind? Was allowing him to become unsheltered because you didn’t want to impose a rule upon him in a more paternalistic way truly being merciful or kind to him? I don’t think it was.
Many rooms and tiny homes run by LIHI, my old employer, were basically indoor homeless encampments, filled with used needles, burnt foil, and rotting trash. Most people kept their spaces clean, but some people turned their home into a biohazard, and in so doing endangered the wellbeing of not only themselves but everyone else around them. And although hygiene rules existed, they were often not enforced, and certainly not by just going in there and cleaning out the hoard whether the client wanted it or not. It is not loving or kind to let people live like that, nor is it fair to the people around them who are impacted by it. And yet, because of activists insisting we do this, many rooms were allowed to fester until the point when we ended up evicting them.
Hygiene is not the only problem in these shelters, though. In the shelter system there are a lot of people who have outstanding warrants for their arrest. It’s not the majority, but I would say there are a few in every shelter that currently are wanted by police. Often it’s just a failure to appear or something like that, but sometimes it’s more serious. Now, if you were to ask these activists what should be done, they would say that we should protect these folks from the police, that we shouldn’t turn them in. On some level I can understand the rationale behind that, but on another I think it’s deeply foolish. Why? Well, those warrants are not about to go away any time soon. Is it really the right thing to do to shield them from accountability for the things they’ve done? How can they hope to build a future for themselves when they constantly have a warrant hanging over their head? Eventually some officer is going to find them, and there goes the progress they were making. The best thing for them is probably to face the music and deal with it. I think it’s one of the first things that should be handled when someone goes to a shelter, even if perhaps they don’t want it to be.
Not only is it a solution for this legal albatross hanging around their necks, but clanking door therapy can be quite effective in dealing with other issues that people are running from. I’ve seen clients who were severely addicted to drugs, going nowhere fast, and possibly not too far out from a fatal overdose get arrested, go to jail, get involved in the court’s diversion programs, and come out the other side in much, much better shape than they went in. It may not always work, but sometimes jail is just what the doctor ordered. Sometimes going to jail saves a person’s life and turns them around. Activists don’t want to hear that, I know, but it is true. We can talk about criminal justice reform, police reform, all that good stuff, but that doesn’t change the reality of the situation. Some people just need to go to jail, for their own good, and for the good of everyone else.
And this goes not just for people with warrants. There are a lot of people who live unsheltered, who have severe addictions and certain mental illnesses, that go out and commit crimes rather frequently. They steal, they rob, and they sometimes attack people. They destroy property. They use drugs right out in the open and leave public spaces that were supposed to be for everyone to enjoy a disgusting, dangerous, biohazardous mess with used needles, toxic fentanyl smoke, burnt foil, and assorted garbage strewn everywhere. A lot of activists don’t want to blame them for this, or want to downplay it. They get mad at the idea of the police arresting these folks. But, like with the example of the warrants, I have to question the wisdom in that.
Is it truly kindness to let someone rob people, steal, and run amok in the streets, living in squalor, high out of their mind every waking moment, going into further and further depravity? I don’t think it is. I think that by giving them a pass and just letting them do what they want, waiting and hoping some day they choose to get help, all you are doing is enabling them to stay in that cycle of suffering.
That cycle of suffering isn’t just hurting them. Their actions affect the community and the rest of us. It’s neither mercy for them nor is it fair to the rest of us to leave them alone when their behavior is harmful. I think drying out in jail for several months, with a warm bed, three meals a day, structure, the involvement of social workers, and the oversight of the courts is superior to just letting them continue to suffer and run amok. In jail, they’ll be kept stable, have time to rest, kick their drug habit, and they’ll be kept away from some of their sources of drugs. They’ll also, if the jail is run competently, be kept safe, both from the elements and from violence. Jail isn’t perfect in terms of keeping out drugs and violence, but it is far better than being out on the street.
Now of course, I don’t want to just lock people up in jails. We’re not going to jail our way out of the problems our society faces. I think that we should expand voluntary drug and mental health treatment, build more shelters, and do everything in our power to help people before they reach a point where they need to be placed in handcuffs. Where I run into issues, though is with people who want to pretend that we should never force these people to get help, that we should always just wait for them to decide to come inside, putting up with their awful behavior in the meantime. It’s very noble and merciful to want to protect them, to want to give them that freedom, but it’s not really compassionate. What it is is enabling.
I oppose encampment sweeps as they are currently done, for the most part. I oppose jailing people just for being homeless. I don’t believe camping in public spaces in and of itself should be a crime. Nor should panhandling, prostitution, or any other crime that is primarily used to lock up poor people just for being poor. I think if someone genuinely chooses to sleep outside, and they’re not hurting anyone, not endangering their own safety or that of another, and they respect the space by not trashing it, shooting up, or doing any of the other problematic things some folks do, then I say let them be. Some people might like to live like a nomad, not tethered to any address or having formal work. They like a simple life. I think that’s awesome and they should be free to do that. As long as they’re hurting no one and they’re safe, there is no problem.
If, on the other hand, your tent is surrounded by toxic garbage, you’re running a drug den out of it, and you’re surrounded by stolen merchandise, no, I don’t think we should tolerate that. We should always offer the carrot first, but the stick must be available too. Sweeps and arrests should be a last resort for dealing with homelessness, and they must only come when a person has been offered help and has refused. We should tolerate neither the biohazardous drug and crime dens that have overtaken some areas, nor the endless game of whack a mole where people will trash an area, get offered help, refuse, get swept, and then go trash yet another place. It’s a waste of money, time, and effort to just keep sweeping people, nevermind how bad it is for the people who never get the help they need because we choose to just enable them. We have to hold people accountable for the destruction they cause and demand that they do better. I know that they’re poor, that they may have other issues, and they can’t help being poor, addicted, or mentally ill, but refusing to accept help is a choice, and there is no excuse for it. Refusing to hold them accountable just keeps them in that cycle of despair and suffering.
I also don’t believe in drug laws. I don’t think it should be a crime to possess any drug, except when it can be proven that it is being used for another criminal purpose (drug sales, sexual assault, robbery, murder, etc.). Nor do I think that just being mentally ill in any form should automatically get you confined to a care home. But, if, because of your substance issues or your mental issues, you are unable to take care of your own basic needs, you’re out causing trouble, or your course of conduct is putting your life at unnecessary risk, then we absolutely have a right and a duty to get you help, and I think that that is true irrespective of whether or not you want that care.
I don’t think it is compassionate to just let people commit a slow-rolling suicide. If a person were to slit their wrists, hang themselves, or purposely OD on sleeping pills, we wouldn’t just let them go. We’d save their life and then lock them up. We’d force them to get treatment, even if they were absolutely set on killing themselves. Because it’s the right thing to do and they’re not in a frame of mind to make rational decisions. It makes no difference if their method of suicide is to keep smoking fentanyl, overdosing a bunch of times until the death finally sticks, or choosing to die out on the street of some treatable illness because their mental illness prevents them from accepting help. In both cases they are killing themselves, and letting them do that would be irresponsible and cruel. It is not compassion, love, or even really mercy. It’s negligence.
Mercy without severity is not compassion. It is negligence. It is enabling. And it needs to stop. Especially when it comes from people who claim to care. This sort of negligence creates a revolving door of homelessness, where the same people flow in and out of jails, shelters, and hospitals until eventually they end up in the morgue. The only way that is going to stop is with a little bit of paternalism and a lot of accountability. It may be unpleasant, but our society is quite sick, and sometimes the cure to that which ails us is not pleasant. It can be quite bitter.