Super Eco

Photo credit: PinkMoose, flickr

Cities across the U.S are sprouting shantytowns that are mushrooming up everywhere and are very reminiscent of Depression-era Hoovervilles. Maybe even in your city. In Fresno, California, a city of half a million bordering the great market basket that is the Central Valley and no stranger to migrant workers, it's estimated that 2000 homeless live in tent cities and lean-to's hastily erected in vacant fields, including many people that have jobs and were—up until recently—able to afford housing.

It's a growing problem, one that President Obama decries as "not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours."

It's one thing to say "it's a problem" and "it's not acceptable" and another thing to do something about it. While homelessness has always been part of the fabric of urban life, it's a larger and more pervasive condition today. People living in temporary housing need sanitary facilities. They need clean water. They need food. They are part of and affect the environment, and as such all of us are inextricably connected: those of us with homes and those of us without.

Yes, we can help by providing decent shelter, at relatively low cost. But what about the rest? Creating communities that are viable and self-supporting seems to be the direction to head in, as difficult as it might be to change direction in ways that will affect every one of us. And it won't be too soon for more and more of us every day. But I could do with less, I think, so that someone else could have more. Couldn't we start that way?