Will there be homeless people in Heaven? Who cares?

Will there be homeless people in Heaven? Who cares? Whoa! A two-part question. And trick questions at that? The correct answers are yes/no and yes. Huh? The answers may very well depend on how you read the question. And how you view life – or don’t. Are you up for this?

I ask because of something I read in The Detroit News. An article titled, More older Americans at risk of a homeless retirement.

Unless you’ve been hibernating for the last couple of years, you know the sad reality of homelessness in what we call the greatest country in the world. Maybe it is, if you’re one of the fortunate ones who has enough money to have a place to live and buy good food.

Before the stimulus payments that most Republicans, (that may be you if you’re a conservative Christian), more than 14 percent of the people in America lived in poverty. That doesn’t mean they could afford good food or a decent home. That number is even higher. Our measure of poverty is strictly monetary and has nothing at all to do with quality of life.

After those payments, which most Republicans thought were wasted, the number dropped below 10 percent. Certainly, the ones who had their quality of life lifted above something most of us wouldn’t want to experience, didn’t think that money was wasted.

I don’t mean to single out Republicans here. It’s just that statistically speaking, conservative Christians are far more likely to be Republican than Democrat. It’s also, for whatever reason, far more likely that Democrats support policies to help poor and homeless people compared to Republicans.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. That’s the second question. Who cares? At this point, I just point out, most Republicans, including lots of conservative Christians, seem to be among those who don’t care.

Homelessness in America

Here’s how the article started off.

Karla Finocchio’s slide into homelessness began when she split with her partner of 18 years and temporarily moved in with a cousin.

The 55-year-old planned to use her $800-a-month disability check to get an apartment after back surgery. But she soon was sleeping in her old pickup protected by her German Shepherd mix Scrappy, unable to afford housing in Phoenix, where median monthly rents soared 33% during the coronavirus pandemic to over $1,220 for a one-bedroom, according to ApartmentList.com.

Finocchio is one face of America’s graying homeless population, a rapidly expanding group of destitute and desperate people 50 and older suddenly without a permanent home after a job loss, divorce, family death or health crisis during a pandemic.

As the sign in the image at the top says – “once I was like you“.

Think about it. She couldn’t afford to own a house. Can you?

Her rent went up 33% over the past two years. Can you afford a rent increase like that? Or, if you’re fortunate to own a home, can you afford a one-third increase in your mortgage payment?

But we’re not done yet. If you’re one of the substantial numbers of people who can’t afford that kind of increase, what are you going to give up? And don’t forget, lots of other prices went up as well. So the question just got harder. What are you going to give up, with the price of everything going up?