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This is a letter in response to Rep Tom Brower and the sledgehammer shopping cart drama.

Rep Brower’s efforts got a lot of reaction from people.

Well guess what? His actions are very symbolic of the overall way we and our government treat homeless people to begin with.

Did his actions offend you? If they did, then good!

Stop complaining about the homeless, stop creating more artificial barriers for them to overcome, and start helping them in their individual situations.

I like Tom, I’ve known him for years now. Not sure exactly what he was thinking with this one, but maybe he was just trying to finally get your attention?

I do know Tom has been trying for years to actually address some of the problems and is constantly met with resistance. Tom was one of the first lawmakers about seven years ago to introduce options called “safe zones” where the homeless could have a location to go to and get a good night sleep.

Fact: There is not enough room in the shelters for everyone.

If everyone decided to go, most would get turned away, and some of the shelters already have waiting lists as long as 2 or 3 months to get in. Yet Tom was met with almost complete opposition on his effort.

We all conveniently blame the homeless for a variety of issues, but the bottom line is that it is OUR fault. Your neighborhood smell like urine? Well what did you expect. We have no public bathrooms anywhere. Restaurants sell food without without even offering people a chance to wash their hands before they eat. That’s disgusting.

But regarding shopping carts, has anyone noticed how many people are employed by Costco just to gather and return shopping carts to the front door? Last time I was there I counted eight people on cart duty. That’s about $100 an hour in payroll.

Do you have any idea how much money that drives our prices up in a years time? We complain about the homeless having carts, yet we don’t complain that collectively we are all too damn lazy to be bothered to return our shopping cart. We just leave it jammed up on the curb wherever we are.

At closing, you can see crews of employees at Costco and other stores scouring the neighborhood to gather up shopping carts left at bus stops, on street corners, behind buildings; all wheeled off by people who were too lazy to carry their items in their hands.

Stop blaming the homeless for situations that you helped to create. And stop creating situations that allow us to conveniently blame the homeless.

Want to find the source of the problem? It’s us!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Curtis Kropar is the executive director of Hawaiian Hope, a Technology-based nonprofit organization.

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