What do we take for granted?

Until this summer, I didn’t really understand the anxiety, stress and complexity of living without a fixed address, a.k.a. homelessness.

My family and I are temporarily displaced due to a major home renovation. So once work is done, we’ll move back in, and life will proceed normally. But during the interim, our life has been turned upside down.

First, we had to determine what to do with our pets: three house cats, one dog and barn cats. Two cats found temporary foster homes, and our neighbors have helped feed and water the barn cats. The dog and one house cat have traveled with us to a couple of relatives’ homes.

But as school approaches, my teacher husband and student daughter both need to be close to home. So we’ve checked into a local retreat center and have boarded the dog and cat with our vet, where we make regular visits.

Additionally, we’ve had to figure out where to store possessions and pick up mail. We’ve had to plan and pack every essential for maintaining household business as well as back-to-school. Since I work out of a home office, I had to be sure I traveled with information and items I need for current projects. It takes extra energy to complete the usual tasks simply because we have no fixed location and no routine. It has been a logistical nightmare.

But I have an end in sight. What if I didn’t?

Since the financial crisis, homelessness in America has increased. Financial security for many working families has become tenuous at best, and many of us are only one emergency away from disaster. Are we honest with ourselves about that?

A recent article by Jeff Tietz in Rolling Stone Magazine, “The Sharp, Sudden Decline of America’s Middle Class,” profiles several homeless individuals living in Santa Barbara, California under the city’s Safe Parking Program. This program offers overnight parking permits to people living in vehicles.

The people Tietz interviewed were formerly middle class working men and women like Janis Adkins, who owned a nursery business in Moab, Utah when the Great Recession hit. With business declining by 50 percent and land values dropping drastically, she needed to refinance to keep her business. But no bank would work with her, and she lost everything. Now living out of her vehicle, she seeks work having 40 years of experience on her resume. Yet employers learn of her homelessness and assume it’s her fault; there must be something wrong with her. Such discrimination is common and resembles attitudes about welfare recipients.

Adkins and the other people profiled also brought to mind attending Griswold Community School’s annual Veterans Day Program last November when my neighbor, who works for the Veteran’s Administration, mounted the stage to accept a collection of donated paper products and toiletries for homeless veterans. It was a revelation to learn the large numbers of homeless veterans living across the country. Perhaps most disturbing was her suggestion that as we drive through the Omaha metro, we look beneath clusters of trees because such protected areas were likely home to some veterans. How can these people live so openly among us, yet be unseen?

So as I temporarily wrestle with “homelessness” I wonder when we’ll understand it could be any of us. And when will we quit judging and begin fighting for policies and programs that support all of us.