Vendor Writing

Homeless at Southwest Airlines

BY DANIEL H, CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

The end of the year 2022 is a memory many airline passengers will not forget, but not for good reasons. Many people have followed the news on the airline cancellations due to extreme weather. How will the fallout of expenses and the medical and mental health disruptions affect those involved?

According to MSNBC news, more than 13,000 flights were canceled due to extreme weather. One customer in Des Moines, Iowa, Mike Patel, said that he had seven family members stranded at the airport due to cancellations, and had to spend over $10,000 to get car rentals and hotels. According to reporting from Kansas City KSHB news, one passenger had nobody to help him, no money, and nowhere to go. Basically, this man was homeless, not by choice.

We, the homeless, experience the above situation on a daily basis. The only difference is the people at the airport have a transportation advocate named Pete Buttigieg (the U.S. Secretary of Transportation). He has offered to sue for over tens of thousands of dollars per passenger.

The airline cancellations are tragic, but temporary. We have no advocate for the homeless population who speaks for us in Washington? No one to sue for losses that we suffer on a daily basis. Each state should have a representative who specifically advocates for each of us for resources available. Homeless people are defenseless when it comes to where to turn for help. Tennessee even made a law to punish people with a felony for camping on state property. We are a society of people who are a direct result of the U.S. government refusing to see us as human beings and instead as social security numbers to be exploited.

Several years back I attended the annual day to remember homeless people who have passed in the year. The government of Tennessee offered its regrets and possible solutions that were repeated from years past. I listened. No one ever mentioned adoption. People adopt animals and children, why not homeless people? As homeless people they are entitled to food stamps, some mental health services, SSI or SSDI, and some work to meet their daily needs. Why has the state never offered to extend family services to the homeless population? With compensation to the families that are willing to take them in? The state could make conditions that each participant parkake in mental health services or drug rehabilitation prior to relocating them into a new family setting with continued services after adoption. Families would be compensated for a monthly expense allowance. Just like adopting children. This would give homeless people an opportunity to better themselves.

Being homeless should not declare who we are, but where we are going in our future.