First off, in spite of what many people think, this is not in the Bible. In fact, the Bible mostly contradicts this idea. According to Solomon, “Those who trust in themselves are fools.” The overall narrative of scripture suggests that God mostly helps those who are helpless. God, in the book of Isaiah, is “refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat.”
In the context of homelessness, this slogan is a common refrain. “People are homeless or poor because they are not trying hard enough.” “I’m not going to help someone until they show me they are willing to earn it!”
This myth is not just harmful to people experiencing poverty, it is harmful to all of us. Our world is obsessed with the “self help” myth. At C@P, we believe that the root cause of homelessness is a lack of healthy and supportive relationships.
In order to pursue long-term stability, people need to have a safe place from which to do that. They also need supportive relationships. Lacking either of those, people are going to struggle to find and maintain employment, housing, health care and all of the things that lead to stability.
In his book, The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté writes, “We are steeped in the normalized myth that we are, each of us, mere individuals striving to attain private goals. The more we define ourselves that way, the more estranged we become from vital aspects of who we are and what we need to be healthy.”
Striving to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, trying to fix ourselves, especially when it comes to the big challenges of life, will only lead to burnout, failure, and isolation. Healing happens in community.
