Unhoused people deserve compassion, not dehumanization

To the Editor:
We are deeply saddened by the mass shooting at two homeless encampments in Minneapolis on Monday, September 15. Eight people were wounded, at least three with life threatening injuries. In the last year, stigma about our most vulnerable Vermonters and Americans has increased to dangerous levels across our state and country. This puts people experiencing homelessness at extreme risk. In response to the shooting, victims were not offered grief counseling, shelter or support for the trauma, rather their encampments were cleared and their belongings taken by the city and thrown away. This type of dehumanizing response, when we are seeing gun deaths in large numbers across the country, is deeply disturbing. 
In the wake of Trump’s executive order criminalizing people experiencing homelessness and suggesting forced institutionalization of those most vulnerable, this mass shooting cannot go unnoticed. So many people here in Vermont and across our country are victims of the housing crisis. We are so worried about our unsheltered neighbors. We must turn the tide of this stigma taking place in our country toward those experiencing homelessness. We must lean away. 
It is alarming to me that there has been almost no public statements or outrage in the wake of this mass shooting. We can not allow ourselves as a country or as a state to dehumanize people for any reason and certainly not on the basis of living with a disability or economic status. I fear that the stigmatization of people experiencing homelessness that has been fed right here at home and across the country, could lead to more violence and harm directed at these valuable residents of our state and citizens of our country. 
At End Homelessness Vermont, we invite our elected leaders, municipalities and communities to join us in strongly condemning the mass shooting in two homeless encampments in Minneapolis. Together we can rise against dangerous rhetoric directed at people experiencing homelessness and instead join together in a solution that keeps people continuously sheltered, until they are permanently housed. Now more than ever we must lean into compassion and solutions, rather than hate, violence, and fear. 
Brenda Siegel
Executive Director
End Homelessness 
       Vermont
Burlington