While I was out with our fantastic volunteers cleaning up encampment litter at Veteran’s Memorial Park in Port Orchard on June 27th, I received the following email. It’s not the first time I’ve had similar messages, not by a long shot, so I thought it would be prudent for me to put our response on the record.

All of these messages have a few things in common:

• There is never any way to have real discourse - you’ll note the lack of real email or name in the image

• No statement of experience, education, or literature to back up their statements - because there simply isn’t any, the research is clear not to say anything of the personal testimony from any person active in serving our neighbors.

• I won’t say always, because I have had this challenge addressed to me in person, but this assertion almost always happens through some impersonal medium. And when it does happen in person, there is no intent toward discourse, learning, or even educating.

If you truly believe in the “magnet theory” then why wouldn’t you own it? Try to change my mind, stop what I’m doing. Speak to me in person, share your name and email so we can have a discussion. Worst case scenario: neither one of us grows. But it’s far more likely that one or both of us learn and change from the discussion.

Since I can’t, logically, conclude that there is any reliable educational honesty behind these assertions (due to the general lack of commitment to the discussion, lack of evidence, and my own experience), I have to assume there are other motives for people going out of their way to reach me with this message. As with most irrational assertions, I suspect that it boils down to fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of a perceived threat to one’s own safety/status, fear of change. Related to this fear, though perhaps representing its own motive, this “magnet theory” is used as a scapegoat to avoid direct action toward a seriously overwhelming problem. It’s a way to escape reality by grasping at a policy-related argument that’s hard to refute in the moment because of its complexity. The complexity and conclusions resulting from this debunked myth are also perfect justifications for not taking action to address what should be one of the highest priorities for every person in a society experiencing the extremities of homelessness seen throughout Washington.

That said, just because the myth itself is based in fear and/or escapism, the feelings themselves aren’t necessarily invalidated. Fear, in any of its forms, can be one of the most compelling motivators we experience. That’s why I felt compelled to state our philosophy here for the record. If people take the time to send a message, maybe they’ll stumble on our response.

I highly recommend the following book examining the very long history of homelessness and the varied efforts - as well as incessant repetition of completely baseless ideas like the “magnet theory” - that have been explored in response to homelessness: Down and Out on the Road: The Homeless in American History by Kenneth L Kusmer.

My honest response to this “magnet theory” challenge, however naive it might be, is to ask “how amazing would it be to create a community through which people could be filtered out of homelessness and poverty and back into security, health, and peace?” The very thing being complained about is exactly my best-case-scenario dream, while at the same time being a complete fabrication based on no truth whatsoever. Please! Give me the resources to serve people so well that they pack up their tents and leave whatever support structures they still have in place along with everything they know just to pilgrimage to my little non-profit to be saved from the hell that is homelessness. I can’t tell you what I would do to have that reality but it is simply a fabrication of scared people overwhelmed by the suffering they see, or strive to not see, in their neighbors.

Even if I concede that there may be a tipping point beyond which such a magnetic effect would occur to some degree, say I become a billionaire overnight for example, homelessness is such a complicated problem that it can’t be fixed with money alone…not that I wouldn’t try my darnedest. There would be countless reasons for people to not seek out my direct aid in this circumstance. Even if the varied and complicated resources did exist to create this magnet effect, then the homeless population still wouldn’t increase because this dream system would be decreasing it. As soon as the system started failing and the people started crowding, the influx would stop and a balance would be struck right around where it always is locally…though some of the neighboring towns and many individual people would be very grateful for the success. There are many systemic things that cause homelessness but providing people resources to extricate themselves from the cycle is absolutely not one of them.

The “magnet theory” is simply flawed from the ground up.