When it comes to homelessness in Lexington, we need to fix the problems ‘upstream.’

When Archbishop Desmond Tutu passed away, a number of articles about him included this quotation:

“We need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

What does that mean for Lexington? Right now, homelessness is on my mind.

People complain to me, and rightly so, about people living on our streets, hanging out during the day, camping out at night. It’s not right that people live like this, they tell me. It’s a health risk, they tell me. It’s bad for them and it’s bad for the city, they tell me. Fix it, they tell me.

Okay. We’ll fix it. We just need your help.

First, please understand that what we see on the streets is in good part the result of policy decisions at both the state and federal level that contribute to the problem. Many of these policies we cannot change at the local level. I’ll cite just two.

Start with the minimum wage. Not raised at the federal level since 2009. Never raised above the federal level in Kentucky. Never. Our successful efforts to raise the minimum wage locally were rejected by the courts. As a result, we have thousands of people in our community working one or more minimum wage jobs who cannot afford market-rate housing. So, in Lexington we create an Affordable Housing Fund and invest millions of dollars subsidizing the building and maintenance of affordable housing. Numerous non-profits work to address the need as well. Still, the need exceeds the supply. Some people working low-wage jobs end up homeless.

Next consider mental illness. Keeping people with serious mental illness out of institutions began in the 1950’s. The change in approach to mental illness was well-intentioned and considered to be more humane. The change was supposed to be coupled with support services that would enable people with mental illness to live successfully in the community. Those with mental illness came back into our community, or remained in our community, but the level of support they needed to function well has never been provided at the state and federal level. So, we invest millions of local government and non-profit dollars in social services and a shelter system to try and fill the gap. Still, some people dealing with mental illness end up homeless and on our streets.

Actions, or failures to act, have consequences. We see now on our streets exactly what we would expect to see as a result of decades of these and other bad policy decisions at the state and federal level. These policy decisions leave us on the local level to do our best to pull people out of the river.

I know that our job—local government and non-profits—is to continue to address homelessness and related issues as best we can. I also know that we cannot fix these problems without changing the underlying causes. That’s where you come in.

If you don’t like what you’re seeing, let your representatives at the state and federal level hear your concerns. Urge them to acknowledge and address the underlying causes that result in more and more people unable to afford decent housing, more and more people living vulnerable and marginal lives, more and more people ending up living on the streets in our community, more and more people, in the words of Archbishop Tutu, “falling in the river” upstream.

Steve Kay is vice mayor of Lexington.