By Adam Hill

It was the fifth anniversary of his assassination, and I was 7, when my aunt explained to me why she kept a framed portrait of Bobby Kennedy in her apartment.
“Because he was for the poor,” she said in a voice I still remember as strained with emotion. “Because nobody is for the poor, but he was.”
In a speech made a month before he was killed, Kennedy said, “There are children in the United States with bloated bellies and sores of disease on their bodies. … There are children in the United States who eat so little that they fall asleep in school and do not learn. We must act, and we must act now. … These are our responsibilities. If we cannot meet them, we must ask ourselves what kind of a country we really are? We must ask ourselves what we really stand for?”
He was a very large part of the reason why my aunt would become an inner-city social worker, and she was not alone in her inspiration. That was the late 1960s, early ‘70s. Who can say that today? Who can say they have been inspired into lifelong service to those in need by the words of a politician?
It is true that not many public officials, at least in their words, are against the poor, though there are many instances when generalizations about the poor lead to terrible policies with terrible consequences (e.g., Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton).
What is more often true is that most of us care about the poor in a very abstract way and usually seasonally. There are holiday giving campaigns. There are tax credits and naming rights and awards banquets. There are arguments over approaches that never fade away — more money or more incentives?
Every month, probably every week, there are meetings locally where people sit around conference tables noshing on cookies while talking seriously and sincerely about the poor.
The poor are the poor, the “them,” a collection of grim statistics and heart-rending documentary photos, and we don’t know how to truly , and sometimes we feel guilty because we have accepted extensive poverty as this deep-rooted fact of American life. And let’s face it, there is much public anxiety around people who are poor unless it occurs in cheerily managed situations of charity.
I don’t mean to be cynical, nor do I pretend to be holier-than-thou. My wife is the only person I know who is truly comfortable and engaged around people in conditions of wretched distress.
It is rare to find advocates of the indigent (or their bosses), who’ve spent much time in homeless encampments or impoverished slums because these places are scary and they make us feel ashamed.
And while there is no shortage of compassion in our culture, there is apaucity of honesty about what it takes, what it will take and what we all need to do to truly earn the right to feel wholly optimistic about the situation of poverty in our communities.
So we keep having meetings, keep trying out new programs and keep writing viewpoints, not yet admitting that there is more we don’t know and more we have deliberately shied away from knowing about a reality that quietly mocks our beautiful and happy community.
There is a book that some people in our community have read or are recommending; it’s called “Toxic Charity,” by Robert Lupton, an urban minister with more than 40 years of experience working on behalf of those in need. It’s a book we should not only read, but also that we need to discuss.
Because among many things missing in our community when it comes to helping the poor, is an honest and constructive public discourse. And until we start to have it, until we begin to lower our political and social prejudices and seek better means of measuring the outcomes of our efforts, we will all be “for the poor” in the mazy, co-dependent manner we have now nearly perfected.

Adam Hill is a 2-term 4th District County Supervisor. His wife, which he refers to, is Dee Torres, who has been working with the homeless for many years.