I spent last night working overnight as a volunteer at the local homeless shelter. Our church is one of five who take turns hosting the shelter in their basements or church halls for one or two weeks at a time during the coldest part of each winter. I live in a relatively small city (population approximately 27,000) and while we are slightly south of the Mason Dixon line, and winters are generally mild, when the temperatures drop into the 30’s, as they invariable do during the month of January, I certainly wouldn’t want to sleep outdoors.

I don’t mention this to impress anyone, nor is that the reason that I do it. I do it because it is too easy not to. I do it because it is one of the few ways that I have found to continually remind myself of the central reality of our lives, that being, “There but for the Grace of GOD go I.”

Most of all, however, I do it because it is all to easy to sit at home, warm and comfortable, thinking myself the master of my own universe, while I debate the best ways to throw money at the problem of Homelessness – either by taxing people to fund big government solutions, or by funding Faith Based Initiatives; an action that some see as a bigger threat to America and the First Amendment to the Constitution than the winter cold is to the homeless.

I do it because it is easy to throw money at a problem, but what is truly difficult is to get out of your comfortable lifestyle and see how your fellow man truly lives.

Try it some time. These are not animals. They are men just like you and I. You can talk to them like you would your friends; you can play chess or cards with them like you would your family; you can show them respect like you would any other community elder, but for many of us that can be a disquieting realization. Why do I have a good job and a nice home? Why are these men sleeping in a Shelter? As Christians, we believe that we are all made in GOD’s image, and sometimes it is useful to remind ourselves of that fact by spending time with those who have seen misfortune, knowing how easily this could be us or a friend or a family member. The greatest gift that we have is our humility, and as Christ himself said, “He who would be greatest among you must be servant of all.”

I can say one thing for sure, and that is that after listening to men talk about how much they wanted to get their lives back, anyone who can intellectually rationalize legalizing drugs has never personally spent any time in a Homeless Shelter. Likewise, anyone who thinks of drug use as victimless crimes has never spent any time in a Homeless Shelter.

No one wants to be a drug addict, and it both breaks your heart and steels your resolve to see people who have been brought low by addiction, who are clearly trying their hardest to fight their way back to the world of the living, and know how close they are to sinking back into complete oblivion.

There are obviously many different causes of homelessness and no simple solutions, but if we look to Six Sigma problem solving techniques, you don’t try to fix every problem simultaneously. Instead, you look for small gains coupled with continuous improvement, apply leadership to attack one aspect of the overall problem, fix it and then re-evaluate.

Based on my personal observations, a good first step would be to attack the flow of illegal drugs.

Not by legalizing drugs, and certainly not by punishing the victims, but rather by adopting a zero tolerance policy for Drug Dealers with stiff fines and jail time, and by enforcing the borders.

Isn’t it amazing how many problems we could help solve if we could only find the political will to control our borders. There are so many things that should not be coming over the border, whether terrorists, illegal immigrants, or illegal drugs, and each poses its own unique threat to our safety, security, and the fabric of our society. Just as no sane person would legalize terrorism, we should not legalize drugs, and we should also not legalize (either directly or through amnesty) uncontrolled immigration.

There is no one who would argue that a house without exterior walls is in fact a house, and if the United States does not control its borders, eventually we will all be homeless.