We’re good people here in Big Horn County. We have lots of compassion and common sense wisdom. We like to think for ourselves. We don’t want the government or our neighbors to make decisions for us. We realize that our lives are connected with others and that helping our less fortunate neighbors is the right thing to do. This capacity to connect with people in need outside our immediate family is at the heart of our moral foundation here. We can do amazing things when given the chance.
Look at how we rallied to help our neighbors across the state line. At the beginning of this long winter, ranchers in South Dakota faced catastrophic losses. Some herds were almost totally wiped out by over two feet of snow that came on high winds, before animals were acclimatized to winter weather. With an instinctive common sense of what’s right and wrong, a large group of Montana ranchers knew exactly what to do. Money, resources and cows went to aid the less fortunate. No one held back with a perception that those South Dakota ranchers just made the wrong choices, or were lazy. We didn’t hear much about moral dilemmas in this case.
Now we’re dealing with a situation in our own back yard that is a little more complicated. Our declining housing resources and burgeoning demand in Big Horn County have faced off good people here into a difficult disagreement. It has to do with the rental property ordinance proposed in the recent Hardin city council meeting. There are moral issues on both sides. We know that it is dangerous and unhealthy for children to grow up in substandard housing. Children who are exposed to rodents and mold have astronomical rates of asthma. Exposed wires, holes, and lead paint are just accidents waiting to happen. We wouldn’t give kids kitchen knives and chainsaws to play with, and then blame them for getting hurt.
On the other hand, local rental property owners aren’t a bunch of slum lords. They’re not trying to exploit children and families. They are regular, decent people who are trying to balance their budgets. Sometimes renovating existing rentals isn’t economically feasible for them. If renters are concerned about safety issues, maybe they are the ones to look somewhere else for housing.
Both sides of this issue speak logically and support commonly held values.
Take, for example, a common scenario in Big Horn County. A tenant with young children demands corrections to living conditions and refuses to make rent payments. Yet that tenant has a history of delinquent payments and family members’ abuse of the living quarters. The land owner initiates legal process to evict the tenant. The tenant countersues to force the landlord to make the needed repairs. The court is stuck between two alternatives. But there is a third alternative in our moral foundation.
Recent appeals to legal action and objections to governmental oversight both darken the clouds obscuring that foundation. Sometimes law, with its threat-based system, undermines the basic human foundation of society: that of civility, trust, and commitment to the common good. If we use the power of law to uphold the common welfare of all, it works. But, too often, the popular use of law is to compensate for our inability to trust those we assume are enemies. It assumes life is about winners and losers, and ends up blinding us to the possibility of a good outcome for all.
We are obviously at loggerheads. Rather than focusing on reaching a solution that protects all, each side is consumed with digging out legal briefs to bolster their case. Instead of paying attention to real need and common possibilities for resolution we have become focused on winning the argument. Maybe it’s time to look into our moral foundation alternative, easily hidden in the fog of conflict.
We could start by sorting out the exact conflict. Is it really the concept of safe housing on which we disagree? Or is it over the path for ensuring safety? If finding a reasonable process toward safe housing is the problem, let’s find out how other communities do this. Perhaps there are alternate funding options available or strategies for increasing our overall supply of new/safe housing. Maybe there are legal options that would be less onerous for owners and still protect renters. Let’s explore all our options for resolution before we assume that our neighbors are out to get us. This will keep our houses and our community built on our moral foundation, as enshrined in both our Bible and our American Constitution.
There are many Bible stories depicting common sense compassionate trust. There are also scholarly resources addressing this in current poverty law nation wide. For Bible references, read all four gospels. Nearly everyone Jesus encounters is identified with either the elite powerful or the powerless poor. See how the rulers and the poor encounter Jesus differently, and what he expects of them for salvation.
Here are websites with information on the topic.
http://blog.tifwe.org/myths-of-poverty-wealth-free-enterprise/?gclid=CLjo5MnQib0CFbFFMgod5xoAmQ
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/academics/law-journals/poverty/index.cfm
http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/map-detail.aspx?state=Montana
http://www.cfra.org/newsletter/2012/06/hometown-housing-burnet-texas-model
http://www.cfra.org/news/130305/rural-montana-hurt-tax-holiday
http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/status-of-women-in-montana
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