Set your privilege aside and help South Carolina’s homeless residents

My fingers were cold when I typed this, my toes colder. That was despite wearing two pairs of socks, shoes and a sweatshirt indoors.

I was sitting in my Myrtle Beach home during one of the worst cold snaps of winter. A part in our HVAC unit had recently died, and because of supply chain problems, the part that would normally take no more than a day to reach us took more than a week, providing me just enough time to remember something I try not to take for granted: privilege.

The privilege to not freeze to death.

We had options. During that week, I drove my truck to Lowe’s and bought several bundles of overpriced wood and kindling. My wife, son and daughter and I huddled around the fireplace, watched TV under a couple of layers of cozy blankets, ordered out, played spades, and put the Christmas tree and decorations away.

We bought a couple of small electric heaters and quickly returned one of them, replacing it with one much larger, more powerful. We bought more bundles of overpriced wood and kindling. We spent a couple of nights in a nice-warm hotel with a fireplace we didn’t even need to use. We bought more bundles of overpriced wood and kindling upon returning home. And, we always had the option of staying with family or friends for a few days.

It was one long week of inconvenience – though nothing like what I know the homeless and nearly-homeless in Myrtle Beach, across South Carolina and just about everywhere else were experiencing during the cold snap, and will be again during the next winter storm.

A lifetime ago, I spent a few winter nights on the streets in Myrtle Beach with homeless men who scrounged for food in nearby Dumpsters and warmth in the dark of parking garages while trying to hide from police officers.

I’ve represented children in Family Court whose lives teeter-tottered between the warmth of a bed in a homeless shelter and the cold as their families struggled to make ends meet. I’ve mentored teenagers whose existences were similar.

I grew up in a tin can of a mobile home which nearly burnt to the ground because of the wood stove we used to heat the place. Not too long ago, my wife and I were shuffling through couch cushions to find enough coins to pay for gas.

But I’m no longer in the cohort of Americans who would find it difficult to scrounge up $400 in an emergency, and it feels… odd.

The idea of privilege for a Black dude who grew up in the heart of the Deep South in the shadow of Jim Crow doesn’t quite fit.

And yet, it’s true nonetheless.

Maybe because privilege should never have been used to describe what should be basic rights. A right to not freeze to death in the middle of winter. A right not to starve. A right to live in a society that so cherishes the “least of these” even the least of these aren’t left at serious risk when the temperature drops.

There are those of us privileged enough to not be overly concerned about dangers many in our midst face.

Our inconvenience is their potential death sentence.

We have choices they don’t, including options we don’t even consider until the blower on the HVAC unit goes quiet.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to wait until the next hurricane to pull together to do better by them.

That could be as little as providing a warm coat to someone who can’t afford one when they need it most.

Issac Bailey is a columnist for The Sun News.

This story was originally published January 23, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Set your privilege aside and help South Carolina’s homeless residents."