A Question of Priorities

Every once in a while I get slapped upside the head with evidence of how screwed up our priorities are. That’s what happened this morning.

I’m probably just sensitive to the issue because I’m knee deep in writing a grant proposal for street outreach funding. It’s taking weeks out of my life as I labor over the best way to present years of work by hundreds of paid staff and volunteers in a manner persuasive enough to convince the grant reviewers to award $100,000.00 out of the $8,400,000.00 available nation-wide. Programs lucky enough to win this national competition will be able to keep offering the most challenging of services to most in need and difficult to reach population on a budget that can be generously described as a shoe string.

Yet the big news in Portland this morning is that we won a lottery. I have to confess, I’m not a huge sports fan – so I don’t know that much about basketball. I do know that our local team, the Trailblazers, has had a few rough years, and that against long odds they just won first pick in a draft lottery – meaning they’re going to get to bring some big time player to Portland. The pick hasn’t been made yet, but everyone is all excited about who it may be. Predictions of what a great year is ahead for the team are sucking up all the media air time. And, based on these predictions of a great season, the Trailblazers ticket office just announced that yesterday – in less than 23 hours – they made over $2,500,000.00 in advance ticket sales.

Look, I don’t begrudge people their basketball. I just get frustrated when people tell me there’s no money to significantly impact the lives of runaway and homeless youth, and then I see the community cough up in a single day 25 times the amount of money I’m begging for, and nearly 30% of all the money available for street outreach for the entire nation for the entire year. It just makes me question our priorities a bit.