Increasingly squeezed between policies that deny them shelter and laws that criminalize their efforts to shelter themselves, the homeless are something of a moral blind spot in many communities. The problem, according to PNS commentator Peter Marin, is not lack of knowledge, but lack of will to speak out. Marin is a writer living in Santa Barbara who has spent much of the last 15 years advocating for the homeless.

It is pleasant these chill November mornings to wake snug in bed, go outside for the paper, then return to a warm room and hot coffee.

It is easy to forget that at that very moment thousands of our fellow citizens have struggled all night with the elements, sleeping and waking on hard ground and in cold air, often ill with one of the cold-weather diseases which strike the homeless -- pleurisy, pneumonia, tuberculosis.

Here in California, that is the situation in many communities. A program that made National Guard armories available for use as shelters has ended yet city and county officials dither and stall, shelters have not opened -- and the homeless remain on the streets, unprotected and without aid of any kind.

At the same time, most California communities rigorously enforce laws that prevent the homeless from sheltering themselves. Put anything between yourself and the ground -- sleeping bag, blanket, even a piece of cardboard -- and you break "anti-camping" or "anti-sleeping" laws. Similar laws forbid anyone sleeping the night through in a car or camper. Those who seek safety in or near public buildings are rousted and cited for trespassing.

Indeed, the laws literally require the homeless to expose themselves to the cold and the rain.

What does it mean to have laws that deny shelter to the homeless and at the same time punish them for sheltering themselves? There is a sort of insanity at work, a moral and intellectual stupidity so immense, so cruel, that it is hard to understand.

Yet we allow these policies to stand. In city after city, cheap places to live steadily give way to high-rise, high-living, and business- or tourist-oriented development. More and more people on the streets have nowhere to go, no protection -- yet no cry arises from those who live in relative safety.

This silence is morally intolerable.

Are we too accustomed to the suffering of the homeless to try to prevent it? Do we somehow class the homeless as different -- or have we simply become moral morons?

Results of the recent elections had liberals and Democrats exultant, but what difference does it make if all parties remain morally equivalent in their indifference to the indigent? Can it be that all of us share that indifference, that our nearly universal silence erases political distinctions?

There are workers on the streets, but where are the unions in all of this? There are women and children, but where are the organizations dedicated to protecting women from violence? The homeless are daily denied fundamental rights, but where is the ACLU?

Indeed, on any given day these groups are conspicuous by their silence.

The homeless are powerless on their own -- simply because they are homeless. Those who speak for them have become entertainers of a sort -- their arguments are predictable, and discounted in advance. For things to change, ordinary citizens must speak up for the disenfranchised. Until they do, things will remain the same -- or get worse.

Permanent winter shelter is an absolute necessity in every community, and year-round shelter only slightly less crucial. Where sufficient shelter is not offered, justice requires suspending all those laws that prevent people from sheltering themselves.

How is this to come about? If only a few of those who find present policies abominable, or feel even slightly the suffering of others, would raise their voices on behalf of the poor and against present policy, changes might in fact occur.

The problem is not that people are indifferent to suffering, but that those who care about it all too often remain silent. Of course, we all have other bigger and better causes to worry about. We all struggle on our own to survive. But these are our communities. These are our laws. The fate of every man or woman unprotected from winter rest in our own hands.