I was passing the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park when I saw my friend K.C. standing under artist Ai Weiwei’s “Iron Tree Trunk.” 

The 16-foot-tall sculpture is cast from individual pieces of wood united to replicate a centuries-old tree from the dissident artist’s native Jiangxi Province in southeast China.

“Weiwei wanted to show how diverse cultures came together in China’s rush to industrialization,” K.C. said as I approached. 

“It’s a metaphor for what could happen here, but probably won’t,” he added.

“Hold on,” I said. “What could happen here?”

“Diverse cultures coming together with a solution for Des Moines’ homeless,” K.C. said with a wry smile.”

“Homelessness is a growing problem, not just in Des Moines but across the country. It’s only going to get worse,” he added.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought the Des Moines City Council solved the problem when it passed a law making it illegal to sleep on public property.”

“That’s what they want you to think,” K.C. said. 

“To show how kind-hearted they are,” he added with another wry smile, “the council cut the fine for illegal sleeping from $150 to $15. They also said they’ll store homeless people’s tents and other belongings at the city’s service center on Maury Street for 30 days, after police confiscate them.”

“I have my doubts about how effective any of this will be for homeless people without transportation,” he added.

“The whole thing sounds like a dumb idea,” I said. “What does the City Council hope to accomplish, beyond creating a bunch of paperwork for bureaucrats?”

“The city wants to get the homeless out of downtown,” K.C. said. “They got a lot of pushback from downtown business owners. Maybe they think they can push the problem into the suburbs.” 

“They refuse to see the problem for what it really is,” he said.

“And what is that?” I asked.

“Simple,” he replied, “it’s a housing problem. You’d think we’d have realized that by now. 

“In fact, there is a book called ‘Homelessness Is a Housing Problem’ by a couple of writers from the University of Washington. Seattle has wrestled with the problem a lot longer than we have. One of the authors is an expert on housing policy and the other is a data guru. 

“They say that when housing occupancy reaches 95%, rising levels of homelessness follow. Ninety-five percent is about where we are now. 

“Des Moines has been studying the problem for a while,” K.C. continued. “But the city is not addressing it head-on. The stuff they’re doing won’t solve the problem. It’ll just push it from one location to another. And in the meantime, it gets worse and destroys more lives.

“A lot of people think being homeless is a personal choice, which is a bunch of hooey,” he said. 

“Drake University interviewed 150 homeless people last winter and asked if they preferred living on the street. Only two said they did. Others said they were on the street because they didn’t feel safe in shelters or couldn’t follow the rules, which usually means they had a substance abuse problem.” 

“Building more affordable housing is the only long-term solution, but it takes time to build up a housing stock,” K.C. said.

“In the meantime, we need everything from more public toilets to more shelters with on-site services. We need more group homes. We need people to understand the problem, rather than get up in arms when a group home moves into their neighborhood. 

“When we get all of that and more affordable housing, then we’ll have built something like this,” K.C. said, pointing to the Iron Tree: “divergent cultures that come together for a higher purpose.”