“Why are you spending so much time with these unhoused ex coworkers of yours? Aren’t there shelters, aren’t there services for them?”
Let me explain to you how shelters and services work for unhoused people
First you have to know where to go. If you don’t have a laptop, a phone with a browser, or access to a library’s internet, how are you going to find local services?
I tried knocking on church doors when I was homeless and I got turned away almost everywhere
Second, let’s say you find a day shelter, a cooling center
You have to get there. Do you have a car? No? A bike? Also no. Can you figure out the bus system and do you have bus fare?
There are probably some social workers at the day shelter. They probably have about 50-100 cases assigned to them. Get in line
“Your” social worker may call you (again, hope you have a phone) and tell you they have 30 minutes for you. Can you get there fast enough? Hope you didn’t have other plans
Will the social workers at the day shelter help you get a drivers license or state ID? Maybe
Will the social workers help you find jobs that fit your physical, mental, and emotional abilities? They will certainly SAY that they will. Mostly they will refer you to local restaurants for dishwashing
“Housing! Aren’t there housing programs???”
Yeah there’s a decade-long waiting list you can get on, if you meet all the qualifications. One of the qualifications is often having a full time job
Full time jobs for people without ID and cars are hard to find
“Aren’t there like free apartments or tiny houses?”
They do not hand those things out like Halloween candy. As an unhoused person, you have to both EARN every scrap you are given, and get incredibly lucky by finding a social worker who personally likes you
The shelter systems all over this country are designed to kill unhoused people by attrition and neglect
Hang on, hope, jump through the hoops, wash dishes until your hands bleed, let a social worker keep 80% of your paycheck, and you can die on a waiting list
So I try to help my unhoused former coworkers. I took them to doctor appointments when one broke their foot. Now one has bronchitis and needs antibiotics. They are sleeping in a park by day and walking around town at night, carrying all their belongings in a broken wagon
1. Seize vacant houses and convert office space into full fledged apartments. No more of this hot plate and a twin mattress bullshit
2. Direct aid. That means money. Give unhoused people money
3. If you don’t have money, give time and effort
I have a nephew who is unhoused (through his own bad decisions which he is still resisting being responsible for). I also have a vacant house next door that has been vacant since before Covid started; it’s so overgrown that deer have moved into the back yard. These things should not both be going on
it’s awful. and the shelters in los angeles where i used to live, a lot of them were horrible conditions, unlivable conditions. and had many rules like curfews that would prevent people from working if they wanted a spot. some people would rather be anywhere else than the shelters
And it’s not illogical to want to avoid the shelter system. Autonomy, privacy, the right to make choices, all that goes out the window when you’re in a shelter
yeah, it sucks that all the choices are bad and hard to find
getting resources of information is hard. may 2020 i was doing pandemic aid and a ton of los angeles homeless people had no idea we were in a pandemic. we did what we could but it wasn’t a solution to the underlying problems
