I was taking to a friend about anti-homeless laws, and he put it perfectly:
“It’s a huge issue in our society - at the individual level and at the community level - that so many people genuinely believe it’s harder to exist near those who are struggling than it is to BE someone who’s struggling.”
If you're living alongside homeless people it's much more difficult to believe that they're fundamentally different than you, and that reminds you you could easily become homeless yourself, and that forces you to confront the terrifying precarity of your life, and then you might have to do something
So many people, in Portland at least, put all focus on drug use and talk like it's the thing making and keeping every homeless person homeless. Anything to tell yourself that it couldn't be you.
the dissolving of the demarcated lines, the eroding of boundaries, terrifies us.
when the rules no longer govern life, when the scripts for success are plagiarized, when we’re sold a shady bill of goods..
well. time to repaint the white picket fence, bolster the American dream.
American scream.
Many people don't see the homeless as full humans. We've been taught to attach our jobs, wealth, citizenship, race, etc... to our self-esteem to the degree that our very humanity is tied to having a roof over us. Thinking of them as peers suffering under the system we benefit from is difficult.
There’s a lovely French film, if a bit naive (well, it’s a bitter sweet comedy), from 1991, “Une Époque Formidable…” that explores the precarity of everyone situation and how homelessness is never far
some years back, pre-pandemic, I was living in the unfinished basement of a house directly across the way from Lents Park (PDX).
i had an epiphany there. only thing separating me from the folks living in/around the park was a pane of glass. that’s it.
we are the same.
Capitalism 101. Shield the ruling class from understanding the full impact of their wealth. Create bias so no one has to contemplate the impact of low prices and massive corporate profits.
You're forgetting, use the unhoused as a constant reminder to those on the bottom rungs on the socioeconomic ladder that they do indeed have much to lose, thus keeping their anxiety permanently ratcheted to 11.
Yes I left the fear factor out of the equation.
It’s also paired with the false promise that the plebs can eventually become rich. You’re not poor, you’re just pre-rich. But also do what you’re told or you’ll end up as ONE OF THEM.
Ironically enough, this appalling absence of empathy is inevitably self-destructive because most Americans are one bad day from being homeless themselves.
Oh totally. People are so brainwashed they don't realize how precarious their lives are right now. I can guarantee you they'll be shocked to find there's no housing available for them when wildfire destroys their homes or when their landlord decides to evict them for whatever reason they want.
Too many people fall into the trap of thinking of homelessness as a "moral failure" as opposed to a systematic problem. Sanctimonious scolds who promote their cruelty as virtuous. It's sick.
It is sick. It's a very white middle and upper class thing. Before I started working with a housing agency that places formerly homeless folks into housing, I thought the same way. It took years for it to become clear how many ways someone could become homeless. I made this graphic some time ago.
Some years ago the local scout group held a sponsored outdoor sleepover to raise money for a homeless project.
In the morning they camped outside the village shop (with permission) to raise more money.
Some of the wealthier residents couldn’t even make eye contact with them. Speaks volumes 😢
I made the mistake of reading one of the articles earlier and people were like "how dare the city permit homeless people to exist near me, don't they know there are children in this neighbourhood?" and I nearly threw something
i was talking about this earlier!!! that it’s so frustrating hearing people complain about like, people going through trash and that they feel like castle doctrine should be enforceable on dumpsters bc the have to Leave Their House and see it
it’s the one thing that ANYtime i hear someone complain about homeless mess or literally any aspect beyond “it’s bad that people are forced to live on the streets bc our system feeds off it and we should do what we can to stop that from being the case” i’ll get aggro about it
I suspect it’s because they fear that poverty is contagious.
Right-wing conservatives like to preach that poverty is a moral failing rather than one of bad luck. For many in the USA, beyond the circumstances of their birth, the biggest predictor of poverty is a mental health issue or medical bills
In the same way that they believe that being poor is a moral judgment against you, they believe that wealth is proof of divine blessing and moral fibre - regardless of what they had to do to gather their hoard like the greedy wyrms that they are.
