"We're very concerned about the health and well being of those people being out in the elements," Poppe said. "We had an encampment set on fire, and we had a woman struck by a train."At least someone is willing to state that homelessness is not reducible to unwillingness to work. Most people who are left homeless either work or are eager to work but are held back for lack of the means of supporting a job (a legal place to get sleep and bath; mailing address and phone access; etc.). It' s mere fabrication to say most of the unhoused are lazy. What is conveniently and suspiciously omitted from public discourse is that hundreds of thousands of ordinary people are left without housing simply because wages haven't kept up with rent:
"The driver in homelessness is the affordable housing crisis," Roman said. "If we don't do something to address the crisis in affordable housing we are not going to solve homelessness."Of course, there are a myriad of solutions that could be applied promptly to make rent more affordable, at only a tiny expense to the wealthy elite if an expense at all in the long run. While it's tragic that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it more convenient to leave large number of "addicts" and "mentally ill" out on the streets, the less apparent tragedy is the pervasive generalization of "addict" or "mental illness." This erroneous label mischaracterizes and stigmatizes the majority of people left on the streets: the ordinary, sane, and sober. As a consequence of this erroneous generalization, hundreds of thousands of ordinary unhoused working families see their prospects and opportunities diminished. To be found-out (as homeless) is risk being denied or terminated from a job, to be presumed an "drunk," "junky," or "nutcase."
As long as the poor can point to and put down someone else, then even they can feel affluent. As long as the poor believe it is their own merit which keeps them afloat, then they put themselves increasingly at risk of dropping down to the lowest rungs and becoming part of the landscape of unhoused. We have large numbers of unhoused and impoverished simply because we are an inhumane society that predicates victory on the display of the sad state of affairs of the defeated. To legitimate the status-quo inhumane model of oppression of the masses, the subtle promise of punishment for non-submission is on constant exhibition. The homeless are scapegoats, examples, spectacles of what could become of anyone. Their exhibition serves to whip the workers into line and into taking no chances. That's why we have such large number of of unhoused. The exhibition of the homeless may even contribute to the stagnation unionizing and other non-compliance mechanisms for challenging wealth and power.
