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I kinda made this post out of spite for the fact the most previous post in this community, whose title I quoted/copied, was getting so many downvotes… At the time I posted this, the previous post had about a 30% downvote rate, and it really, really made me mad.
I am relieved tho to see people in the comments here who have real, actual empathy for their fellow humans. Thank you for contributing here.
It blows my mind how normalized it is to hate on those who are struggling. Especially in 20fucking23 when so many of us now are on the verge of it ourselves. Let’s be better, everyone - to everyone. I beg you.
This is like me being able to choose not to pay taxes for public areas I don’t use.
I disagree… public space is our space. No one’s need is greater than anyone else’s. The homeless need help, the pubic space that we use to get to the store, play with our children, buff highway noise is not the place to get that. Now, I’m not saying financially penalizing or jailing them are the only alternatives but safe camping/RV spots with access to access social services, Wi-Fi, gather for ac/heater, etc seems like a better approach.
I’d rather we just give them housing and a support network to prevent homelessness in the first place. Until then, homeless people have a right to access third spaces for as long as they don’t have a living space.
Where I live housing is provided but some homeless people are so because they trash the apartments or they can’t or won’t respect very basic rules of not constantly causing a disturbance and the like. Addiction is big part of that. There’s lots of programs and services for that too but can’t really force people to use those services.
You can do a lot by offering help but some still refuse it. In that case I feel like it’s fair to make sure they’re not a disturbance to other people just wanting to go about their day.
Most people don’t choose to be homeless. If, and this is highly unlikely, homelessness in your area is due primarily to addiction, then the solution is not “usher them out of sight”. Supervised injection sites should be provided, so those people taking drugs can do so safely under medical supervision. If someone is homeless due to drugs, then they should also be able to live in third places without being harassed. The city becomes responsible for making sure that those homeless people can discard of their trash properly and have needle drops to make sure needles stay off the ground.
You can look into homeless in Finland but it sure seems like homelessness is primarily caused by addiction (usually alcohol).
Nobody has the right to harass others and make them have to fear just walking in public. Nobody has the right to do drugs and leave their dirty needless around other people. Homeless are no different. They have no right to subject others to that just as we don’t have the right to subject them to such conditions.
We should absolutely do everything we can to help them but being homeless or addict isn’t a pass to harass anyone. The city and the state has the responsibility to make sure everyone can live without harassment and sometimes that includes making sure homeless people don’t just camp wherever to harass others.
I mean for fuck’s sake, there’s helping and being understanding and there’s seeing them harass my wife, attacking people and making life hell for others.
It sounds to me like your definition of harassment in this case “existing in public while homeless”.
There’s been two attempted rapes and an assault and robbery so far. I’d consider that a bit beyond “existing in public space”.
It’s gotten so bad that especially women are afraid to visit or have moved away. They get the worst of it, with constant verbal abuse and sexual harassment, not to mention the fear about rape.
It’s sick that some people instead of listening try to brush these things off just because the perpetrators are homeless. As if that made attempted rape somehow less bad.
Make it happen then. All those things you’d like to see instead of the unhoused finding shelter are great. But the hypothetical “better” solution is meaningless until it’s implemented. Until then, decriminalize survival like the pic says.
Seattle is working through it’s shit albeit slowly and with many mistakes. Mental health funding was the ballot just recently, our homeless authority CEO was basically fired for incompetence, small homes and apartments available with more on the way, RV/camp sites are growing, anti-open use law is still in the works, camp removal is stalled due to too ambiguous definitions of “blocking”. I live and work in the city and I’ll be the first to vote on sensible laws and bonds. What I find no longer tolerable is bottomless unquestioned empathy.
Seattle is working through it’s shit albeit slowly and with many mistakes. Mental health funding was the ballot just recently, our homeless authority CEO was basically fired for incompetence, small homes and apartments available with more on the way, RV/camp sites are growing, anti-open use law is still in the works, camp removal is stalled due to too ambiguous definitions of “blocking”. I live and work in the city and I’ll be the first to vote on sensible laws and bonds. What I find no longer tolerable is bottomless unquestioned empathy.
need != convenience
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Can I ask where the image is from? It would make a great sticker.
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Youtuber i seen with a trend of stealth camping in urban locations, had a video of camping overnight in the middle of a roundabout with a lot of shrubbery. And it had kind of a survival horror feel with cops patrolling around, and i remembered…this guy existing in a public space at night shouldnt be this terrifying or feel so taboo.
Guessing this was Steve Wallis? He can be a bit paranoid (sometimes for good reason) but he’s one of the best on youtube https://youtu.be/OPDvLaXuSHQ
That guy is simply the nicest person
When I learnt what happened last year I was so so sad for him
Someone being in the middle of a roundabout is a safety issue though, I can understand why they would be moved along by police.
I saw that video
In general you’re correct but camping in a roundabout should be terrifying. You never know if the next person to come along has never been in a roundabout, is raging at anything, is under the influence, or whatever else and might just go plowing through the middle of the thing.
Yep I would never, just because the signs on the roundabouts near where I live are always in bad shape, so people must be hitting them somehow. Not like roundabouts are an unknown thing around here either, drivers are just notably worse here than other places (ik the bar is usually low, but it’s even worse than that)
With truly unused land you may have a point. Problem is nobody wants to camp in BFE.
Homeless camps in public parks is a real tragedy of the commons.
What’s more important: a place to live or a recreation area?
Our unhoused neighbors have no choice but to live in a public space because society has denied them any private space to live.
People in need using the commons for their needs isn’t a tragedy. It’s the reason commons exist.
The tragedy is that shelter isn’t considered a human right.
It’s important that people don’t feel threatened just to move in the public spaces. That includes homeless and those with homes.
Thank you because I’m thinking the world is abundant, there is enough to provide more than the basics for everyone, but some humans are insatiable.
In my view it’s not about accessing the recreation area - I’d rather that space be used temporarily for occupancy while we fix up society. Having said that, ad-hoc homeless camps have very real safety risks associated with them. Often crime rates near these camps rise, and it’s reasonable for residents to also want to feel safe in their neighborhoods.
What we need is funding for real shelters with real long-term addiction and crisis counseling support. Blindly saying “any and all public spaces should be fair use for homeless camps” is not helpful to anyone.
Oh boy. You go spend a night in a homeless shelter. Seriously. Then say that.
Its a bit silly to say crime rates around these camps go up, as they usually are illegal to begin with. Like marijuana, criminalizing otherwise benign things still brings other criminal elements.
Break-ins, assaults, rape, robbery. You know. Benign things. Also shit and needles everywhere.
So the obvious solution is create conditions for rampant desperation, criminalize despair, shove undeserved out of sight. The etymology of “bedlam,” comes to mind.
There are many better solutions than “let them camp”.
Obviously; but the only ones being implemented on a wide basis in the US OS that, and what I said.
Those would be the other criminal elements. Drug dealers have had these issues too.
They probably need services too, then.
Everyone is ok with homeless in tents till they set up shop in your street
If someone sets up a spot to sleep and keep their stuff close to your house, try talking to them like a person. I live in the City, so there are plenty of people I see all the time. Sometimes they ask for help, sometimes we just talk. I help when I can, but I also say no when I can’t. I stand outside and talk to some of the struggling people close to me for a while sometimes. They’re just people
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The healthy homeless people struggling in my city get plenty of aid. The ones you find camping out are the ones who choose to be homeless, and the ones too mentally ill to seek help. But since we’ve become so sensitive, we just let them sleep outside instead of forcing them into programs. Until we accept that the mentally ill homeless who refuse aid need to be picked up and forced into it, things will never change.
I don’t mind the homeless through no fault of their own camping on my street. But I’ve seen plenty of drugged out mofos camping in front of or near my work I wouldn’t want anywhere near my house or those of my neighbors who have kids. I’m talking about the mofos who take apart cars and bikes and whatever else and then just leave everything when they move on. The mofos with piles of garbage that attract rats bigger than cats.
Ah yes, because everyone in their right minds aspire to addictions.
i doubt many people want to be addicts but they succumb to it all the same. regardless it doesnt excuse living like described above and i dont blame people for not wanting to be near described above.
Again, go spend a night in a shelter. Then say what you said.
or… i dont want someones kid to get a bbp from a dirty needle or whatever because they played in garbage left behind. im describing things ive seen with my own eyes. shelters do have their own problems as well. being homeless isnt easy. there are homeless people who dont leave vehicles stripped, needles everywhere, mounds of garbage, and burnt rvs behind. i dont mind those people being around, and i believe some are.
im empathetic to the plight of the homeless, however that doesnt give them free reign over the rest of society. id love to see the nation, as a whole, because cities like new york san fran la seattle ect cant fix it on their own. id love to see expanded mental health coverage and better treatment for inpatient care. id love to see better access and more rehabilitation facilities. also id love to see the people who desperately need those services to take up the offer when and where its available which largely doesnt happen.
So what are you doing to help expedite anything, other than encouraging criminalization of despair?
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I remember this guy in my city set up fake signs for the opening of a new homeless shelter in one of the wealthier and more liberal neighbourhoods in the city, where the “provide for the homeless!” Crowd tend to live.
The neighborhood was up in arms at the idea of the shelter getting set up in THEIR neighborhood. There’s a video about it around somewhere.
Speak for yourself. The owner class has long gaslighted everyone that greed and shit behavior is the default for humanity.
I’m not sure if I’m owner class since I live in a rented apartment but I dislike all the needles and feeling unsafe just going in and out of my apartment. Doubly so for my wife who gets harassed more than I do. So much so that she’s afraid to go anywhere.
It just sucks. Dunno if it counts as shit behaviour but I wish they wouldn’t camp there.
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Love the message but still not sure it’s really a meme on the truest sense. But no one seems to care about that here anyway.
"We make the community by defending it: Calling police on people that don’t have a house is a violent act to those seeking shelter in the community they belong to."
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i dont mind letting people use public areas as a place to stay for the night. but its not just a place to stay for them. its a place to do drugs, shit and piss all over the place, steal from and harrass and assault everyone around them, and let their trash pile up and attract pests. its a huge problem where i am and these people are fucking terrifying to be around. like, i dont want to be inhumane to anyone but where do we draw the line?
they are alive, so they need to shit and piss. they consume things, so they will create trash. if they are addicted to drugs, they need a place to do them. if we don’t provide for people public restrooms, public trash receptacles, and places to do drugs safely, they will do them in public where you can see them. nothing about any of these behaviors are unique to unhoused people, you just don’t see housed folks getting high and shitting in the street because they because have a far more comfortable, safe place to do their private business. you don’t see housed people’s trash because they have a bin to put it in that takes all the trash to the dump. how are they supposed to do anything different when they have nowhere else to go?
this whole antipathy towards people on the street makes me so fucking angry. they can’t go anywhere else. they have to keep all of their belongings out on the sidewalk, they have to shit on the fucking street, they have no other options but to live every moment of their lives in a public place, and we pass judgement on them when it doesn’t look pretty. these are human beings you’re talking about, not pests, not monsters, they’re people that you’re watching live in abject poverty, and all you can muster up is fear and disgust. its disgraceful.
im not sure youre catching on to the nuance of what im saying here. i am not unaware that i am one or two missed paychecks from being in the same position financially as them. im not saying their subhuman because of their hardships. but the reality of their addiction is that they care only about getting their next fix. to the point they will rob and assault any one they need to to get it. there is a certain point where my concern for mine and my family and my friends and my coworkers well being outweighs the pity i feel for these people. again im not advocating for killing or arresting them or anything inhumane like that, but something has to be done about it. no one whos lived around these camps for any amount of time thinks differently than i do about it.
the idea that unhoused people are usually addicted to drugs is a falsehood. the idea that these people are dangerous to the public as a self-evident fact is a falsehood. i do live around many camps. i walk by homeless encampments every single day. i don’t agree with you, and your biases are not some logical result of your proximity to them. i don’t think you can characterize unhoused people as dangerous or irrational categorically, i don’t think you can make assumptions about them being on drugs, and i don’t think that addicts are dangerous by virtue of their addiction. i don’t think the perception you have of these people in need is in any way a rational appraisal of them, and it plays into long held prejudices about impoverished people that cast them as less than rational, incapable of making good decisions, and addled by drug abuse, rather than what they are, people who have fallen into desperate circumstances and need help. attitudes like yours, that see them as threats to your community, rather than community members themselves, make it easier for systems of governance to further deprive them of resources. forcing them into camps, police raids that ruin their tents and dump the few belongings they have into landfills, building hostile architecture that makes the only places they can live unlivable, making laws that criminalize the only way they can survive. pitting your concern for your people against your “pity” for your unhoused neighbors is a false dichotomy.
i dont have to make assumptions about them being on drugs when i watch them tweak everyday and clean up their blood from them shooting up in our bathroom every day and watch them shoot up in their car and see them assault my friends while their high as a kite. maybe its not all unhoused people are drug addicts and maybe its all drug addicts are unhoused but i cant tell the difference when i have to console elderly women that just got mugged by them or my coworker who was just sexually assaulted by them.
It’s always interesting to me how no one ever complains or overgeneralizes about people who are criminals, drug addicts, and/or severely mentally ill who live in houses. There are news stories daily about people losing their shit on airplanes. Every retail store and restaurant I’ve ever worked in had some kind of ongoing bathroom and/or dressing room issues where people can’t be bothered to utilize toilets or put their menstrual products or kids’ diapers in garbage cans. I’ve dated several people who were physically abusive to me and the people they dated before and after me. Yet, they are now parents with careers and, you guessed it, a mortgage or rent bill. I’ve also been around plenty of people who are either “functionally” mentally ill, meaning they are raging narcissists who don’t hesitate to harm others in any way possible as long as they get what they want, or who are just raging fucking assholes, like the twenty something year old girls at my college who are so invested in being at the top of their class and kissing the professors asses that they put effort into sabotaging other students and talking shit about everyone around them.
Bit I don’t hear anyone generalizing every single college student as being a self-obsessed sociopath just because there’s a subset of them that are bitches. I don’t hear anyone overgeneralizing every blue collar worker as being immature woman beaters with anger issues just because there’s a subset of them who are like that. And you get my point.
In addition, I think dealing with the presence of unhoused people and their camps is far less impactful for me at least. Ok, so downtown is dirty and dangerous. Wtf else is new? My college campus has had a problem recently with fake uber drivers picking up female students and assaulting them. Somehow, I don’t think any of the drivers were homeless. But I guess we should all stereotype uber drivers now as violent perverts, and outlaw all rideshare companies from the area. So it doesn’t really matter whether you’re downtown or near some camp or what have you. Crime is everywhere, and unhoused people are no different than the average population.
And what about car camping? I never hear anyone complaining about people who live in their cars being violent or dirty or crazy? If all unhoused people were all of those things, shouldn’t car campers be a huge problem? Especially when they’re not limited to doing all their crime in urban areas and can drive to wherever they want?
ive worked in retail for 10 years. this job is the first job ive had where there are drug addicted homeless people camped all around it. its different then your average karen or douchebag kyle. and yes ik that bathrooms are perpetually disgusting. but this is not like that. its a special kind of fucked up idk.
, i dont want to be inhumane to anyone but where do we draw the line?
Imo we draw the line when someone who wants to be housed is threatened with being houseless and provide them with housing. Providing housing first is also the best way to deal with all the issues connected to being houseless like drug use, trauma from violence, mental health issues, etc
Imo the line has been crossed long ago and gets crossed every day and its important to keep in mind when trying to find solutions that are more like band aids on a broken system.
yeah im not advocating to kill them all or arrest them all or anything. i dont have the answers. but its pretty much weekly that someone at my job is assaulted or cars are broken into daily or a kid finds a dirty needle or so on. and most of these people seem like they dont want help. they really do revel in being awful it seems. they steal and harrass us gleefully without a look of remorse in their eyes so idk.
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i think if you had to deal with these people on a daily basis you would have a different opinion about them.
“These people” should be provided with a safe home to sleep in, that’s the solution. Maybe if you had to deal with long-term homelessness firsthand, you’d have a different opinion about them. Maybe you wouldn’t look at them and see a “pest” anymore, but a struggling person who’s been failed by the system.
never said they were pests or not human or that i dont sympathize with their plight. just that something needs to be done for them so they dont have to camp on the streets
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Is the problem there not lack of access to proper sanitary services? If you don’t have anywhere to live you have limited access to public toilets or garbage disposal
There does seem to be way fewer public toilets around these days. We closed them (or at least lock them overnight) because people were doing drugs and having sex in them.
So now they do those things outside, and I have to piss in the bushes when I’m out for a walk.
The trouble with the homeless is that they need to be around the normal people in order to survive and get money for food and drugs, but the normal people want them as far away as possible.
If we were rational about this, we’d set up communes where people would be fed, housed and clothed for free, given all the drugs they want, and help if they want to stop living like that. It would be way cheaper for society to deal with all in one place like that, drugs aren’t really expensive to make, and the rest of us can go to their town centre without a psychotic toothless crackhead screaming at them for money. But we’re not rational, and likely never will be. This isn’t Star Trek, and the idea of somebody else getting something for nothing seems to fill about half the population with a frothing rage.
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I havent seen that episode, but it is kind of an issue how whenever you try to put a bunch of poor/homeless people together, others start to avoid that area and jobs/services become scarce.
I like the idea of “mixed income housing”. Apartment buildings with a mix of free, cheap, and regular priced units. The standard units would probably be valued a bit lower than the normal market price, giving mid-income people an incentive to live there, and the homeless people who move in get to be part of a normal-ish community.
100 homeless people stuck in one place can cause a lot of chaos, but a small small group here and there seems a lot more manageable.
So basically prisons but with free drugs
I was thinking more like those old people towns, but where it’s acceptable to smoke spice all day and sit there dribbling into your own lap and aggressively screaming at each other.
Maybe if the drugs were free, they wouldn’t need all that aggro.
Or, maybe just give them a place to live without segragating them? Why are you talking about people like they are fundamentally broken for being homeless?
their public toilet is the bathroom where i work im pretty sure. but they also use our parking garage and just kind of wherever around their camps.
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no its just the reality of the situation. youd say the same thing if you lived and worked around them like i do.
Letting the mentally ill and people struggling with drug addiction wallow in camps in the woods, ditches, and underpasses where there is often no law enforcement presence isn’t compassion. It’s being complicit in the rapes, assault, theft, and exploitation that goes on there.
There needs to be a “prison lite” where housing and services can be centrally distributed, and mental needs addressed; while law enforcement can also ensure safety, structure, and removal of problems to actual jail/prison.
Let people get their lives in order with housing and security in a transitional setting to get back to their lives
There needs to be a “prison lite” where housing and services can be centrally distributed, and mental needs addressed; while law enforcement can also ensure safety, structure, and removal of problems to actual jail/prison.
Sanctuary incoming
Your compassionate solution to homelessness is to lock them all up in… “prison lite”
yeah, okay lmao
It should be illegal to be homeless.
They should forcibly be provided shelter, protection, food, treatment, and skills until they are ready to live on their own. Of course they should be free to leave the facility each day, but if found camping out should be brought back.
At the same time very affordable, very durable housing should be provided for them to graduate out to.
If you would have ever talked to a homeless person, you would know this isn’t a real solution.
For example there is very little chance such a camp would be set up anyway near a place where a homeless person could try to work themselves out of the bad situation they are in, which nearly all of them want to do. Usually they could find some place very remote themselves to live, but there is no chance to ever get out of the situation themselves then.
Any attempt to solve this needs to make sure these people are not robbed of their own agency and treated like some non-person that needs to be “managed” somehow. Just try to imaging yourself in such a situation and you will hopefully agree.
I’ve worked as an EMT for over a decade and prior to that experienced homelessness myself.
It is very rare these folks can help themselves, and need positive forces in their lives.
In our current society it isn’t really a solution, but must become so. Homelessness is an epidemic and society must make drastic efforts to change.
Sure, they often objectively can’t (without help), but usually they find themselves in a self-reinforcing downward spiral and taking away their agency makes it much worse.
Like I said, they are free to come and go, just not be homeless in public. They, I’m this idealized plan of mine would be receiving great things, from medical help to education, safety and more.
Trade off is you can’t camp out a city park any more.
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It’s being complicit in the rapes, assault, theft, and exploitation that goes on there.
Mate, the biggest criminals I’ve ever seen wore a suit and a tie, and we’re not doing anything about them.
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I don’t know where you live, but homelessness (or as they’re called here the unhoused) isn’t criminalized at all lol. The biggest effect that’s going on with the unregulated encampments other then the crime and suffering that goes on there is massive ecological damage. They’ve had fires so bad that the EPA has come and been the ones to finally kick them off state land. The trash and carnage left behind is insane, not to mention the propane tanks that explode, the shootings in nearby parking lots for drug deals gone sour, and the massive amount of theft in the surrounding area.
Leaving them be in my opinion is the same as leaving illegal immigrants be. Either grant them amnesty or deport them. Having a large exploitable community that doesn’t interact with police just makes society two tiered. If you’re homeless you shouldn’t have to worry about being raped and then effectively told after “yeah don’t live in the tent city”.
Honestly some of these comments really dont fit to the solar punk ideals and should get removed.
Especially because land squatting, building low tech communes and working together on problems is what happens in many of those camps and thats just so solar punk to me.
I don’t really think injecting fentanyl in a tent on the sidewalk should be classed as ‘building a low tech commune’
Nope nope nope nope nope. How do you know what communities and organizations the people in the tents belong to? Or how they’ve organized their network of tents and mutual aid, what relationships they have with nearby homeowners and business owners, how they gather and share resources and make decisions?
Squatters and the unhoused routinely, out of necessity, form partnerships and communities with other unhoused and insufficiently housed people. We’d call those communities “communes” if they were made of rich white people owning homes. And yeah, people in those communities use drugs just like people who own houses do.
Thinking more deeply about it, I think you’ve identified by example one of the many ways neoliberal ideology encourages discrimination against unhoused people. Neoliberalism teaches us that every unhoused person is an individual whose individual choices are to blame for his low social and economic status. So we assume unhoused people are alone, that they don’t belong to communities, that they have no family or social support, that they don’t have a network of mutual aid - even though, when someone is unhoused, having networks of mutual aid are even more important than they are for people with secure housing. And that lets us dismiss the unhoused as people without social connections who only care about their personal self interest.
But no, that dude in the tent shooting up fent probably is part of a commune. He meets with other unhoused people to pool money and buy food or take advantage of free meals at the local gurdwara or use a gym membership to take a shower. He advises newly homeless people, he seeks advice from elders in the community, he hangs out outside his tent or at a local meeting spot and chats with other community members. He’s part of a network of mutual aid that shares intellectual and social and financial resources to help each other in their disadvantaged circumstances. And if he’s not in a network of mutual aid which fits the definition of a commune, it’s not because he can’t be, but because he chooses not to be.
Unhoused people are not animals. They are humans. That means they communicate with other humans. And that means the unhoused form the same networks of politics and society and economics and mutual aid as everyone else.
Well I could reply to your wall point by point but I guess this is the major one we’d stay in disagreement on
people in those communities use drugs just like people who own houses do
Have you ever done fentanyl?
Now see, what you’ve done there is called a fallacy, and what that means is that your argument is not very good. Try again! I’m sure you’ll get 'em next time.
I am not denying drug use /abuse, but maybe stop bringing up your regional fentanyl problem which is not relevant in many parts of the world.
This post is not about many parts of the world
So you’re in favour of safe injection sites, yes?
Yeah sure to a certain extent but I fail to see how drug addicts whose prime concern is to bump just a tad below the lethal dose are somehow building a techpunk utopia bottom up
In our tech punk utopia even the most troubled have some form of shelter? We need something better but if it stops people from dying on the street I’m for it.
If they’re dying somewhere else it’d just hide the problem from the public
You don’t need to be an empathetic holistic person to get behind free housing for the homeIess. If you’re a truly selfish and purely economically oriented person, then you have to admit giving the homless free homes is economically the best solution for all involved. Alternatives include the taxpayer eating the cost of all the damage they do seeking shelter and survival, or paying a ton of money to police to violently deal with them.
If you prefer those to giving them housing, you’re choosing options that are more cruel and more costly – I don’t understand how that makes sense and yet plenty of people seem to choose that.
Because many people perceive homelessness as a proxy for moral failings (such as drug abuse) worthy of punishment.
Of course this is rarely the full picture or even true at all, but we need to get people to understand that this is not a problem that can be solved by punishing people.
Totally agree, just frustrating to try to communicate with people who say they are pro-business and rational, and then they vehemently make emotional moral/spiritual arguments.
I agree, but is it a meme?
Yes, memes are viral thoughts, often utilizing fun to spread, but not necessarily so.
I think someone else would have to put their own twist on it for it to really count to me.
Otherwise literally everything anyone posts ever is a meme.
That’s how Dawkins originally intended it, interestingly. It’s been completely redefined in popular parlance, but a meme is originally any transmissable unit of information between minds.
And Blackmore!
Fair enough
It baffles me that anybody today would say memes aren’t or shouldn’t be political. I think politics and ideology are the primary reason people create and share memes today. The funny animal cheeseburger phase of meme culture is long over. As witness Reddit meming Trump into office and all the racist conservative memes your boomer relatives share.
I don’t think it’s a meme but not because of politics.
I basically agree but with a caveat: the majority of people would rather noone is camped in parks. More importantly, people needing to camp in parks is indicative of a far greater problem. I think it’s imperative to address the root if we have a hope of effectively combatting homelessness.
It’s not actually homelessness people have a problem with, it’s drug addiction.
Then surely those same people are working to destigmatize it and provide help right?
Right?
Of course not; they just want the drug addicts and their harmful behaviors out of their sight and away from them. I agree that that’s short-sighted, but having been homeless myself and seeing what some of the drug addicts do, I can’t blame them.
You can’t reasonably defend addicts leaving dirty needles on the sidewalk where kids could get a hold of them, for example. Or arguing or fighting or conducting drug deals in neighborhoods with all of the violence and invective that brings, or intimidating non-addicted residents by being aggressive and violent toward them, or any of that shit.
That kind of behavior is unacceptable whether housed or not and you are wrongly lumping those kinds of people in with all homeless people and then defending the larger “homeless” umbrella. That kind of snake like behavior is some shit some billionaire’s PR agency would do, stop it.
If you truly care about ending homelessness and not simply using them as a shield to defend drug addicts, you have to openly and explicitly separate the two yourself in your speech.
Not all homeless people are the same, not all homeless people become homeless for the same reasons, so it is disingenuous to lump in, say, domestic violence survivors and workers priced out of a home with drug addicts under the same term when they’re completely different people with completely different needs.
That being said… society actually does need to come up with a better plan to deal with the drug addicts that doesn’t involve jailing them for possession or use, or leaving them to struggle on the street. Other people don’t want to be exposed to drug use and honestly, they have a right not to be, so you’re going to have to balance the addicts’ needs with everyone else.
Building separate housing for drug addicts away from everybody else where they’re given safe supplies and offered resources to get clean and be re-integrated back into society would probably be the best solution.
Same with those who are unhoused and severely mentally ill. Those types likely need sanitariums where they’re cared for the rest of their lives.
Domestic violence survivors need to be relocated far away from their abusers and given housing and employment under new names.
Those who are homeless because they are priced out of housing in the city where they work need to be given section 8 vouchers, or cities and states will have to pass laws forcing all landlords to lower their rent to either a percentage of renter income without being allowed to pick and choose whom they rent to, or a hard upper limit that just so happens to be <= 30% of the average worker’s wage.
Different problems require different solutions
