So fucking sick of people like this. They genuinely believe that every single homeless person in America is a hyper-visible, unmedicated schizophrenic who's too mentally ill to want to get off the street. Never mind that the vast majority are members of the working poor and live in cars, friends' places and transitional housing—doesn't get more invisible than that.
Universal housing would effectively solve the homelessness crisis and every counterargument is actually a supporting one if you have half more than half of a braincell. Yes, a lot of homeless people need additional (i.e. psychiatric) help, BUT THEY ALSO NEED HOUSING because poverty literally exacerbates mental illness. Yes, libraries shouldn't be treated as homeless shelters, which is WHY HOMELESS PEOPLE NEED HOUSING. Yes, a lot of people who're forced to live in squalor on a literal street corner smell, which is why THEY NEED HOUSING so they can have basic dignity and access to a shower.
This got me thinking. The middle class sees the existence of the homeless as an imposition and burden on them.
But they are utterly incapable of reflecting on the way that their very existence is an imposition on every single person on Earth that is below them socioeconomically. Agricultural workers have to provide their food, truckers have to ship them their goods, cooks have to cook them their meals, sanitation workers have to carry away their shit, industrial workers have to manufacture their goods.
Beyond even that is their attitude. I work retail in a pretty nice, middle class area. It would take every single homeless person on Earth charging up like a Super Saiyan for a year in order to equal the Hitler particle output of the average middle class person. Demanding, entitled removed who have been handed everything they've ever "earned" by inscrutable and horrifically violent circumstances far beyond their control and understanding, yet they DESERVE things because they have money.
It's not homeless people demanding I perform the emotional labor of reassuring them that I'm actually super happy serving people who deserve nothing in a job I hate. It's not homeless people demanding I bend over backward to accommodate them because they're the world's most specialest little protagonist. I don't think I've had a single homeless person come in just before closing.
And that's just one tiny slice of one industry. Extrapolate that into every aspect of society, and then factor in the global division of labor. The homeless could never--in their wildest dreams--aspire to be as much of a black stain on the Earth as the average middle class American.
these petty tyrannies that so-define american life must be a product of the "job creator" mythos. in america, being hungry and wanting somebody else to make you something to eat means you are a job creator. your needs and wants are basically the miracle of creation and others, the workers spending time in their lives to satisfy you, are expected to be grateful for the opportunity. it's completely ass backwards. lately, when i want to rail against it IRL, i say something like, "if i take a shit on the floor, does that make me a job creator? because somebody's gotta clean it up. i'll give them 50 cents. are they going to thank me for giving them the opportunity?"
i think there's something to pointing out how making work for other people isn't a praiseworthy virtue.
This reminds me: I really have to escape suburbia.