On Homelessness and Homeless Resources
This is an important topic and I want to convey the seriousness with which I care about it, but also I'm moving really fast to get stuff done. I'll come back later
TODO: Should also link resources TODO: not in december probably
Homelessness Tweets
Shelters
From Piper (@yourfriendpiper) on her thread here:
Once again repeating: if large numbers of people would prefer to sleep outside in 40 degrees and raining over the shelter offered, the problem is with what you’re offering.
(Not an actual policy suggestion) Everyone who supports “shelter enforcement” should be forced at the hands of armed state agents to live in a shelter for a week.
How to get off the streets
Comrade Red, @IronProle, gave this response to the question "If you woke up homeless, hungry, with $20 to your name, and had none of the connections you have now, how would you get off the streets?"
Id buy some dope and trade it up til i could get a hotel room. Might take me like three or four days, but id find some under the table work and slide into a low credit "apartment" in a few weeks. Id have a real apartment in a few months, with like 22 roommates.
Ive done it a couple times. Long hours sitting in the QFC common space, buying something occasionally so i don't get booted.
But the reality for most people is that they dont. And the longer they stay homeless, statistically.
Statistically the longer one stays homeless the more likely you are to remain that way. The loss of a mailing address is often an insurmountable barrier among other pitfalls you cannot possibly predict.
The fact is that in King County, HALF of houseless people work one or more jobs despite their lack of housing.
This fact is why many houseless people are "service resistant" because all too often sleeping in a shelter conflicts with work.
Strict entry times for shelters make sense logistically but human wise, its an awful policy that drives people working hard to better their conditions choose to sleep in a ditch.
Not to mention the safety, security and hygiene concerns of non profit shelters and their temporary, underpaid staff who are given nothing abd expected to work miracles. It leads to unsafe and unsanitary conditions that people are correct in rejecting.
The hyper policing and vigilante "justice" from housed people increases the chances of becoming caught up in the legal system. They get you once and then they keep coming for you. You never really leave the carceral system.
So now you have no address, you are working under the table. You have a police record that follows you everywhere.
The barriers continue to mount and you learn to cope. Housed life becomes a far off memory.
At least youve still got some income until you fall off the roof of a house at work. No workers comp for you.
You go to the emergency room and they treat you like an animal and discharge you with aspirin.
You cant sleep. Your old boss doesnt answer your calls or texts. There is no work and it hurts to breath anyhow. You couldnt do labor if you wanted to.
Your cash drains away and youve lost the last the last of the belongings you had from home. Your clothes are all moldy or destroyed.
You ate hungry but the nearest store is 3 miles away uphill.
Someone else in the jungle offers you a pain pill. You have no way of knowing what it is but the pain in unbearable. This is a bittersweet moment of mercy.
It works. You can move or breath but the next 5 years is a blur of increasing pain and disability. Youve overdosed on pressed pills, your fellow campers saving your life.
Nobody recognizes you on the street. Youve become a corporeal ghost.
You have days of full on psychosis. You get thrown out of stores. The local non profits have written you off, since you have so little chance of improving their city stats to get funding. You are gristle.
You go in and out of county lockup for eating stolen food in the store. The employees beat you up regularly but you have no recourse.
One winter you die unceremoniously.
There is a meager display setup where you perished but houses kids light it on fire in a few days.
This could be anyone.
Weve met houseless mathematicians, ex doctors, engineers and sooooo many blue collar folks.
You are not in full control of your health or circumstances.
Anyone can lose it all overnight for no reason, for no fault.
Read more of Red's thoughts in On IronProle
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