The Invisible Man
November 27, 2024 7:09 AM Subscribe
A first hand report on homelessness in the US by someone who can really fucken' write.
I’m parked in the public lot across from the beach, sitting in the front passenger seat, working on a novel. An SUV police cruiser pulls in front of me, parks close, at an angle, as if to block me from a would-be escape. This officer is a young blond woman in a bulletproof vest with a pistol strapped to her abdomen. She says, “We received some calls. People are concerned.”posted by otherchaz at 8:05 AM on November 27 [19 favorites]
“Yes?”
“They see you out here and are concerned.”
She doesn’t say who these “concerned” people are, but the only ones who can see me are the owners of large beachfront houses. Maybe they’re looking out their $3 million windows and seeing the consequences of their avarice.
“What are your plans for the day?” she says.
She’s trying to get me to move along, but the lot is open to the public from dawn to dusk. I have every right to be here.
“Write,” I say.
“What do you write?”
“Literary fiction. I was a reporter.”
“Anywhere I know?”
“The Boston Globe.”
I could not sleep after reading this as a bed-time wind-down article, I don't recommend it for that. It is otherwise fantastic, I'm glad to see it here. There's so much that's awful and just grinding, grinding in the piece, and yet what stayed with me was the way his decaying teeth turned one of the few kinder moments sour when he couldn't even eat the food he was given. Well, that and a desperate hope his poor girlfriend doesn't give up on him.
Maybe the not-sleeping was a pre-emptive attempt to avoid dreaming about teeth falling out?
posted by pulposus at 8:27 AM on November 27 [3 favorites]
Maybe the not-sleeping was a pre-emptive attempt to avoid dreaming about teeth falling out?
posted by pulposus at 8:27 AM on November 27 [3 favorites]
just lazy and subsisting on government handouts.
And on most occasions you can add "they are also all drug addicts" too to the litany of people who spout that nonsense. How we treat the unhoused is a big fucking issue of mine as I live--like many of you--in a place where they want them to disappear, not help them. (Again, you see how just "liberal" people are when it comes to homeless folks. I have sat in on city council meetings about zoning for low income housing or supports for the less fortunate in my downtown neighbourhood, and shit, my so-called fellow liberal neighbours say some nasty shit about poor people. I boycott a handful of local businesses this way because you have to identify yourself if you attend them.)
posted by Kitteh at 8:28 AM on November 27 [12 favorites]
And on most occasions you can add "they are also all drug addicts" too to the litany of people who spout that nonsense. How we treat the unhoused is a big fucking issue of mine as I live--like many of you--in a place where they want them to disappear, not help them. (Again, you see how just "liberal" people are when it comes to homeless folks. I have sat in on city council meetings about zoning for low income housing or supports for the less fortunate in my downtown neighbourhood, and shit, my so-called fellow liberal neighbours say some nasty shit about poor people. I boycott a handful of local businesses this way because you have to identify yourself if you attend them.)
posted by Kitteh at 8:28 AM on November 27 [12 favorites]
They take it out on themselves, on each other, when the problem is the predators and the politicians who enabled them to suck most of the wealth out of the common economy.
Good writer. Depressing read. Going to go take my meds now and have another cup of coffee. Not much else to say.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:28 AM on November 27 [4 favorites]
Good writer. Depressing read. Going to go take my meds now and have another cup of coffee. Not much else to say.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:28 AM on November 27 [4 favorites]
I strongly recommend the podcast You Know Me Now for first-person stories, curated with an incredible amount of thoughtfulness and care. Hands down, one of my favorite podcasts on any topic.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:53 AM on November 27 [6 favorites]
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:53 AM on November 27 [6 favorites]
Not much to say, but plenty to do. Solidarity (not charity!) with the homeless is one of the most important fronts in the struggle against fascism.
posted by Richard Saunders at 9:00 AM on November 27 [14 favorites]
posted by Richard Saunders at 9:00 AM on November 27 [14 favorites]
just lazy and subsisting on government handouts
Except they're not enough to live off.
The money that the VA pays a totally disabled veteran with no dependents, per month, is $3737 a month, which means that the US government knows that's about how much it takes to subsist. It's similar to the top of what Social Security Disability benefits can pay: $3822. Except unlike Social Security, the VA recognizes that when you get disabled, you usually get disabled at the middle of your life or earlier. There is no requirement to have paid more than a nominal amount of 'dues'. The average payout for Social Security disability is 1537$. He gets 960$. Because you are expected to work 40 years into Social Security before you get your payouts, or get disabled.
The homelessness crisis in this country is a black shame on the people who allow it to continue, and the Supreme Court who decreed there is no right to sleep.
posted by corb at 9:01 AM on November 27 [41 favorites]
Except they're not enough to live off.
The money that the VA pays a totally disabled veteran with no dependents, per month, is $3737 a month, which means that the US government knows that's about how much it takes to subsist. It's similar to the top of what Social Security Disability benefits can pay: $3822. Except unlike Social Security, the VA recognizes that when you get disabled, you usually get disabled at the middle of your life or earlier. There is no requirement to have paid more than a nominal amount of 'dues'. The average payout for Social Security disability is 1537$. He gets 960$. Because you are expected to work 40 years into Social Security before you get your payouts, or get disabled.
The homelessness crisis in this country is a black shame on the people who allow it to continue, and the Supreme Court who decreed there is no right to sleep.
posted by corb at 9:01 AM on November 27 [41 favorites]
Very good post; great article. Depressing too, but so much of that stuff feels so familiar to me. I am recovering long term homeless, and even after many years past it and a good bit of success I still wait for the other shoe to drop, and lose the support that helps keep me housed. It is awful scary to hear about people my age who lost a place to live just because property is too expensive to accommodate those of us who are complicated.
My history on the street is a while back in my life but the situations and feelings he described in that article very much parallel the experiences I had there. It is difficult to make words do the feelings justice but he comes as close as any I have ever read.
Yup, meds and coffee. Gratitude that I am not there... yet.
posted by cybrcamper at 9:04 AM on November 27 [19 favorites]
My history on the street is a while back in my life but the situations and feelings he described in that article very much parallel the experiences I had there. It is difficult to make words do the feelings justice but he comes as close as any I have ever read.
Yup, meds and coffee. Gratitude that I am not there... yet.
posted by cybrcamper at 9:04 AM on November 27 [19 favorites]
Normally I'd never scroll through the comments but I'm glad I did in this case: "Hi. This is Patrick, the homeless author. Maybe it'll cheer you up to know a very kind family who read the article is putting me up in a motel through the holidays and started a GoFundMe page."
One down, 650,099 to go.
posted by mittens at 9:38 AM on November 27 [39 favorites]
One down, 650,099 to go.
posted by mittens at 9:38 AM on November 27 [39 favorites]
In Ontario the disability benefit for a single person is $1400, of which $600 is supposed to cover housing. In Ontario the base rent for a single room is $800 for the very shittiest place, anything with a window or in a non-smoking home is going to be over $1k. A 1br apt to live with dignity is going to be $2K plus a month.
These benefits are well over two decades out of date. That housing benefit would barely pay the property tax on a one bedroom apartment if you owned it outright, to say nothing of utilities.
It is literally impossible to live on disability. The premier knows it does everything in his power (which is everything, because the Conservatives have a majority) to keep the benefits low and kick people off benefits through a thousand razor cuts of red tape, means and performative testing.
Everyone from the people sleeping in the tents to the policy makers knows it's vastly cheaper to house people supportively than to attempt to serve them unhoused, but it's absolutely critical to the political landscape for people who cannot work to be seen to suffer horrible fates on a daily basis.
It's well past time for the contraptions to come out, I am saying.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:38 AM on November 27 [38 favorites]
These benefits are well over two decades out of date. That housing benefit would barely pay the property tax on a one bedroom apartment if you owned it outright, to say nothing of utilities.
It is literally impossible to live on disability. The premier knows it does everything in his power (which is everything, because the Conservatives have a majority) to keep the benefits low and kick people off benefits through a thousand razor cuts of red tape, means and performative testing.
Everyone from the people sleeping in the tents to the policy makers knows it's vastly cheaper to house people supportively than to attempt to serve them unhoused, but it's absolutely critical to the political landscape for people who cannot work to be seen to suffer horrible fates on a daily basis.
It's well past time for the contraptions to come out, I am saying.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:38 AM on November 27 [38 favorites]
We have to help! We have to help! If you are reading this and you want somewhere vouched-for to donate, I can recommend these organizations, known to me personally:
Sanctuary Supply Depot
Community Kitchen
Camp Nenookaasi
Things you can do on a daily basis:
- budget an amount of cash every month and carry it in small bills and give money to people who approach you. Do not worry about if they will use it for drugs - they probably won't, but if they do, it's better that they get the cash from you than that they get coerced into sex, coerced into supporting petty crime or steal to get the money. Even if all you can spare is five or ten dollars.
- carry a couple of bottles of water and a couple of soft food items to give to people who approach you or who seem in a bad way. You can get 17 cent water and soft oatmeal bars for 75 cents at Trader Joes. IME, people also enjoy Mountain Dew, gushers candies and bananas (plus specific people may enjoy specific other things, but these are soft and easy on the teeth.)
- keep your eyes peeled. If someone is in a bad way and you are passing by, make sure they are breathing. If it's very hot or very cold, make sure they are not passed out and helpless. You don't want to be getting the cops involved every time someone is dozing on the sidewalk, but pay attention.
- don't call the cops UNLESS you are literally confident that someone is going to get badly hurt AND you do not feel that you have any other option. If someone has a gun or a knife that you can definitely see, for instance. Try threatening to call the cops first - get out your cell phone, yell "I'm calling the cops" and see what happens. Would it be nice if we had social services we could call like calling 911 that would come out and help? Sure! Are the cops them? No!
- it can be hard to nerve yourself up to talk to people - what if you offend them? what if they get clingy or weird? what if they have needs you can't meet? You may have reasons for not talking to, eg, strange men when you are alone. But if you are not specifically worried about your personal safety, you can ask people if they are okay, if they need something, if they would like a coke, etc. I am not gifted at this - I have friends who find it easy to get into really significant conversations and I do not. But talking to people at least a little is best.
- it is okay to say no. Don't ignore people because you're afraid of saying no. I think a lot of people do this. It's better to give a person a dollar or a coke when they are asking for $10 than to freeze them out.
~~~
There are absolutely drawbacks to having homeless encampments on the street - more trash, more noise, potentially some petty crime, the constant awareness of pointless acute human suffering. Our cities are not designed to have people living in tents on the median strip. Living outside worsens people's problems, whether that is illness, addiction, lack of money, etc. I have had homeless encampments on my block. I live in an area with many, many homeless people.
But the point is that no matter how much trash or noise may be on my block because of an encampment, I am suffering so much less than unhoused people. We live in a society that treats people like trash. If that's what we're going to do, there's consequences - we have to live in that society. People want BOTH to treat people like trash AND never to ever have to see or be reminded of the people they're hurting, which is if anything even more immoral and vile than treating people like trash in the first place.
ALSO, if an encampment is supported by the city, with portapotties and trash pick-up and handwashing stations and so on, it will be a quieter and better place, and people will get into housing faster.
~~
Also, the way things are going, unless you have a lot of money and are relatively near the end of your life, you could be homeless too. If you're middle aged and you get really sick, you could be on the street really easily.
~~
Also, you know what sucks? Giving out tents and supplies and then having to send people back out into the rain and cold, even though they have supplies now. You go home and think "my god, how unfair it is that I have housing and they don't" and then you think "but for how long will I have housing". Elderly people! People with kids! People who you talk to and they're really nice! All, all getting sent out into the sleet with a cheapo Walmart tent, a mini flashlight and some mini bags of chips.
You can't help but think, here in Minnesota, that before colonialism everyone had a home. Two hundred years ago, everyone living here was housed and indeed it would be almost incomprehensible for someone to be truly homeless unless they were so ill or so antisocial that they couldn't stay around other people in any way. And even then, there weren't any cops to move them along.
posted by Frowner at 9:58 AM on November 27 [102 favorites]
Sanctuary Supply Depot
Community Kitchen
Camp Nenookaasi
Things you can do on a daily basis:
- budget an amount of cash every month and carry it in small bills and give money to people who approach you. Do not worry about if they will use it for drugs - they probably won't, but if they do, it's better that they get the cash from you than that they get coerced into sex, coerced into supporting petty crime or steal to get the money. Even if all you can spare is five or ten dollars.
- carry a couple of bottles of water and a couple of soft food items to give to people who approach you or who seem in a bad way. You can get 17 cent water and soft oatmeal bars for 75 cents at Trader Joes. IME, people also enjoy Mountain Dew, gushers candies and bananas (plus specific people may enjoy specific other things, but these are soft and easy on the teeth.)
- keep your eyes peeled. If someone is in a bad way and you are passing by, make sure they are breathing. If it's very hot or very cold, make sure they are not passed out and helpless. You don't want to be getting the cops involved every time someone is dozing on the sidewalk, but pay attention.
- don't call the cops UNLESS you are literally confident that someone is going to get badly hurt AND you do not feel that you have any other option. If someone has a gun or a knife that you can definitely see, for instance. Try threatening to call the cops first - get out your cell phone, yell "I'm calling the cops" and see what happens. Would it be nice if we had social services we could call like calling 911 that would come out and help? Sure! Are the cops them? No!
- it can be hard to nerve yourself up to talk to people - what if you offend them? what if they get clingy or weird? what if they have needs you can't meet? You may have reasons for not talking to, eg, strange men when you are alone. But if you are not specifically worried about your personal safety, you can ask people if they are okay, if they need something, if they would like a coke, etc. I am not gifted at this - I have friends who find it easy to get into really significant conversations and I do not. But talking to people at least a little is best.
- it is okay to say no. Don't ignore people because you're afraid of saying no. I think a lot of people do this. It's better to give a person a dollar or a coke when they are asking for $10 than to freeze them out.
~~~
There are absolutely drawbacks to having homeless encampments on the street - more trash, more noise, potentially some petty crime, the constant awareness of pointless acute human suffering. Our cities are not designed to have people living in tents on the median strip. Living outside worsens people's problems, whether that is illness, addiction, lack of money, etc. I have had homeless encampments on my block. I live in an area with many, many homeless people.
But the point is that no matter how much trash or noise may be on my block because of an encampment, I am suffering so much less than unhoused people. We live in a society that treats people like trash. If that's what we're going to do, there's consequences - we have to live in that society. People want BOTH to treat people like trash AND never to ever have to see or be reminded of the people they're hurting, which is if anything even more immoral and vile than treating people like trash in the first place.
ALSO, if an encampment is supported by the city, with portapotties and trash pick-up and handwashing stations and so on, it will be a quieter and better place, and people will get into housing faster.
~~
Also, the way things are going, unless you have a lot of money and are relatively near the end of your life, you could be homeless too. If you're middle aged and you get really sick, you could be on the street really easily.
~~
Also, you know what sucks? Giving out tents and supplies and then having to send people back out into the rain and cold, even though they have supplies now. You go home and think "my god, how unfair it is that I have housing and they don't" and then you think "but for how long will I have housing". Elderly people! People with kids! People who you talk to and they're really nice! All, all getting sent out into the sleet with a cheapo Walmart tent, a mini flashlight and some mini bags of chips.
You can't help but think, here in Minnesota, that before colonialism everyone had a home. Two hundred years ago, everyone living here was housed and indeed it would be almost incomprehensible for someone to be truly homeless unless they were so ill or so antisocial that they couldn't stay around other people in any way. And even then, there weren't any cops to move them along.
posted by Frowner at 9:58 AM on November 27 [102 favorites]
A few weeks ago, as I sat on a bench near a bus stop in Ottawa and a homeless man came up and gestured toward the takeout container beside me, 'Are you done with that?' 'Oh, it isn't mine,' I replied, 'It was here when I got here.'
And he opened the container and ate what he could -- scooping cold rice with dirty fingers and gnawing gristle off chicken bones that had already been gnawed once. When he was done, he closed up the container and left it under the bench.
A few minutes later, a homeless woman came up and grabbed the container out from under the bench. She licked a finger and used the moisture to dab up individual grains of rice off the box. When she was finished, she closed it up and threw it away.
We are a first world goddamned country and homeless people are eating the leftovers of food other homeless people found on the street in the first goddamned place.
The same week that happened, Doug Ford announced that he would spend $3 Billion dollars to send $200 cheques to everyone in Ontario -- or at least everyone in Ontario whose life is suitably in order that they file their taxes. Last week, Justin Trudeau announced that Canadians -- but only those with employment income and filed taxes, not people on disability -- would get $250.
I already ramped up my charitable giving for the year, but when those auto-deposits hit, it is my intention to turn them over directly to Shepherds of Good Hope or the Ottawa Mission.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:21 AM on November 27 [35 favorites]
And he opened the container and ate what he could -- scooping cold rice with dirty fingers and gnawing gristle off chicken bones that had already been gnawed once. When he was done, he closed up the container and left it under the bench.
A few minutes later, a homeless woman came up and grabbed the container out from under the bench. She licked a finger and used the moisture to dab up individual grains of rice off the box. When she was finished, she closed it up and threw it away.
We are a first world goddamned country and homeless people are eating the leftovers of food other homeless people found on the street in the first goddamned place.
The same week that happened, Doug Ford announced that he would spend $3 Billion dollars to send $200 cheques to everyone in Ontario -- or at least everyone in Ontario whose life is suitably in order that they file their taxes. Last week, Justin Trudeau announced that Canadians -- but only those with employment income and filed taxes, not people on disability -- would get $250.
I already ramped up my charitable giving for the year, but when those auto-deposits hit, it is my intention to turn them over directly to Shepherds of Good Hope or the Ottawa Mission.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:21 AM on November 27 [35 favorites]
I have helped a neighbor get to nto a better situation but had to stop because she was constantly dinging me for 5, 10, 20 she needed for weird situations (boyfriend had her wallet with him for some reason and got arrested for something he didn't do; she had taken her kids to get something from a storage unit late at night but didn't have Uber cash to get them all home; etc.). I don't know if she was telling me stories or her life is just fucking weird that way or both.
I feel similarly about the big group of homeless near me. I could empty my bank account and hand it all out and it would buy a few meals and that's it.
He's right that the housed are afraid of becoming homeless. Of course we are.
posted by emjaybee at 10:40 AM on November 27 [9 favorites]
I feel similarly about the big group of homeless near me. I could empty my bank account and hand it all out and it would buy a few meals and that's it.
He's right that the housed are afraid of becoming homeless. Of course we are.
posted by emjaybee at 10:40 AM on November 27 [9 favorites]
Honestly, with giving money (unless you know the person) you just...can't care about whether you're getting the whole story.
First, you don't know them like that. Someone might have a need that they are ashamed of - which could be drugs, yes, but it could be a laxative, or something they need to buy for their kid and are ashamed they can't provide, or tampons. Someone might have a whole very sympathetic story that is too intimate, shaming or painful to tell you. I was once helping someone get into a shelter and she could not get through the domestic violence intake - it was literally too traumatic for her to continue, so we had to find another less good shelter option. It is easy to assume that people can just tell their story if they just WILL hard enough, but people have some shitty experiences, I can tell you.
Sometimes people feel, rightly or wrongly, that their story is complicated and you won't be sympathetic because they aren't the perfect victim.
People are just asking for money - you can say yes or no, but I find it helpful to just basically not care why they need the money, absent other factors. If I have the money on me and I can spare it, I give it. If I don't, I say no. I admit that frail people, elderly people, people with kids and people in obvious serious distress tend to get more money from me and I have from time to time gone to the cash machine to help someone out.
No one individual, except garbage people like Elon Apartheid-Emeralds, has enough money to help everyone who needs it.
That's why I budget an amount of money to give out. It varies a little bit and I give it out til it's gone. I'd say I might average $20 a month, but sometimes that's $5 one month and $40 another. I also buy people stuff at the store, and I try to ask in such a way that if they need shampoo instead of a sandwich, they know I'll buy them shampoo.
I think that a lot of people, including me, are afraid to say no, and so we look away or say no all the time. That's why having a budget works for me - if I've got it, I give it, and if I don't, I can't give it so it's easy to say no.
If all your money buys is a hot meal, hey, that's a hot meal the person didn't have before. Again, I think that in the face of massive need, it's easy to feel overwhelmed - not unsympathetic or selfish, just overwhelmed to the point where we say "I can't do enough, so I will say no". I feel like this about the ten million worthy and urgent gofundmes on my timeline - some days I just scroll by because I feel so overwhelmed.
Also, it's okay to let things be awkward. It can be awkward to say no, it can be awkward to have to say, "no, really, man, I only have $5, that's literally all my cash". To me it feels awkward to playact Lady Bountiful - people have a right to a decent life, and it's hard not to feel weird and bad when you are wearing clean decent clothes and have a home, and you're giving out tents and sodas to people who are often dirty and sick and are going to go camp out in the mud and filth. It's unfair, it feels bad that it's unequal. But the other choice is not doing it, and then the person doesn't have a tent.
There may be other more effective things I could do, and if those become apparent I will do them. I don't want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good and just get paralyzed.
posted by Frowner at 11:00 AM on November 27 [35 favorites]
First, you don't know them like that. Someone might have a need that they are ashamed of - which could be drugs, yes, but it could be a laxative, or something they need to buy for their kid and are ashamed they can't provide, or tampons. Someone might have a whole very sympathetic story that is too intimate, shaming or painful to tell you. I was once helping someone get into a shelter and she could not get through the domestic violence intake - it was literally too traumatic for her to continue, so we had to find another less good shelter option. It is easy to assume that people can just tell their story if they just WILL hard enough, but people have some shitty experiences, I can tell you.
Sometimes people feel, rightly or wrongly, that their story is complicated and you won't be sympathetic because they aren't the perfect victim.
People are just asking for money - you can say yes or no, but I find it helpful to just basically not care why they need the money, absent other factors. If I have the money on me and I can spare it, I give it. If I don't, I say no. I admit that frail people, elderly people, people with kids and people in obvious serious distress tend to get more money from me and I have from time to time gone to the cash machine to help someone out.
No one individual, except garbage people like Elon Apartheid-Emeralds, has enough money to help everyone who needs it.
That's why I budget an amount of money to give out. It varies a little bit and I give it out til it's gone. I'd say I might average $20 a month, but sometimes that's $5 one month and $40 another. I also buy people stuff at the store, and I try to ask in such a way that if they need shampoo instead of a sandwich, they know I'll buy them shampoo.
I think that a lot of people, including me, are afraid to say no, and so we look away or say no all the time. That's why having a budget works for me - if I've got it, I give it, and if I don't, I can't give it so it's easy to say no.
If all your money buys is a hot meal, hey, that's a hot meal the person didn't have before. Again, I think that in the face of massive need, it's easy to feel overwhelmed - not unsympathetic or selfish, just overwhelmed to the point where we say "I can't do enough, so I will say no". I feel like this about the ten million worthy and urgent gofundmes on my timeline - some days I just scroll by because I feel so overwhelmed.
Also, it's okay to let things be awkward. It can be awkward to say no, it can be awkward to have to say, "no, really, man, I only have $5, that's literally all my cash". To me it feels awkward to playact Lady Bountiful - people have a right to a decent life, and it's hard not to feel weird and bad when you are wearing clean decent clothes and have a home, and you're giving out tents and sodas to people who are often dirty and sick and are going to go camp out in the mud and filth. It's unfair, it feels bad that it's unequal. But the other choice is not doing it, and then the person doesn't have a tent.
There may be other more effective things I could do, and if those become apparent I will do them. I don't want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good and just get paralyzed.
posted by Frowner at 11:00 AM on November 27 [35 favorites]
> In Ontario the base rent for a single room is $800 for the very shittiest place,
In Pembrooke and other "north ottawa valley" small towns I see multiple "nice looking" rooms with windows going for 650 (rooms inside shared houses) being advertised right now.
YMCA of Hamilton Burlington Brantford is under 500$ a month.
So it is theoretically possible to find a place somewhere in Ontario for 600$/month, barely. Probably not with the services you want, and not a private apartment with its own kitchen and bathroom - dorm style or shared common area.
Even the finnish model of eliminating homelessness seems to do this, with common shared cooking areas.
The baseline of living isn't a one bedroom apartment: it is a room with access to a toilet and kitchen in a shared space. "Dorm style".
If we embrace per-person (not per family) housing funding, then families and couples can naturally graduate to more private accomidations.
posted by NotAYakk at 11:27 AM on November 27 [2 favorites]
In Pembrooke and other "north ottawa valley" small towns I see multiple "nice looking" rooms with windows going for 650 (rooms inside shared houses) being advertised right now.
YMCA of Hamilton Burlington Brantford is under 500$ a month.
So it is theoretically possible to find a place somewhere in Ontario for 600$/month, barely. Probably not with the services you want, and not a private apartment with its own kitchen and bathroom - dorm style or shared common area.
Even the finnish model of eliminating homelessness seems to do this, with common shared cooking areas.
The baseline of living isn't a one bedroom apartment: it is a room with access to a toilet and kitchen in a shared space. "Dorm style".
If we embrace per-person (not per family) housing funding, then families and couples can naturally graduate to more private accomidations.
posted by NotAYakk at 11:27 AM on November 27 [2 favorites]
I definitely struggle with giving money to homeless white guys, bc homeless white guys have put their hands on me and tried to intimidate me more than once. But I try to remember that poor white guys are among the primary victims of white supremacist patriarchy bc their very poverty marks them as having failed the white supremacist patriarchy game. But yeah, it’s generally not all that hard to make eye contact going into the supermarket, get a list, and then maybe leave the change too with the handoff.
posted by toodleydoodley at 11:31 AM on November 27 [1 favorite]
posted by toodleydoodley at 11:31 AM on November 27 [1 favorite]
It's sad that white people need a firsthand account of homelessness from a white collar worker to jumpstart their empathy (not calling anybody out here, just a societal observation) when it comes to folks living on the street.
For further reading on this subject (a life that went from privilege to living in the streets) folks might enjoy reading mefi's own Violet Blue's book, A Fish Has No Word for Water: A punk homeless San Francisco memoir
posted by signsofrain at 11:45 AM on November 27 [11 favorites]
For further reading on this subject (a life that went from privilege to living in the streets) folks might enjoy reading mefi's own Violet Blue's book, A Fish Has No Word for Water: A punk homeless San Francisco memoir
posted by signsofrain at 11:45 AM on November 27 [11 favorites]
I feel like it's totally legitimate to consider one's own personal safety - I've had one extremely scary and, I think, genuinely dangerous experience on a train platform when I was alone with a group of unhoused people in the very early morning.
I've found in general that as I've talked to folks more, my sense of "is this dangerous" and my ability to project confidence have improved. I strive for a "doofy white person but not a total fool, just strolling along not minding other people's business" vibe in general because there's a lot of other people's business not to mind around here right now.
I know that in a lot of situations, because I'm white and housed people are not going to want to mess with me, because they feel that I could call the cops and/or that I would be believed and they would not. This sucks, frankly, and it takes a LOT for me to even consider calling the cops, but it is a real kind of safety.
Also, it helps to be middle aged. I am usually riding my bike, too, so that means that I have more mobility, which helps me feel safer in general.
However, as a broad generality even people who are not what I'd call safe people are pretty decent to me and to outreach folks in general because we're being decent to them.
What is so....I dunno, un-middle-class, or not how American culture goes, or just complicated is that you can meet people who need to be dangerous to survive, or who are assholes, or who are abusers but also suffering or who are just so wound up in unsafe situations that they themselves are not totally safe, and you can still connect with them. This sounds fatuous to say, but people are really complicated, and the harder their lives, the more complicated they can be. Like, I'm a pretty simple soul, because I can more or less be the same person all day and the systems I need to negotiate are more or less responsive to my needs. Someone who needs to be a really tough guy on the street because otherwise he'll get attacked for instance (and that is a real thing) can be a much less simple person. Someone who needs to work three or four systems for resources just to survive, or who needs to do sex work to survive, or who needs to stay with a volatile partner can be a really complicated person.
We are encouraged to believe that people are "good" or "bad", and if they are "bad", they are bad all through and you should cut them off. (And of course, someone can be very difficult or dangerous, or just a creep.)
In a way, it's a real privilege and honor when someone trusts you enough to connect with you after having been through a lot.
I personally wish we all lived in a society where everyone could just go along being pretty simple and trusting souls.
posted by Frowner at 12:04 PM on November 27 [22 favorites]
I've found in general that as I've talked to folks more, my sense of "is this dangerous" and my ability to project confidence have improved. I strive for a "doofy white person but not a total fool, just strolling along not minding other people's business" vibe in general because there's a lot of other people's business not to mind around here right now.
I know that in a lot of situations, because I'm white and housed people are not going to want to mess with me, because they feel that I could call the cops and/or that I would be believed and they would not. This sucks, frankly, and it takes a LOT for me to even consider calling the cops, but it is a real kind of safety.
Also, it helps to be middle aged. I am usually riding my bike, too, so that means that I have more mobility, which helps me feel safer in general.
However, as a broad generality even people who are not what I'd call safe people are pretty decent to me and to outreach folks in general because we're being decent to them.
What is so....I dunno, un-middle-class, or not how American culture goes, or just complicated is that you can meet people who need to be dangerous to survive, or who are assholes, or who are abusers but also suffering or who are just so wound up in unsafe situations that they themselves are not totally safe, and you can still connect with them. This sounds fatuous to say, but people are really complicated, and the harder their lives, the more complicated they can be. Like, I'm a pretty simple soul, because I can more or less be the same person all day and the systems I need to negotiate are more or less responsive to my needs. Someone who needs to be a really tough guy on the street because otherwise he'll get attacked for instance (and that is a real thing) can be a much less simple person. Someone who needs to work three or four systems for resources just to survive, or who needs to do sex work to survive, or who needs to stay with a volatile partner can be a really complicated person.
We are encouraged to believe that people are "good" or "bad", and if they are "bad", they are bad all through and you should cut them off. (And of course, someone can be very difficult or dangerous, or just a creep.)
In a way, it's a real privilege and honor when someone trusts you enough to connect with you after having been through a lot.
I personally wish we all lived in a society where everyone could just go along being pretty simple and trusting souls.
posted by Frowner at 12:04 PM on November 27 [22 favorites]
Here's the link to his GoFundMe if you can spare a few dollars.
posted by Static Vagabond at 12:14 PM on November 27 [4 favorites]
posted by Static Vagabond at 12:14 PM on November 27 [4 favorites]
It's sad that white people need a firsthand account of homelessness from a white collar worker to jumpstart their empathy (not calling anybody out here, just a societal observation) when it comes to folks living on the street.
I think this is definitely true at a societal level. Pretty much every time there is an article in the local news about a specific homeless person -- the woman who lives in a canoe, the guy whose car needed new tires, etc -- people come out of the woodwork to heap charity on that specific person. But some non-negligible number of those same people, when faced with a ballot choice between someone who wants to put money into housing the homeless and someone who wants to hold the line on tax rates, choose the tax rate guy. They'll throw money to that one guy whose story they know, but they won't put money into helping every homeless person.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:02 PM on November 27 [18 favorites]
I think this is definitely true at a societal level. Pretty much every time there is an article in the local news about a specific homeless person -- the woman who lives in a canoe, the guy whose car needed new tires, etc -- people come out of the woodwork to heap charity on that specific person. But some non-negligible number of those same people, when faced with a ballot choice between someone who wants to put money into housing the homeless and someone who wants to hold the line on tax rates, choose the tax rate guy. They'll throw money to that one guy whose story they know, but they won't put money into helping every homeless person.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:02 PM on November 27 [18 favorites]
seanmpuckett, the amount is $1400 a month because Doug Ford’s Conservatives raised it from $1300. Sure, they dragged their feet after promising action in the first 60 days, but it’s a more substantial increase than the Ontario Liberals made in their 15 years in power. They also raised the amount a recipient can earn without a disincentivizing clawback from $250 to $1000.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 1:29 PM on November 27 [1 favorite]
posted by Paddle to Sea at 1:29 PM on November 27 [1 favorite]
Ford's been in power for six years and has done just slightly more than nothing to help ODSP, meanwhile the cost of living has gone up even faster, especially since COVID. Ford's also done roughly a shitload other things to negate any kind of benefit that tiny increase would have provided. So, no, you can't remediate his image here with a bit of selective reporting.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:45 PM on November 27 [8 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:45 PM on November 27 [8 favorites]
The Pulitzer Prize for feature writing comes with a $15,000 award.
According to the story, that's at least two years' rent at the Warm Center.
In case any Pulitzer judges happen to be listening.
posted by martin q blank at 2:28 PM on November 27 [7 favorites]
According to the story, that's at least two years' rent at the Warm Center.
In case any Pulitzer judges happen to be listening.
posted by martin q blank at 2:28 PM on November 27 [7 favorites]
"Selective reporting", i.e., lived experience. The only folks promising to double the rates immediately were the Greens. I don’t appreciate being assigned intentions, as I get nothing out of burnishing Ford's image; he certainly seems to have no intention of changing the spousal regulations that financially punish any romantic partner who might want to share a roof. Kathleen Wynne announced a plan to address this in 2017(instead of using the seven months before losing power to do so), but such a change seemed to be absent from every party’s platform in the last election.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 2:41 PM on November 27 [3 favorites]
posted by Paddle to Sea at 2:41 PM on November 27 [3 favorites]
"avarice" -- good word.
posted by alex_skazat at 3:01 PM on November 27
posted by alex_skazat at 3:01 PM on November 27
About the only improvement over the situation since Lars Eighner's 1993 Travels With Lizbeth is that cell phones got dirt cheap and subsidized. That's it.
Slightly easier to be connected to the rest of the world, slightly easier to find whatever work or housing or food or services are supposed to be available.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:04 PM on November 27 [1 favorite]
Slightly easier to be connected to the rest of the world, slightly easier to find whatever work or housing or food or services are supposed to be available.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:04 PM on November 27 [1 favorite]
Again, you see how just "liberal" people are when it comes to homeless folks.
A few years back the "liberal" city of Berkeley, CA made illegal to live in your car.
posted by AlSweigart at 3:29 PM on November 27 [5 favorites]
A few years back the "liberal" city of Berkeley, CA made illegal to live in your car.
posted by AlSweigart at 3:29 PM on November 27 [5 favorites]
What was he talking about with the tracking software and being hesitant to hand out his phone number to the cops? I wouldn’t want to give my number to a cop either, but i don’t understand how giving someone your phone number can get your location tracked by police?
posted by congen at 3:48 PM on November 27 [2 favorites]
posted by congen at 3:48 PM on November 27 [2 favorites]
I'm 100% in favour of more emergency housing; more affordable housing; more subsidised housing; and more public housing.
I won't interact with homeless people in-person though, because as a woman who uses a power wheelchair, I have had
a) abuse shouted and screamed at me for going down the footpath in a power wheelchair (when all the able bodied people walking down the footpath were ignored);
b) on multiple separate occasions, threats to steal my wheelchair by tipping me out of it;
c) on one occasion, someone SAT IN my power wheelchair and refused to get out until a guard moved them along.
d) someone sticking their leg out in front of my power wheelchair to force me to stop, in a way that was really dangerous for both of us.
Sometimes ignoring homeless people in-person is a genuine safety need - especially if you're a woman and/or visibly disabled.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 4:06 PM on November 27 [10 favorites]
I won't interact with homeless people in-person though, because as a woman who uses a power wheelchair, I have had
a) abuse shouted and screamed at me for going down the footpath in a power wheelchair (when all the able bodied people walking down the footpath were ignored);
b) on multiple separate occasions, threats to steal my wheelchair by tipping me out of it;
c) on one occasion, someone SAT IN my power wheelchair and refused to get out until a guard moved them along.
d) someone sticking their leg out in front of my power wheelchair to force me to stop, in a way that was really dangerous for both of us.
Sometimes ignoring homeless people in-person is a genuine safety need - especially if you're a woman and/or visibly disabled.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 4:06 PM on November 27 [10 favorites]
Social workers of appropriate stripes need to advocate for and publicly, formally - whatever that amounts to - call for permanent and temporary public housing and storage with various capacities. I call for social workers specifically because they see multiple folk, homeless and on the edge thereof, getting counsel from them, and I know they have stories to tell from a professional standpoint.
My individual voice, while it does matter, is too small to deal comprehensively with the need of the homeless/edge thereof, and yes, many non-professional voices may be better, in the form of a support network or mutual aid group, etc. I know people, however, that support nets of various sizes just don't hold, and can do lasting damage if the support net members don't hold their own or aren't prepared for them adequately.
And yes, it kills me to type that, but it needs to be aired, as it has nearly killed me offering and providing support for those dealing with housing trouble and other matters (that may be an exaggeration but it is a feeling). I'm tapped out, and caring for myself and wife for now.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 4:31 PM on November 27 [3 favorites]
My individual voice, while it does matter, is too small to deal comprehensively with the need of the homeless/edge thereof, and yes, many non-professional voices may be better, in the form of a support network or mutual aid group, etc. I know people, however, that support nets of various sizes just don't hold, and can do lasting damage if the support net members don't hold their own or aren't prepared for them adequately.
And yes, it kills me to type that, but it needs to be aired, as it has nearly killed me offering and providing support for those dealing with housing trouble and other matters (that may be an exaggeration but it is a feeling). I'm tapped out, and caring for myself and wife for now.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 4:31 PM on November 27 [3 favorites]
What was he talking about with the tracking software and being hesitant to hand out his phone number to the cops?
Could be something like this?
Could be something like this?
U.S. law enforcement agencies have used a smartphone tracking tool called “Fog Reveal” — made by a company that has no website or public information — to track people’s movements going back months, if not years, sometimes without search warrantsposted by hap_hazard at 4:56 PM on November 27 [12 favorites]
in response to the many individual commenters who have valid reasons not to want to individually respond to individual homeless people they meet on the street:
it sucks that you have to say this. it's obvious. the idea that every homeless person is a cool "food not bombs" story that hasn't been written is clearly signaling BS.
the reality is that the conditions that lead to homelessness are HUGE and SYSTEMIC and COMPLICATED, and you can't fix them any more than you can personally desalinate the ocean so your neighborhood can have clean drinking water.
we should all be nicer to most people, whether they seem scary or not. but that is almost completely unrelated to the enormous, unfair and purposeful disenfranchisement of "unproductive" people that results in people that can't house, feed or care for themselves.
like Systemantics says, "the purpose of a system is what it does," and the purpose of the economic system we live in is to give us losers to be grateful NOT to be -- and the purpose of a lot of these "mutual-aid" circle-jerkers is to use people's pain as currency. somewhere along the way the Left allowed the Right to get this one right -- "virtue signaling" is VERY real, and talking about how awesome it is to hand out water to tent cities is easy compared with, for example, throwing your cool upper-middle-class privilege toward rezoning EVERY SINGLE PLACE in this country to allow SROs, high-density housing, etc to say nothing of perhaps having anything at all comparable to a mleczny or "milk bar" -- any kind of middle place where struggling people can fulfilll human needs without the intervention of capital.
it is extremely frustrating to continually have to apologize for things like "I don't want to be scared of being knifed on my own street" when the cause isn't your fear, or your privilege or lack thereof -- but the complete and total domination of our political imagination -- an utter disavowal of our obligation to use our large numbers and large brains for something better than selfishness.
I don't mean to say handing out bananas or whatever isn't a nice gesture. But it's nothing more than that. It does not aggregate. There's no amount of bananas that solves homelessness. So maybe instead of creating endlessly granular hierarchies of who feels safe doing this and that on the street, we accept that a solution will be necessarily systematic? And that living in a safe neighborhood (while difficult to equitably define) is STILL AN OKAY THING TO WANT?
posted by mathjus at 9:53 PM on November 27 [10 favorites]
it sucks that you have to say this. it's obvious. the idea that every homeless person is a cool "food not bombs" story that hasn't been written is clearly signaling BS.
the reality is that the conditions that lead to homelessness are HUGE and SYSTEMIC and COMPLICATED, and you can't fix them any more than you can personally desalinate the ocean so your neighborhood can have clean drinking water.
we should all be nicer to most people, whether they seem scary or not. but that is almost completely unrelated to the enormous, unfair and purposeful disenfranchisement of "unproductive" people that results in people that can't house, feed or care for themselves.
like Systemantics says, "the purpose of a system is what it does," and the purpose of the economic system we live in is to give us losers to be grateful NOT to be -- and the purpose of a lot of these "mutual-aid" circle-jerkers is to use people's pain as currency. somewhere along the way the Left allowed the Right to get this one right -- "virtue signaling" is VERY real, and talking about how awesome it is to hand out water to tent cities is easy compared with, for example, throwing your cool upper-middle-class privilege toward rezoning EVERY SINGLE PLACE in this country to allow SROs, high-density housing, etc to say nothing of perhaps having anything at all comparable to a mleczny or "milk bar" -- any kind of middle place where struggling people can fulfilll human needs without the intervention of capital.
it is extremely frustrating to continually have to apologize for things like "I don't want to be scared of being knifed on my own street" when the cause isn't your fear, or your privilege or lack thereof -- but the complete and total domination of our political imagination -- an utter disavowal of our obligation to use our large numbers and large brains for something better than selfishness.
I don't mean to say handing out bananas or whatever isn't a nice gesture. But it's nothing more than that. It does not aggregate. There's no amount of bananas that solves homelessness. So maybe instead of creating endlessly granular hierarchies of who feels safe doing this and that on the street, we accept that a solution will be necessarily systematic? And that living in a safe neighborhood (while difficult to equitably define) is STILL AN OKAY THING TO WANT?
posted by mathjus at 9:53 PM on November 27 [10 favorites]
That's a great observation! I assume that you're out there organizing, going to city council meetings, working with your union etc, because it would sure be a shame if folks used "it's a systemic problem and I have a right to feel safe in my neighborhood" as an excuse to sit on their hands, demonize homeless people and attack actual organizers and mutual aid groups, which is what I see locally.
So yes, tell me about the work that you're doing to get everything rezoned for SROs - I bet you're doing a ton! I bet it will happen by next year, right? So all the people who are living on the street right now will have housing by January? That will really show the upper middle class mutual aid circle-jerkers using people's pain as currency! I bet that I, for instance, will just shrivel up like the wicked witch of the west.
~~
Haha, no, actually you're hilarious, because the literal same people who do all that mutual aid stuff are also the people who go to city council meetings, pass union resolutions, work on housing issues, etc - that's something that's obvious at least around here. It's funny, the people who are willing to take the time to try to keep people from freezing and starving also are willing to take the time to do political organizing, who would have thought.
All my life I've seen "this is a HUGE and SYSTEMIC problem, we need HUGE and SYSTEMIC solutions" used as a way to kick the can down the road when folks don't have even the ghost of a movement capable of making huge and systemic changes. The problem isn't that we don't know that lots of affordable housing keeps people housed, it's that the interests militating against affordable housing are many, well-financed and extremely diverse (like Joe Homeowner who doesn't want his property values to fall, and Joe Homeowner is locked into that view by decades of policy that mean his primary wealth is his home - and then Joe Homeowner acts as the folksy catspaw for the banks and the developers).
My genuine feeling, after watching our long-time Democratic mayor in action, is that he does not want to solve the problem of homelessness, because as long as there are unhoused people, he has a hammer to wield against all leftward movement and he has a way to throw big money to his friends in the police. Fear and anger about unhoused people is extremely useful for our local crooked Dems. Organizing against that fear and anger isn't actually a bad idea.
~~
I keep wondering how people envision getting to rezoning for SROs. There's been some rezoning around here just for apartments, and it's a huge uphill battle. I'm not saying that we can't get things rezoned for SROs, although I also wonder who is going to run those SROs, because either it's going to be giant grift or it's going to be absolute de minimis roach infested hellholes. I've got a friend in supported housing - and they're lucky to have it, it's better than where they were - and it absolutely is a de minimis roach infested hellhole.
But even if things were, frankly, a lot better than they are politically, we are years and years and years away from SROs. Around here, we voted in a system that hamstrings the city council - I mean, I didn't vote it in, nor did anyone I knew, but a lot of people who really want to feel safe in their neighborhoods did. Sheer weight of human misery and pressure by a small number of gifted local politicians (the very people who work with the mutual aid circle-jerkers, funnily enough) has resulted in some movement from the mayor on a few things - like, we actually got some crummy, filthy portapotties for a couple of encampments after vast pressure pointing out that if you don't want people shitting on the sidewalk you need to give them at the very minimum some kind of bathroom access. That was a big victory, of sorts.
I mean yes, this is a huge and systemic problem, but even if the goal is to build up a communist army that will sweep away the old regime, that is only going to happen by literally doing organizing among individual people that will look small and fiddly. The more we point at the uselessness of individual actions, small groups and local solutions the less we're likely to actually have movements because that's where movements come from.
posted by Frowner at 4:01 AM on November 28 [35 favorites]
So yes, tell me about the work that you're doing to get everything rezoned for SROs - I bet you're doing a ton! I bet it will happen by next year, right? So all the people who are living on the street right now will have housing by January? That will really show the upper middle class mutual aid circle-jerkers using people's pain as currency! I bet that I, for instance, will just shrivel up like the wicked witch of the west.
~~
Haha, no, actually you're hilarious, because the literal same people who do all that mutual aid stuff are also the people who go to city council meetings, pass union resolutions, work on housing issues, etc - that's something that's obvious at least around here. It's funny, the people who are willing to take the time to try to keep people from freezing and starving also are willing to take the time to do political organizing, who would have thought.
All my life I've seen "this is a HUGE and SYSTEMIC problem, we need HUGE and SYSTEMIC solutions" used as a way to kick the can down the road when folks don't have even the ghost of a movement capable of making huge and systemic changes. The problem isn't that we don't know that lots of affordable housing keeps people housed, it's that the interests militating against affordable housing are many, well-financed and extremely diverse (like Joe Homeowner who doesn't want his property values to fall, and Joe Homeowner is locked into that view by decades of policy that mean his primary wealth is his home - and then Joe Homeowner acts as the folksy catspaw for the banks and the developers).
My genuine feeling, after watching our long-time Democratic mayor in action, is that he does not want to solve the problem of homelessness, because as long as there are unhoused people, he has a hammer to wield against all leftward movement and he has a way to throw big money to his friends in the police. Fear and anger about unhoused people is extremely useful for our local crooked Dems. Organizing against that fear and anger isn't actually a bad idea.
~~
I keep wondering how people envision getting to rezoning for SROs. There's been some rezoning around here just for apartments, and it's a huge uphill battle. I'm not saying that we can't get things rezoned for SROs, although I also wonder who is going to run those SROs, because either it's going to be giant grift or it's going to be absolute de minimis roach infested hellholes. I've got a friend in supported housing - and they're lucky to have it, it's better than where they were - and it absolutely is a de minimis roach infested hellhole.
But even if things were, frankly, a lot better than they are politically, we are years and years and years away from SROs. Around here, we voted in a system that hamstrings the city council - I mean, I didn't vote it in, nor did anyone I knew, but a lot of people who really want to feel safe in their neighborhoods did. Sheer weight of human misery and pressure by a small number of gifted local politicians (the very people who work with the mutual aid circle-jerkers, funnily enough) has resulted in some movement from the mayor on a few things - like, we actually got some crummy, filthy portapotties for a couple of encampments after vast pressure pointing out that if you don't want people shitting on the sidewalk you need to give them at the very minimum some kind of bathroom access. That was a big victory, of sorts.
I mean yes, this is a huge and systemic problem, but even if the goal is to build up a communist army that will sweep away the old regime, that is only going to happen by literally doing organizing among individual people that will look small and fiddly. The more we point at the uselessness of individual actions, small groups and local solutions the less we're likely to actually have movements because that's where movements come from.
posted by Frowner at 4:01 AM on November 28 [35 favorites]
All my life I've seen "this is a HUGE and SYSTEMIC problem, we need HUGE and SYSTEMIC solutions" used as a way to kick the can down the road when folks don't have even the ghost of a movement capable of making huge and systemic changes. The problem isn't that we don't know that lots of affordable housing keeps people housed, it's that the interests militating against affordable housing are many, well-financed and extremely diverse (like Joe Homeowner who doesn't want his property values to fall, and Joe Homeowner is locked into that view by decades of policy that mean his primary wealth is his home - and then Joe Homeowner acts as the folksy catspaw for the banks and the developers).
^ This. ^
It's pretty much about property values! Oh noes the value of mah house!
First off, if you even own a house at all, you're well ahead of the game. You ain't sleeping in a tent during the winter. I am a homeowner and I could give two shits about my property values because I didn't invest my entire life savings (such as they are) in it to use it as a cudgel against people who are so so less fortunate than me.
I'm with Frowner; I attend council meetings, I support any affordable housing, and I contribute with the local mutual aid societies. I try to make any difference at all for people who have a lot worse than me.
posted by Kitteh at 5:27 AM on November 28 [10 favorites]
^ This. ^
It's pretty much about property values! Oh noes the value of mah house!
First off, if you even own a house at all, you're well ahead of the game. You ain't sleeping in a tent during the winter. I am a homeowner and I could give two shits about my property values because I didn't invest my entire life savings (such as they are) in it to use it as a cudgel against people who are so so less fortunate than me.
I'm with Frowner; I attend council meetings, I support any affordable housing, and I contribute with the local mutual aid societies. I try to make any difference at all for people who have a lot worse than me.
posted by Kitteh at 5:27 AM on November 28 [10 favorites]
Good news: The Denver basic income project has been a success. Not only did almost half of the recipients get stable housing, the city saved $600k in emergency service costs.
Bad news: The mayor has decided not to continue the program, and several states (Iowa, Arkansas, Idaho and South Dakota) have preemptively banned such programs as "socialism."
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:11 AM on November 28 [13 favorites]
Bad news: The mayor has decided not to continue the program, and several states (Iowa, Arkansas, Idaho and South Dakota) have preemptively banned such programs as "socialism."
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:11 AM on November 28 [13 favorites]
it's going to be absolute de minimis roach infested hellholes
Beats a roach-infested tent. I’ve talked at greater length about this subject before but I feel like there’s almost a mirror image of “we can’t do anything unless we solve the systemic issue” thinking around it, that as soon as you’re talking about housing people indoors the problems of their living situation belong to someone, in a way they don’t when it’s happening on the street. And I don’t think the effect this has on the ability to solve problems is net positive.
I don’t know what to do about the economic forces arrayed against housing people in urban areas though. Reckon that’s one of them intractable systemic issues.
posted by atoxyl at 11:21 AM on November 28 [1 favorite]
Beats a roach-infested tent. I’ve talked at greater length about this subject before but I feel like there’s almost a mirror image of “we can’t do anything unless we solve the systemic issue” thinking around it, that as soon as you’re talking about housing people indoors the problems of their living situation belong to someone, in a way they don’t when it’s happening on the street. And I don’t think the effect this has on the ability to solve problems is net positive.
I don’t know what to do about the economic forces arrayed against housing people in urban areas though. Reckon that’s one of them intractable systemic issues.
posted by atoxyl at 11:21 AM on November 28 [1 favorite]
Even less special insight in this anecdote but I used to live (rent) on a loop of street that was kind of an ugly, out-of-the-way appendix to a relatively gentrified area, with a lot of excess parking, which thus attracted a lot of people living in vehicles. Most people were fine, some were sketchy but in a way that didn’t bother me too much because I have some experience dealing with sketchy people. Once in a while though you’d get somebody who would dump sewage in the street, which is why I can confirm the accuracy of certain adages about the behavior of shit under the influence of gravity. Any metaphorical implication is for you to derive.
posted by atoxyl at 11:36 AM on November 28
posted by atoxyl at 11:36 AM on November 28
It is absolutely a reasonable thing to want a safe neighborhood. The problem, however, is when you equate "unhoused people" with "unsafety". While the rate of violent offenses committed by unhoused people is higher than in the general population, unhoused people are still significantly more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators of it.
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:47 PM on November 28 [10 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:47 PM on November 28 [10 favorites]
Like, y'all know that there are current MeFites who are unhoused, right? I can think of at least two off the top of my head.
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:48 PM on November 28 [5 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:48 PM on November 28 [5 favorites]
Sometimes ignoring homeless people in-person is a genuine safety need - especially if you're a woman and/or visibly disabled.
when people make general prescriptions that my life doesn’t accommodate, i just think to myself that they aren’t talking to or about me because they don’t know my life.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 1:48 PM on November 28 [6 favorites]
when people make general prescriptions that my life doesn’t accommodate, i just think to myself that they aren’t talking to or about me because they don’t know my life.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 1:48 PM on November 28 [6 favorites]
There is only one reason I can think of that [a police officer] would want my phone number, which is so that the police could install some kind of stalkerware on my phone, to track me.
Huh? Is this actually possible?
posted by nouvelle-personne at 4:00 PM on November 28
Huh? Is this actually possible?
posted by nouvelle-personne at 4:00 PM on November 28
Welcome to Stingray, the 25 year old surveillance device still in use today. I'm guessing the state of the art has advanced if only in the ability to process large data sets.
posted by Mitheral at 4:48 PM on November 28 [6 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 4:48 PM on November 28 [6 favorites]
Anyone got an unpaywall or summary of the Boston Globe's follow up?
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:21 AM on November 29
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:21 AM on November 29
Here you go -
‘This could be any of us’: A former journalist ended up homeless. Then, his story inspired a Narragansett family to help.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:45 AM on November 29 [3 favorites]
‘This could be any of us’: A former journalist ended up homeless. Then, his story inspired a Narragansett family to help.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:45 AM on November 29 [3 favorites]
Beats a roach-infested tent.
Absolutely! Please don't take my concerns as an argument against SROs!
It just bums me out that my friend gets housing and it's full of roaches. I've lived in a place full of roaches and IMO it wears you down much more than mice, for instance, or noise. And there too, that keeps people from getting their health situation better - my friend has health stuff that will probably always be with them, but even the intractable stuff would be better with a less stressful environment.
I do think there's sometimes a perception that the old SROs were all nice and great, back when that was where people in the grip of alcoholism would go, and a lot of those were extremely rough. It was easy to say to people "let's redevelop this and build something better, aren't these awful" because they were often kind of awful.
Of course it was the same bait and switch they used on affordable/public housing - "this is rundown! let's demolish and replace it!" and whoops the replacement never comes. When I first moved to Minneapolis, back around the time we discovered fire and the wheel, there was still a quite a lot of public housing here. Our mayors and our crooked, crooked city council worked in tandem with developers to tear it down and replace with with market-rate housing with a few "affordable" units. We still have a little public and more subsidized housing, but gee, it would sure be handy to have all that stuff we got rid of back in the mid-nineties. But "screw the poor, eat the seed corn, DOW forever!" was the mood at the time.
Among the things I'd like to see more of - we have a very compact HUD development, Little Earth, that is preference for Native people (which is why it has escaped the general destruction of public housing - it's in a poor area already and the community has worked hard on creating cultural resonance/art/programs that would make the optics of bulldozing it really bad) and while if I had a few million dollars kicking around I'd like to do it up nice and plant some more trees, when I've been in there it seems pretty well designed - different kinds of housing, compact but low rise, with space between buildings and little courtyards. Honestly we could do with a lot more of that type of housing at market rate too. People will say that space has its problems, but they're the usual problems of people not having enough money or opportunity and facing a lot of racism.
There's also some really nice supported and elderly housing run by tribal groups right around here. I was only in one of those buildings for an extended period once, but I thought it was really quite good - while clearly there wasn't the budget for luxury, everything felt very sound and well done and robust, frankly better than a lot of those paper-walled new condos that I've been in. Real robustness beats luxury surfaces layered over absolute garbage any day.
It is extremely frustrating that we not only have the knowledge but we literally have good examples right here. Right on my street there's a whole block where maybe half the housing stock is basically irrecoverable - I was inside one of those houses too, they're not being lived in, they're rotted. Those could be knocked down and some similar midrise buildings put up, and bam, you would have housing, and you'd be housing people right here, so the whole "but don't bring unhoused people to MY neighborhood" argument would be moot. That stretch is about five blocks from a big Aldi, so it's not even a food desert or anything.
posted by Frowner at 6:58 AM on November 29 [7 favorites]
Absolutely! Please don't take my concerns as an argument against SROs!
It just bums me out that my friend gets housing and it's full of roaches. I've lived in a place full of roaches and IMO it wears you down much more than mice, for instance, or noise. And there too, that keeps people from getting their health situation better - my friend has health stuff that will probably always be with them, but even the intractable stuff would be better with a less stressful environment.
I do think there's sometimes a perception that the old SROs were all nice and great, back when that was where people in the grip of alcoholism would go, and a lot of those were extremely rough. It was easy to say to people "let's redevelop this and build something better, aren't these awful" because they were often kind of awful.
Of course it was the same bait and switch they used on affordable/public housing - "this is rundown! let's demolish and replace it!" and whoops the replacement never comes. When I first moved to Minneapolis, back around the time we discovered fire and the wheel, there was still a quite a lot of public housing here. Our mayors and our crooked, crooked city council worked in tandem with developers to tear it down and replace with with market-rate housing with a few "affordable" units. We still have a little public and more subsidized housing, but gee, it would sure be handy to have all that stuff we got rid of back in the mid-nineties. But "screw the poor, eat the seed corn, DOW forever!" was the mood at the time.
Among the things I'd like to see more of - we have a very compact HUD development, Little Earth, that is preference for Native people (which is why it has escaped the general destruction of public housing - it's in a poor area already and the community has worked hard on creating cultural resonance/art/programs that would make the optics of bulldozing it really bad) and while if I had a few million dollars kicking around I'd like to do it up nice and plant some more trees, when I've been in there it seems pretty well designed - different kinds of housing, compact but low rise, with space between buildings and little courtyards. Honestly we could do with a lot more of that type of housing at market rate too. People will say that space has its problems, but they're the usual problems of people not having enough money or opportunity and facing a lot of racism.
There's also some really nice supported and elderly housing run by tribal groups right around here. I was only in one of those buildings for an extended period once, but I thought it was really quite good - while clearly there wasn't the budget for luxury, everything felt very sound and well done and robust, frankly better than a lot of those paper-walled new condos that I've been in. Real robustness beats luxury surfaces layered over absolute garbage any day.
It is extremely frustrating that we not only have the knowledge but we literally have good examples right here. Right on my street there's a whole block where maybe half the housing stock is basically irrecoverable - I was inside one of those houses too, they're not being lived in, they're rotted. Those could be knocked down and some similar midrise buildings put up, and bam, you would have housing, and you'd be housing people right here, so the whole "but don't bring unhoused people to MY neighborhood" argument would be moot. That stretch is about five blocks from a big Aldi, so it's not even a food desert or anything.
posted by Frowner at 6:58 AM on November 29 [7 favorites]
There is only one reason I can think of that [a police officer] would want my phone number, which is so that the police could install some kind of stalkerware on my phone, to track me.
Huh? Is this actually possible?
1) Regarding asking for the number: some police/sheriff departments have co-respondents who are responsible for providing resource information to homeless people. So it's possible the cop was asking for the number to give to them, to get the guy help if needed.
2) Regarding tracking, it typically only happens if the person is in grave danger (e.g. suicidal) or is a danger to others. Even then it is basically only triangulation of location. AND it needs a warrant. In a situation where time is of the essence, an emergency ping can be carried out without an available warrant. But that still requires a warrant after the fact. And, obviously, warrants need solid reasons/evidence.
Based on the above, the writer is - like most people - either ignorant of how Law Enforcement works in practice, or using a journalistic hook based on prejudices against Law Enforcement (he is a journalist, after all).
I would urge everyone to go on a ride-along with your local law enforcement; I have personally done this several times and it really helps one understand the nature and day-to-day difficulty of their job. They do interact with a lot of homeless on a daily basis, but there are a myriad of journeys people take towards homelessness and this writer's is just one of many. There is no one way for LE to approach them that works for everyone. Also, bear in mind that, while one district might allow overnight camping or hanging out in cars, the districts right next to it might have ordinances against those things.
posted by hrpomrx at 8:32 AM on November 29 [1 favorite]
Huh? Is this actually possible?
1) Regarding asking for the number: some police/sheriff departments have co-respondents who are responsible for providing resource information to homeless people. So it's possible the cop was asking for the number to give to them, to get the guy help if needed.
2) Regarding tracking, it typically only happens if the person is in grave danger (e.g. suicidal) or is a danger to others. Even then it is basically only triangulation of location. AND it needs a warrant. In a situation where time is of the essence, an emergency ping can be carried out without an available warrant. But that still requires a warrant after the fact. And, obviously, warrants need solid reasons/evidence.
Based on the above, the writer is - like most people - either ignorant of how Law Enforcement works in practice, or using a journalistic hook based on prejudices against Law Enforcement (he is a journalist, after all).
I would urge everyone to go on a ride-along with your local law enforcement; I have personally done this several times and it really helps one understand the nature and day-to-day difficulty of their job. They do interact with a lot of homeless on a daily basis, but there are a myriad of journeys people take towards homelessness and this writer's is just one of many. There is no one way for LE to approach them that works for everyone. Also, bear in mind that, while one district might allow overnight camping or hanging out in cars, the districts right next to it might have ordinances against those things.
posted by hrpomrx at 8:32 AM on November 29 [1 favorite]
So it's possible the cop was asking for the number to give to them, to get the guy help if needed.
Ah, yes, always just trying to help out, those friendly cops. That certainly explains the ones who threatened to ticket him for illegal parking unless he provided the phone number. Because nothing indicates sincerity more than threatening people into accepting your "help".
posted by jacquilynne at 9:10 AM on November 29 [11 favorites]
Ah, yes, always just trying to help out, those friendly cops. That certainly explains the ones who threatened to ticket him for illegal parking unless he provided the phone number. Because nothing indicates sincerity more than threatening people into accepting your "help".
posted by jacquilynne at 9:10 AM on November 29 [11 favorites]
obviously, warrants need solid reasons/evidence.
Based on the above, the writer is - like most people - either ignorant of how Law Enforcement works in practice
Would you like the public defender breakdown of how much this is bullshit, and if so, in what degree of legal detail? I assure you I am not ignorant of how law enforcement works in practice.
posted by corb at 9:37 PM on November 29 [11 favorites]
Based on the above, the writer is - like most people - either ignorant of how Law Enforcement works in practice
Would you like the public defender breakdown of how much this is bullshit, and if so, in what degree of legal detail? I assure you I am not ignorant of how law enforcement works in practice.
posted by corb at 9:37 PM on November 29 [11 favorites]
There's no amount of bananas that solves homelessness.
You know what a banana fixes? Being hungry right now, that minute. Maybe that seems tiny, but if you’ve gone hungry for a while, I assure you, it’s not.
This is the topic that most clearly separates the comfortable-techie-living-in-the-suburbs-mostly-worried-about-college-tuition Mefite from anyone who has ever spent significant time in another station in life.
posted by praemunire at 10:55 AM on November 30 [6 favorites]
You know what a banana fixes? Being hungry right now, that minute. Maybe that seems tiny, but if you’ve gone hungry for a while, I assure you, it’s not.
This is the topic that most clearly separates the comfortable-techie-living-in-the-suburbs-mostly-worried-about-college-tuition Mefite from anyone who has ever spent significant time in another station in life.
posted by praemunire at 10:55 AM on November 30 [6 favorites]
- budget an amount of cash every month and carry it in small bills and give money to people who approach you. Do not worry about if they will use it for drugs - they probably won't, but if they do, it's better that they get the cash from you than that they get coerced into sex, coerced into supporting petty crime or steal to get the money. Even if all you can spare is five or ten dollars.
For the past couple of years, my commute by mobility scooter and bus has brought me into daily contact with a number of homeless people. I sometimes gave money if asked, occasionally gave money if not asked, but always felt a little troubled about how arbitrary my decisions to give or not give seemed—sometimes it depended on how many times that day I'd been asked; other times on my mood; other times on some unidentifiable other thing. A scrupulously truthful person, it was hard for me to say, "I haven't got anything," when I knew perfectly well I still had seven bucks in my walet.
Eventually, I adopted essentially this strategy of Frowner's. I got a certain amount of cash every couple of weeks, in small bills, and handed some over every time someone asked. When that money was gone, I could honestly say, "Sorry, not today," until I got the next bit of cash on my next payday. It reduced my stress about this so much to have made one decision that guided my behavior rather than having to make a decision on the fly every time I was asked.
posted by Well I never at 8:07 AM on December 3 [2 favorites]
For the past couple of years, my commute by mobility scooter and bus has brought me into daily contact with a number of homeless people. I sometimes gave money if asked, occasionally gave money if not asked, but always felt a little troubled about how arbitrary my decisions to give or not give seemed—sometimes it depended on how many times that day I'd been asked; other times on my mood; other times on some unidentifiable other thing. A scrupulously truthful person, it was hard for me to say, "I haven't got anything," when I knew perfectly well I still had seven bucks in my walet.
Eventually, I adopted essentially this strategy of Frowner's. I got a certain amount of cash every couple of weeks, in small bills, and handed some over every time someone asked. When that money was gone, I could honestly say, "Sorry, not today," until I got the next bit of cash on my next payday. It reduced my stress about this so much to have made one decision that guided my behavior rather than having to make a decision on the fly every time I was asked.
posted by Well I never at 8:07 AM on December 3 [2 favorites]
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