So, I'm not a political activist. Or a social activist. Or any kind of activist, really. In general I try and avoid all societal interactions, to the best of my ability. I'm actually pretty good at it. Everyone's good at something. I stopped watching network TV years ago, stopped paying attention to the news. In short: I stopped caring. I do my own thing, live my own life, focus on me. And my son. Well, and my cats. I'm a good citizen though; I follow (most of) the established rules and laws. I don't litter, I recycle as much as I'm able to. I drive a hybrid. When I'm not walking and sparing the air. I work a full time job. I contribute to society.
Sometimes things get to you though. Like this morning, as I was waking up from a night marred with tossing and turning and funky dreams which I can no longer remember. As I was laying in bed, a feverish internal debate in progress about whether I should get up and start my day, I scrolled through Facebook. It's a good way to see some of what's been going on in the world. You can always count on your Facebook Friends to keep you up to date. Sharing, sharing, sharing,
Anyways, I came across a story from ABC News about the homeless encampment under a Highway 50 overpass, that suddenly became newsworthy by virtue of being in the way of Progress. Namely the work of CalTrans. It seems CalTrans can't work when there's people living on the space they want to work on. Imagine that.
And like the silly fool that I am, I read the comments to the article. This is never a good idea. Though these were fairly tame in the grand scheme of the world, save for the top featured one which said to tell them to move on, because they're Homeless and they can "do that anywhere". Most of the comments seemed to suggest that Governor Newsom and Speaker Pelosi and others of affluence had plenty of space around their grand homesteads. The Homeless would certainly have room there, to live in their backyards. I paraphrase a bit, but I'm sure you can imagine the lingo of the Keyboard Warriors at 6am on a Tuesday.
In general, people just want the Homeless to go somewhere else. Anywhere else. Let them be someone else's problem, is what people say. And it's not like the old days where being homeless meant you were hunkered down under a storefront awning in your grimy old sleeping bag with a couple of damp blankets and some flattened out cardboard boxes to cover you. No, now they have professional camping tents, many nicer than mine that I actually use once every few years and pay $40 a night for the right to pitch it up in a fine wooded area. And they have possessions. Things. Bicycles and coolers and piles of clothes and pieces of what used to be furniture, and on and on. So many piles of stuff, though it's difficult to tell which are treasured times and which are trash. They look the same to me. They look the same to a lot of people. And it seems like there's so many more Homeless now, like it's ballooned in both the numbers of people and the square footage now covered in garbage and sewage. Possibly due to Covid, to the shut down of society which must have forced some people out of their homes for lack of work.
In any case, few people seem to have tangible ideas for solving this problem, which is now even more seemingly out of control. Most just like to place blame, to pass it around like a football. Or a hot potato, I suppose. So I wrote a comment to the post. (Bad idea! For the sake of your own sanity, never, ever do this!). This is what it said:
"If we want to fix this problem, our society needs to stop accepting that it’s “OK” for people to setup makeshift camps wherever they want. And we’ve been accepting it by letting it happen. And by simply relocating homeless whenever it gets in the way of “progress”, which is what this story is about. We need comprehensive rehabilitation programs to get people off of the streets and back in to mainstream society. This article mentions briefly at the end a 100 bed shelter being built. It’s a start. And I know there’s a lot of people out there that “prefer“ to live on the streets. This can’t be OK. We have allowed it to be OK for a long time, and this problem has gotten exponentially worse in recent years."
Now, I don't see this as particularly profound of a statement. It's rational, and logical, if not overly simplifying the problem. But it seems to have been received well; in just over 12 hours it's received 106 likes. And I think it's true - we have accepted that being Homeless is an 'okay' thing. By virtue of not really doing anything substantial to combat it.
The homeless situation is sad. It really is. It saddens me every time I drive through downtown and see all the rough and grungy encampments and piles of trash spread out all over. Well anyways, I've said my piece and now I'll crawl back under my rock again. But hey, maybe our leaders will get that shelter done, and maybe up to 100 people will get the assistance they so desperately and obviously need and get off the streets. As I said, it's a start. And maybe some of those people, once they've gotten their fresh start, can go back to the camps from whence they came, which I'm sure will still be there. And maybe they can talk to those who are otherwise mentally fit but insisting that they prefer living on the street. Pride! And maybe these new souls can tell the old ones how nice it is to sleep in an actual warm, dry bed each night; to eat real food that wasn't previously discarded by someone else; to take a crap and not have to spend the night smelling it because they can flush it down an ACTUAL TOILET. That alone would convince me. How could anyone prefer that life? I'd take a handout over pooping in an alleyway any day of the week. Which choice hurts your pride more?
And that, my friends, is the extent of my activism. I'm not a rich or powerful or influential person. I don't have all the answers. I'm just another one of these keyboard warriors, sitting behind their computer going "tsk tsk" about the ways of the world that baffle us so. And life goes on.
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