There are some very big reasons you should care about supporting legislation to benefit the unhoused population.
First: studies aiming to tackle homelessness by throwing money at the problem suggest that giving people a universal basic income or an infusion of cash is cheaper in the long run than paying for services that go toward addressing the issues compounded by having nowhere to live. Your tax dollars are simply better spent by giving people money than making them beg on the street.
Through its New Leaf Project, the charitable organization Foundations for Social Change gave people who have been homeless for less than two years a one-time deposit of $7,500 in Canadian dollars (about US$5,600). They also received coaching and workshops about spending. Other groups received the money and workshops with no coaching, while some received the training but no cash and no resources at all.
The foundation then analyzed the program’s effect on the 115 participants, who were identified through local shelters. Not only did its findings contradict the conventional wisdom about giving poor people money, the results also suggest that cash transfers may actually reduce government spending.
(cont. The Guardian)
Second: homeless people are real people. In big cities like NYC, we walk by them as quickly as possible, without making eye contact, because to do so may invite a range of interactions that we have not planned for in the schedule of our hectic day to day. To ignore them is to feel the least amount of shame, because to engage (over and over) forces you to face the emotions associated with lingering on the idea of homelessness: sadness at the plight of a fellow human, uncertainty at the circumstances they find themselves in, fear that it could happen to you, etc. Reading the first-person account of an someone who has no place to live should inspire us all to push for the richest country on earth to use those funds to take care of its citizens.
I receive $960 a month from SSDI. I should have $32 a day, but my needs, and a few wants, are debiting my account. Gas is costing $10 to $15 a day, food is $5 to $8 a day, coffee $7, beer $9, ice $45 a month, nicotine patches $86 a month, and jugs of spring water $80 a month. Other incidentals like toilet paper add up. Living as minimally as I know how, I’m not making it. I’m losing weight I don’t have to lose. I quit smoking and went on the patch to save money. Alcohol is the buffer a sensitive soul needs to withstand the crimes of a race—the human race—that has proved itself ungrateful and homicidal.
The toughest parts of homelessness have been surviving the poverty and the marginalization, discrimination, and hostility from the non-homeless population. It’s usually subtle, this hostility. People pull in to visit the lighthouse or the beach or wherever I am, see me, and immediately park somewhere else. All day long.
They are so afraid. I know I look disheveled, but I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with me intellectually or spiritually. I know I could look better, but I just don’t see what the big deal is.
(cont. Esquire)
But if neither of those work to sway you, here are three real-life impacts that homelessness can have on you personally.
One: Cops are everywhere.
I hate seeing the police. I’m torn between wanting to spit at them or run away before I’m arrested for existing. During the Stop & Frisk days of Mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD broke my phone (and nearly my nose as well) and I got not so much as an apology. The police do not make me feel safter, and yet, they are everywhere, thanks to the perceived danger of an ever more visible homeless population in NYC.
Homeless people, by default, are not dangerous. There is no statistic that equates violent crime in a city with a high percentage of people who have no home. In fact, homeless people are for more likely to be the victims of a crime than those of us who aren’t living on the streets. Perception matters more than reality, and post-COVID we have seen more and more homeless people in the areas where we work and the areas where tourists roam about. This visibility makes your city seem more unsafe, even though the homeless population has been relatively stable for at least the past decade. (x)
This visibility and this perception give law enforcement an excuse to ask for more money to protect taxpaying citizens from violent, mentally unstable, unpredictable homeless people, and this is why you see cops everywhere.
If you want to see fewer cops, support policies that will house the unhoused.
Two: There’s nowhere to sit.
Anti-homeless design (sometimes known as hostile architecture) is inescapable. Benches in the subway are being replaced more and more often with tilted slabs of wood where you can lean while you wait for a train.
Fewer and fewer bus stops have seating because a homeless person may take a nap there. Over the weekend I walked up 9th avenue from 45th to Columbus Circle, and there was nowhere to sit. I was early for a brunch and I was going to find somewhere to just sit and have a coffee and read a book, but I couldn’t find a bench. Every coffee shop was absolutely full as many places have taken out a lot of their seating so the baristas don’t have to shoo away homeless people looking to come in from the cold. I went to the Shops at Columbus (the fancy mall) and was quickly reminded that there is nowhere to sit.
Do you remember the mall? Going with your friends and just hanging out? Sitting by the fountain, on benches, in the food court, outside of stores, etc. None of that exists at the Shops at Columbus, because any seating could be occupied by a homeless person, and that just would not do for the ritzy locals and the tourists coming to shop the designer brands while on vacation.
There are so few places to just sit anywhere in Manhattan without spending money. This isn’t because businesses lose money if someone takes up their seating all day — the seating simply doesn’t exist anymore! You go to an enormous Starbucks that used to have tables and chairs, and now they have a countertop running alongside one wall, not to get more customers in and out, but to make sure homeless people aren’t setting up shop.
If you want a city where you can rest and enjoy existing outside of your home, you should support legislation to house the unhoused.
Three: There’s nowhere to pee.
My friend and I peed between two parked cars a few nights ago because we couldn’t find anywhere to pee on 8th avenue without buying something. The city randomly smells like stale urine because of people like us — drunk men who want to take a piss before getting on the train and can’t find anywhere to go. There’s nowhere to pee because homeless people will find the public bathroom and make it “uncomfortable” for everyone else.
I’ve lived in NYC for 15 years, so I know most of the tricks to find a bathroom. I know most of the stores that have public bathrooms and I will use my gym membership if I have a location close enough to me. Bars are pretty reliable too — you just walk in and go straight to the back, pee, and leave before the bouncer realizes you didn’t buy anything. These are all things that I have learned in my 15 years of living in Manhattan. In those 15 years, I have never seen a person poop on the sidewalk until last weekend.
I was walking back to my apartment with my groceries and I saw a woman far ahead of me walking up the street and then quickly crossing to the other side of the street when she got close to a person down at the corner. I thought a homeless person was resting and didn’t realize until I myself got closer that he was squatting and pooping on the corner of John and Cliff in the Financial District of New York City.
Do you understand that this should not happen in the richest city in the richest country on the planet? What does that do to a person when their only option to relieve themselves is to squat down and go on the sidewalk?
Everyone has more places to safely use the restroom if you do your part to support housing those who have no home.
I was homeless once upon a time. It seems like so many lifetimes ago, but I remember the struggle. I was lucky enough to be in good health (physically and mentally) so that I could blend in with the everyday folk. I didn’t look like a homeless person coming into McDonald’s to use the restroom — I looked like a customer. I didn’t look like a homeless person passed out on a bench — I looked like I nodded off waiting for someone. I like to think I would have the same empathy for folks with insecure housing even if I hadn’t been there myself, but there are so many problems that are hard to relate to unless you’ve experienced them.
If you don’t understand how hard it is to be homeless, I’m not knocking you. If stats and figures about tax money being better spent to care for them don’t really have an impact, that’s fine — math is hard. But you can also think about your life and your community. Everyone’s quality of life goes up if we do more to care for those who most need it. Think about that the next time your feet hurt or you have to pee or you want to spit at a cop.
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