"Public spaces belong to the public by right. And the unhoused public, who have the greatest need for public spaces, have therefore the greatest right"
"Public spaces belong to the public by right. And the unhoused public, who have the greatest need for public spaces, have therefore the greatest right"
Edit
I kinda made this post out of spite for the fact the most previous post in this community, whose title I quoted/copied, was getting so many downvotes... At the time I posted this, the previous post had about a 30% downvote rate, and it really, really made me mad.
I am relieved tho to see people in the comments here who have real, actual empathy for their fellow humans. Thank you for contributing here.
It blows my mind how normalized it is to hate on those who are struggling. Especially in 20fucking23 when so many of us now are on the verge of it ourselves. Let's be better, everyone - to everyone. I beg you.
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It's not actually homelessness people have a problem with, it's drug addiction.
Then surely those same people are working to destigmatize it and provide help right?
Right?
Of course not; they just want the drug addicts and their harmful behaviors out of their sight and away from them. I agree that that's short-sighted, but having been homeless myself and seeing what some of the drug addicts do, I can't blame them.
You can't reasonably defend addicts leaving dirty needles on the sidewalk where kids could get a hold of them, for example. Or arguing or fighting or conducting drug deals in neighborhoods with all of the violence and invective that brings, or intimidating non-addicted residents by being aggressive and violent toward them, or any of that shit.
That kind of behavior is unacceptable whether housed or not and you are wrongly lumping those kinds of people in with all homeless people and then defending the larger "homeless" umbrella. That kind of snake like behavior is some shit some billionaire's PR agency would do, stop it.
If you truly care about ending homelessness and not simply using them as a shield to defend drug addicts, you have to openly and explicitly separate the two yourself in your speech.
Not all homeless people are the same, not all homeless people become homeless for the same reasons, so it is disingenuous to lump in, say, domestic violence survivors and workers priced out of a home with drug addicts under the same term when they're completely different people with completely different needs.
That being said... society actually does need to come up with a better plan to deal with the drug addicts that doesn't involve jailing them for possession or use, or leaving them to struggle on the street. Other people don't want to be exposed to drug use and honestly, they have a right not to be, so you're going to have to balance the addicts' needs with everyone else.
Building separate housing for drug addicts away from everybody else where they're given safe supplies and offered resources to get clean and be re-integrated back into society would probably be the best solution.
Same with those who are unhoused and severely mentally ill. Those types likely need sanitariums where they're cared for the rest of their lives.
Domestic violence survivors need to be relocated far away from their abusers and given housing and employment under new names.
Those who are homeless because they are priced out of housing in the city where they work need to be given section 8 vouchers, or cities and states will have to pass laws forcing all landlords to lower their rent to either a percentage of renter income without being allowed to pick and choose whom they rent to, or a hard upper limit that just so happens to be <= 30% of the average worker's wage.
Different problems require different solutions