"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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I'm fine with this in theory, but in practice the homeless/unhoused don't care whether the property is private or not. I have witnessed them trying to set up tents in people's yards multiple times. Not even big yards, we are talking condo yards.
Occupied condos or vacant condos?
"Private" property that's left vacant is a crime against the right to shelter, and as far as I'm concerned it should be open to squatting.
Squatting in the backyard of an occupied house when there's thousands of vacant houses in every city in America? That's not an action I would agree with, and that's also not what the average unhoused person would do, if for no other reason then because it's much riskier for them than squatting in a public space or a vacant house.
There's no epidemic of entitled dangerous homeless people setting up camp in innocent families' yards. And I certainly wouldn't generalize all homeless people as threats to people's homes.
They are definitely occupied. They aren't trying to claim empty houses, they are literally trying to camp outside people's doors.
Unhoused? That's different from homeless?
It just showed up a year or two ago.
My understanding is that It partly differentiates housing (having a place indoors, a shelter, etc.) from having a home--an apartment, etc. So you could be homeless, living in a shelter, but still not unhoused.
It's also sort of the "in" word.
Either you are homeless or not. You don't need to use another word that means the same thing. It just makes you feel better describing the situation of a person but it doesn't do a damn thing else to help that person.
I agree with the general sentiment that people without a permanent shelter need more action than we as a society currently give them. I also agree that the general trend of using new terms for known issues often confuses the conversation and is of negative value.
However in this one case I think the term "unhoused" is germane to this post. OP posted about public spaces, and included a picture of tents. The people OP directly refers to are unhoused, which is a specific subset of homeless.
If we somehow had shelters or other short term housing for everyone sleeping rough we would have alleviated the unhoused (which is what most people complain about), while not changing the homeless situation.