Following are accounts of situations witnessed during support and advocacy for people who have been unhoused. We’re sharing these accounts to underscore the violence present in our midst, that our social behaviors and policies around poverty and homelessness, kill. We exist in an apartheid culture, in which the poor are stripped of necessities for survival, and once someone becomes unhoused they are no longer identified as human – no longer citizens with rights, or any expectation of safety. Any housed person’s property is routinely prioritized over the value of an unhoused person’s life, and an unhoused person is expected to be dead rather than to inconvenience housed people with the cost of their existence.
In this testimony, names of organizations have been left out, though people near them may recognize them. The intent of this piece is not to point a finger at particular groups. Members of an organization can have good intent but make decisions that cause great pain. Within the same work place, some staff members can be aware and helpful, while others are punishing, and others are overwhelmed, and others are inexperienced. Many things that go wrong are linked to a blindness and dehumanization that is insidious in the general population, and a cold refusal by our culture to ensure that people with disabilities have basic survival needs met, much less an ability to thrive.
It’s important for housed people, politicians, and administrators to recognize the systemic cruelty in place, and for each person to put their foot down and insist on another path, whatever that may cost them. People who have lived experience of being unhoused must be a significant voice in deciding and carrying out solutions. We must have the will to insist that sufficient amounts of housing are built, and that people of all incomes are housed.