Our lawless President Donald Trump, recently declared he wanted the unhoused people completely removed from Washington D.C.
While hearing this news did not shock me in the slightest (we’re talking about a morally bankrupt human being), it did leave a hollow pit in my stomach, realizing what this would mean for the people of D.C.
We have enough money to make sure that every unhoused person in this country, has a roof over their head. The continuation of homelessness in America is frankly a choice. A choice that we routinely make every year when crafting the annual budget.
We always find money for corporations and billionaires to further extract wealth from the working class, but we never seem to find money for everyone else to survive or live with dignity.
Today’s post is a little less formal, I’m not here to present information that you did not already have. Rather, today’s post is about persuasion, because unfortunately, the anti-homeless sentiments are also prevalent on our side of the political aisle.
I see it here, in my supposed “blue dot in the red state”, where our city government (run by democrats), routinely carries out an anti-homeless agenda, and it seems only a handful in the community are sickened by it.
This leads me to an uncomfortable truth - a lot of you are also okay with this treatment of the unhoused. Taking their possessions, criminalizing their existence on the street, the belief that they’re just “being lazy”….all of the beliefs that lead towards people’s indifference or acceptance of anti-homeless policy.
To those people I have just one question - if these people have no where to go - where do you want them to go?
In my city of Missoula, MT - they are about to close one of our homeless shelters (they chose to stop funding it), they don’t have any current plans to open another one, & they’ve criminalized sleeping in public throughout the city. Where are these people supposed to go? They don’t have a home.
We’re seeing this happen in California as well, at the behest of Gavin Newsom & his recent “tough on homelessness” shift. Which is one of many reasons, that while I appreciate his new attacks on Trump, I cannot endorse him in 2028.
We have to ask ourselves - what kind of country do we want. Do we want to punish people for being poor, contracting a medical condition, or become victim to a disaster, then all of a sudden your life has less meaning because you don’t have a home?
I don’t want to live in that country.
It shouldn’t be a crime to be homeless.
It should be a crime to allow homelessness to continue.
Until next time,
Desmond
