#Illegal2BHomeless

The war against the fallen, unseen, unheard, and forgotten wages on in near total silence as poverty and homelessness are further criminalized daily...down the very basics of our human existence.

Public sleeping is illegal. Hidden sleeping is illegal. Putting a temporary shelter or tent up is illegal, but so is closing ones eyes in some of the very the same places that claim themselves sanctuary (like libraries, "day centers", or train stations). Even our basic rights of gathering in public are removed as the enforcers of many different uniformed departments aggressively push us from street2street and hole2hole...all day and all night. (...does anyone notice that this is a direct violation of certain constitutionally quoted "inalienable rights"?...)

My growing rage against the seemingly never-ending multitude of methods used to cast and treat us as criminals simply for existing outside, simmers with the logic of one simple query;

How can #homelessness and being #homeless in itself be an illegal act, when the conditions used to create these circumstances are not even frowned upon, much less in themselves also deemed "illegal"?

Even when just glancing at the surface of this "issue", the contradictions of logic are blatant enough to make both the cause and the solution starkly obvious to anyone not still plugged into the matrix of a system that is coded to dismiss the clear human misery and inhumanity dealt to the people...and instead, without further consideration or query, defends "the rights" of wicked slumlords, greedy property gobblers, and the diligent service to arbitrary rulings, regulations, and hardwired scripts of cult consumerism.

Plenty of folks not walking in a life of instant outcast speak about homelessness as if one simply lost their home, without any consideration to the cause of loss or the rapidly rising costs to gain reentry. Yet even if we start there, how can that state of "losing ones home" in itself be illegal? How can earning a wage inadequate to cover the costs of housing be illegal, if it is also not illegal to pay workers less than the cost of living? ...isnt that a bit like making it against the law to fall down, become ill, or be inflicted with an injury?

It simply isnt logical, even at a glance. Of course its deeper than most folks want to look, and the painful stories sharply contrast the narratives that try to simply wash us away as something "icky" to be rid of or "swept up".

So, is it illegal to agree to leave a home that some "landlord" or bank has decided to remove the occupants? Nope. This would be called "squatting", which is also considered illegal...(until a certain time has passed...in certain states or regions only...and only for certain types of property).

eye-roll

Likewise then, it must be illegal to decrease wages while increasing costs of living and locking entire families out of their homes (even when there is a heatwave, snow storm, or monsoon)? ...Nope. Of course not. This is just "status quo costs of doing business", and society forbids we mention anything about 'rent caps' cos that reduces the profitability of the property!

...but, again I wonder...what is the point of owning an entire building that stands empty for months to years because no one can afford it, while thousands remain hunted in the streets for surviving in the only spaces left for us to access?

...and no. this "social epidemic" is very much NOT about our ability to prove our worth or "earn a living". Homeless does NOT automatically mean jobless, drunkard, addict, lazy, mental health crisis, valueless....or any other stereotypically associated terms. I myself was working two jobs and running my own organization, just to barely eat and remain unhoused...as a single guy, with no addictions or life altering vices, living out of a truck filled with frozen food in middle of winter. (three years before said truck was stolen by a property manager and his mechanic buddy...story for another time...)

Despite our individual "issues" and how this status befell us stories, we now all huddle outside listening to chants of "clean up our streets" and are baffled to discover that it has become illegal for us to exist at all, anywhere. Yet, unless it is to ridicule our plight and its possible or assumed causes, demand funding cuts for the programs that help us secure resources (housing, medicine, clothing, food, counseling, etc.), or political debates about how to eliminate us to "make our city states safer [for the housed privileged]"......

#theSilenceContinues, and we are criminalized just for being alive, with too few on our side to protect and defend our inherently human rights to live.