70 people with Covid-19 in New York City Shelters

Not many people checking out this blog, I haven't had time to promote it much.  But for any who are, here's a report on the Covid-19 and homelessness in NYC, by Democracy Now:
70 homeless with virus in NYC shelters

Homelessness for school children hits a new high

The morning after our president touted "The Great American Comeback," comes this news piece.
"Homelessness among School Children Hits a Decade-Long High." 

Uh... not the kind of comeback we were looking for...

Panhandling signs as humor and folk art

My all time favorite panhandling sign is the guy with the "checks no longer accepted from these people" sign.  But the guy with no legs and the sign saying "I'll kick you in the head" is pretty close. 

What can a homeless person give to all of you in normal society?  As a homeless panhandler back in 2007, I realized there is one thing.  Sometimes, as a panhandler, you can give a complete stranger a laugh.  When I used to panhandle with different funny signs every day, years ago, I actually had regular commuters who would pull up and thank me.  "Dude, I don't have a dollar today, but you make me laugh every freakin' day on the way home, thanks."  I got that kind of comment regularly.  Have you ever tried to make complete strangers laugh with a few words on a cardboard sign?  It's not as easy as you think.  

Talk smack all you want, but what pathetic little annoyance were you complaining about before you watched this video, of people who sleep outside, and still took the time to try to make someone laugh?  Stop whining.  It could be worse. 

Why are there homeless people?

Homeless man sleeping at a bus stop, Studio City, California, November 2019.  Photo by Steve Emig (also homeless when I shot the photo).

In a world with so much wealth, why are their homeless people at all? 

For a wide variety or reasons, ranging from getting laid off from a job, to addiction and mental health issues, to things like a really bad divorce settlement or catastrophic medical issues, some people wind up without enough income to rent a room or apartment any more.  Most people, in these circumstances, have some kind of family or friends that can help them through this period.  Some people, again for a wide variety of reasons, don't have the social network to get through this tough period, and these are the people who become homeless, and particularly, the chronic, long term homeless. 

The other side of this issue is that of property ownership.  Every single piece of land, every spec of ground in our society, is owned by a person, a business, or a government agency.  So any place a person without a house goes, they are technically trespassing right from the start. 

In the days of tribal communities, the hunter/gatherer world before "civilization," homelessness didn't exist.  One of the worst things that could happen to a person was to be banished away from the tribe.  That seems to have happened rarely, but in those cases, the person had the basic survival skills to live, and simply moved a distance away, to a place with the resources to support them, and lived alone. 

In modern civilization, there is no "away."  In addition we aren't raised with the skills to survive in the natural world, and if we were, all of that area is owned by some person or entity, anyhow.  So down and out people congregate in places where some of their basic human needs can be met.  Our society chooses not to address this issue in a realistic way, so we wind up with single homeless people here and there in cities, and encampments on the weird scraps of less used land. 

We have the resources in the U.S. to house everyone, we, as a society, simply devote those resources to other things.  It's a choice we, as a whole, make.  There are all kinds of special interests involved in the homeless issue.  At this particular time, there are huge demographic shifts amplifying the number of people becoming homeless.  I started this new blog to dig into these issues, and raise awareness of all the forces at play in the world of the "homeless crisis."