A homeless kid outside my apartment asked me for change, and I said I didn't have any for him. I asked how old he is, and he said 26, but he looked much younger so I was shocked. I recommended a center for young adults but mentioned he might be too old for them, and he said he knows them and that they give him coffee and let him shower but that's it. And because he's a (seemingly) able-bodied, single, adult male, that's all I can do. Because most shelters don't take them.
I felt so helpless. And so I kept walking and got into my car and drove past all these million dollar homes and started crying. Because it makes me so mad. That people who hate homeless people camping or living near them don't understand how good they have it. That the simple answer to "I hate homeless people" is to get people off the streets and into apartments (not tent cities!). I mean, it boggles the mind how simple things COULD be and how DIFFICULT we make it. Don't like the people experiencing homeless to camp outside your house/work/streets? THEN HELP FIX IT.
And how if all these millionaires each gave a meager amount of their wealth--to building and running shelters and apartments for low-income and affordable housing, that the problem would easily be solved. I've been fighting crying for an hour now. I rarely believe in deserved-ness but somehow none of this seems fair. I have $100k in debt, so on paper, I'm worse off than many people living on the streets who don't have debt like that but who likely have other immense barriers--terrible credit, criminal histories, eviction histories, untreated mental health problems, overwhelming healthcare bills, foreclosures, legal financial obligations, disabilities, etc. But I've got a couple degrees, I'm white, and I'm employed, so banks put their faith in me and vouched that I'm good for a loan that is double my salary.
I have learned about the benefit of insurance (health, life, car, dental, medical) as well as building and sustaining networks of support--friends, family, colleagues, references--and I've built protective factors and coping skills from the many afterschool programs and clubs and 20+ years of therapy I've been in and paid for with my disposable income. But this is because that is what my family valued and learned was helpful and more importantly, WHAT WE COULD AFFORD. So I got the help I needed when I needed it.
I was born into a middle class family because my grandparents made sure my parents went to school and got educations, my father getting a degree. My parents were born into lower middle class, my mother in near poverty. And I've watched my siblings and I break the intergenerational cycle of poverty by using every opportunity we were afforded in our lives--namely a great education and parents who prioritized our continuing education.
I just don't understand how so much disparity can exist. Whoever thinks they deserve to make hundreds of dollars an hour for his/her business knowledge....who deserves to hoard money in their bank so it can make interest so they can have MORE money in the bank just SITTING THERE when there are people starving and living on the street....I just don't think these people have ever met or spent any time with people fighting for just $10/HR. It's ridiculous and makes me so angry I want to cry.
I'm not pissed that people are wealthy. I'm just pissed that this isn't an even bell curve. There's more poverty than there is extreme wealth. I'm rarely overcome with emotion--I'm a very logical, pragmatic beast, driven by facts and information and not emotional pleas. But every now and then it's good to tap into your humanity and emotions. Walking home the other day, I just saw each house that represented no less than $800K. Each mansion that easily represented at least $2MM. And there's hundreds of them here in Seattle. Maybe even thousands!
Each of those people got help to get where they are. And it just doesn't feel like there should be so many people who are homeless without food to eat when there are so few people living in the thousands of 5-10,000-square foot homes here in this city.
I'm not a socialist. I'm a democratic socialist. I think no one should starve or live on the streets when we have such a resource rich country.
