Now in America, there is no housing for the homeless. It doesn’t matter how you get there, if the medical industry strips you of everything, if you lose your job and have no means to support yourself or your kids, or whether you are a drug addict the government will abandon you. In Los Angeles there is a 10,000 person waiting list for housing assistance, in San Diego there is an 8-10 year wait. In Arizona the support has been closed for years, they are not taking new applications and there is no prediction of when it might open again, Florida is shut down, North Carolina opened up for the second time in 14 years and got 10,000 applicants almost overnight. As I research state by state the same story is coming up. Washington state is closed. New York has 45,000 homeless children -that’s about the same population as the town of Niagara Falls. Imagine that, a town full of children, with no homes, nowhere to sleep at night, no fridge to put their milk in, nowhere to take a bath, no stove with which to cook their food. And that is what America does for the homeland security of its children!!!! Children can spend decades living in storm drains…
We pay the federal government $3 trillion a year for their services and we get this kind of horror instead, and we get VERY rich politicians and government workers with their security assured. It is time to stop paying these people for bad service and laws they make that harm us. Let’s keep those funds in our own communities and provide each other with real homeland security that has meaning to us. Let’s provide all our community with affordable housing no matter what, let’s provide healthcare that doesn’t bankrupt sick people but helps them, let’s provide meaningful education, let’s create co-operative businesses that share profits with the staff that makes them. And let’s create fair justice, ethical policing, and local government that is fierce and protects us. In one decade we would have pumped into our communities and into our economies $30 trillion dollars. That should lift all boats except for those full of people who are the predator class.
I’m a senior citizen with a disability that prevents me from having a paid job, and I live entirely on my Social Security (less than $1,000/month). The rents in my home state for even the most basic housing are impossible for me to afford without housing assistance from Section 8, and if my landlord discontinues accepting me as a tenant, I’ll be homeless — as I was 7 years ago when I miraculously found this apartment. Three of my long-time women-friends have died of being homeless since 2013. Everyday I live with the fear that death from homelessness awaits me, as well.
I’m a transgender woman who has been homeless for 7 years now. I lost my daughter to leukemia and my wife to suicide in 2009. I have made ends meet by living on the road, traveling all the time as an artist, writer/poet/blogger, struggling filmmaker, musician/singer-songwriter, and activist, mostly crashing at friends’ homes, on couches, in hotel rooms and very rarely the homeless shelters.
Whilst I have multiple sources of daily, weekly and monthly incomes, including SSI/SSDI, plus whatever I make as a street artist or musician/busker, and the usual odd jobs from the many Labor Ready centers, I’m often finding myself still homeless due to the lack of affordable housing thanks to a corrupt government preventing us from having permanent housing by draining our incomes and putting us in enslaved college, mortgage, medical and other types of debts, and also the fact that I’m not welcome in many housing agencies or apartment complexes because the majority of them are transphobic.
I’ve been awakened by the truths of our world, by the many great progressive leaders of our revolution such as Keith Ellison and Bernie Sanders, for more than 15 years now. Even as a child and teenager back then, I always knew something was horribly wrong with our environment, our government and our society. Now I’m about 7 months away from turning 29 years old, still fighting for the revolution that can save our economy, our world and our Mother Nature, even if it means staying homeless.
And you’re right; the majority of our funds in a decade can create a very thriving and long term economic, socialist and healthier future, one that provides universal healthcare for all, free education, affordable housing, high paying jobs, booming small business ventures and a safe, nearly crime-free community to raise our children and grandchildren in, and support our Black, Hispanic, Native American, Deaf, Blind, Physically Disabled, Aging, LGBTIQQA+ brothers and sisters within a decade. It’s also why I’m switching to a local credit union, with the help of a good friend who’s been kind enough to let me use her home address, saving money, building a living, clean energy home commune for homeless LGBTIQQA kids, teens and adults who’s forced out on the streets because of their sexual orientation or their gender identities, and continue fighting the good fight, despite the fact that I’m most likely permanently homeless, but it’ll be worth it in the end.
I agree 150% wholeheartedly what you have shared with us, and it’s a lot of what people like Bernie Sanders are advocating for. It’s time we embrace socialism as our salvation and the key to a longer, healthier and safer and stronger economic, cleaner and stable future for all of humankind and Mother Nature. Let the New World Oligarchy die; it’s our time now. Bye, bye Mr. Trump; you’re fired.
Namaste and Blessed Be,
October Rain Evans.
October Rain Evans,
Thank you for your insightful post and good wishes. I send them back to you. Please look at my new post that I submitted today. It has solutions that work for the whole society.
Love,
Trish House