[Lefty Cartoons] Let’s Outlaw Being Homeless! That’ll Work!
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This cartoon has four panels. All the panels show a gritty commercial doorway – the kind that’s recessed a few feet into the building – on a city sidewalk. There’s litter and graffiti here.
There are two characters in the comic strip. The first character is a homeless man sleeping in the doorway, wearing a zip-up sweatshirt over a t-shirt and a dull red knit cap, and with a full beard. The other character is a muscular-looking cop dressed in a police uniform and carrying a baton. In defiance of tradition, he is cleanshaven. I’ll call these two characters KNITCAP and COP.
PANEL 1
Knitcap, covered by a brown blanket and with his head pillowed on some rolled-up clothes, is lying in a doorway, apparently asleep. The cop is using his baton to poke knitcap in the side. The cop has a somewhat sadistic grin.
COP: Hey, you! Get up! We’ve outlawed sleeping in public! You’re not allowed anymore!
PANEL 2
Knitcap is sitting up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with one hand. He speaks calmly. The cop watches, smirking, arms akimbo.
KNITCAP: In that case, I guess I’ll sleep in a hotel tonight.
PANEL 3
A close-up of Knitcap. He’s stroking his chin with a hand, as if thinking through his options.
KNITCAP: Or should I sleep in my townhouse instead? Or my Hamptons place? I’ll call my butler and ask what he thinks!
PANEL 4
Knitcap, grinning, is now holding a hand next to his face, thumb and pinky finger extended, pretending it’s a phone as he talks. The cop is glaring and slapping his baton against his palm.
KNITCAP: Smithers? Smithers old boy! My super fun street sleeping holiday is done. Which of my mansions shall I sleep in tonight.
The constitutional amendment that outlawed slavery in the US provided one exception: anyone convicted of a crime.
This was a tool of Jim Crow to maintain a sizeable black slave labor force via disproportionate criminalization of black people and poverty (newly-freed previous slaves were very poor, often illiterate). It was and is a tool of modern racialized hyper-exploited labor via the prison system. And it is likely a tool that US authorities are keeping in their back pocket for the mass criminalization of the homeless.
Honestly, right wingers and elites have the short sighted and sick obsession with simply jailing whoever they don't like for various reasons.
This obsession with controlling the masses has already created the largest Prison Population per capita in the US. The result? Prisons give US capitalists a ready source of slave labor, and gives them complete control over the population at large.
This control is exerted via forcing compliance to societal norms through threat of incarceration, as well as the more obvious form of control via stripping of the autonomy of those already incarcerated.
Ultimately only narcicists and megalomaniacs and their most sycophantic bootlickers would remain free if these sick fascists had their way, and they (and the rest of us) would find themselves residing within a hell of their own creation: a truly fucked world where only the most power hungry are free...and truthfully they wouldn't actually be free.
Their lust for power would innevitably become their fetters.
I mean, whether this cartoon makes sense heavily depends on where you're at. In parts of Europe people choose to sleep on the streets even though they would get free sleeping places in social projects. (And they have their own reasons for that, and it's fine. But still: they have that option here, it's not like they are forced to sleep on the street).
There's some real societal stigma against living and working out of a vehicle and I think thats hurting lots of people right now.
I think that we should promote living in vehicles and the nomadic lifestyle as a legitimate alternative to the conventional housing and renting system, while getting the government dollars to flow into charities like the homes on wheels alliance to help buy and convert used vehicles into minimal living spaces for those in need.
The current housing market is fucked, the current renting market is fucked, more and more people are forced to choose between paying rent and not dying of starvation, inevitably choosing the latter and getting evicted. Its going to take either a complete breakdown of the system or decades of gradual correction to fix these problems at all. In the meantime, let's swallow our pride and accept that living in a pod on wheels is better than living on the street.
Also, I think the big issue with homelessness from the perspective of most people is visibility. Its not an issue as long as you can't see it and it doesnt affect property values. Putting people in cars helps take away some visibility of that reality for the yuppies and homeowners who can't stand seeing such things. One of the comments here complained about seeing a homeless person shamelessly popping under a bridge. If that homeless person had a blacked-out van with a sleeping cot and had pooped in a bucket out of view you would never know what's going on in that random van.
Of course some homeless people are just nasty pricks who dont give a fuck and would shit in public anyways hard on that Diogenes philosophy, but thats human nature for you.
I have bit of a nuanced take on the subject (ie: I'm going to get downvoted into oblivion.)
So here goes. To me Homelessness isn't the problem. Rampant drug addiction and mental illness are. For the mental illness part, we need comprehensive and affordable mental health care for everyone. That's not going to happen in my lifetime though.
The drug addiction however...
Places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver (where I'm from) have followed the decriminalization theory of drug rehabilitation. This posits that by providing clean drug paraphernalia and safe places to use drugs, will help people to overcome addiction. But the current state of these cities prove that this theory is false. In order to make someone change, they have to want to change. When you make drug use easier, there is less incentive for that person to want to get clean. Homelessness and the accompanying problems are to most of them just the "cost of doing business."
Their lives should be made more difficult as to incentivize them to want to change their ways. Of course there should be certain exceptions, such as when it's too hot or cold out. But we have to somehow give them a reason to change their ways.
At least where I live there are systems in place to help you get off the street. I would know as I was homeless for a year living on the street. But when COVID hit, I finally had enough and decided to get help. I went to a shelter, got signed up for disability and through BC housing I got myself a room in a shared complex. I'm proof that when you really try, there is help out there for you to make your life better.
Drug addictions spiral out of control because their lifes suck and they want an escape. If you make their lifes harder you dont help anyone. Drug addiction should be treated in the same way as mental illness.
But the most effective way to help them is to give them a perspective and a way to get out of their situation before they have to stop using the drugs, i.e. give them housing and have a doctor supply them their drugs, then slowly taper them off.
Or just dont let people get homeless in the first place.
I know it's almost an oxymoron, but homeless is closely tied to housing prices.
If you lost your job how long would you be able to keep living where you are? Maybe a long time, but for maybe 10% of the population it's a much shorter frame. Add on some other twists of fate (or bad planning): a medical emergency; an abusive spouse; an unplanned pregnancy; a substance abuse problem; and you have a concoction that could land you on the streets in a few months if not weeks.
The "free drug paraphernalia" (e.g. services to help save addicts lives) has followed the wave of addicts, not the other way around. People were dying long before they showed up.
Affordable housing, shelters, and housing first programs are the real keys to solving this. But there's a lot of people who would rather eat their right arm than see a drug addict (or other undesirable) get government assistance.
When you make drug use easier, there is less incentive for that person to want to get clean.
You seem to have some very naive ideas about drug abuse. Drug addicts always have problems that caused them to become drug addicts. For someone without underlying problems, getting clean is its own reward and requires no extra incentives. If you truly care about getting people off drugs, you have to fix the problems that caused them to become addicts in the first place, but that's difficult and expensive so nobody wants to talk about it.
I'm with you on the point that (mental) healthcare should be affordable and accessible. Drug use however isn't the problem, but merely a symptom as well. Figure out why people turn to drugs, solve the underlying issue (generally mental health related), and the drug issue is gone.
So on that last part, residents in areas with a high population of disruptive homeless would feel well within their rights to criminalize their behavior.
I've seen this comment before and I hate it. The second that NON WHITE homeless dude talked back to the white cop he'd have a face full of curb and probably be on his way to jail if not death. What kind of ridiculously naive person drew this?
I travel to the West Coast a lot. SF, Portland and Seattle are crawling with homeless. Urban Highways in the PNW have tons of homeless camping on the sides of the road as well as in and around residential areas. During my last trip I was greeted in the morning to a view of a homeless person taking a shit under a bridge next to the river where my hotel was located.
Communities have a right to regulate how the public commons is used. If outlawing sleeping in the commons is needed to clean up homelessness in their city then so be it.
Cities in the US have always been able to police sleeping in public spaces GIVEN there was an alternative (e.g. a non-full shelter) where people could go to instead. What changed with the new US supreme court ruling is that they are now allowed to do this regardless of weather or not there is any alternatives.
People need to sleep. It is a biological necessity. Homelessness is often not a choice, but can be temporary if the right resources are available.
How narcissistic do you have to be to think that the person you witnessed wanted to be there? Homelessness is out of control on the west-coast of the US (and elsewhere) but fines and jail time aren't going to make these people magically stop existing.
Side note:
Multiple studies have shown that homelessness is directly correlated to housing affordability. If you want to help fight homelessness, support building more affordable housing (which usually equates to denser housing).
Cities in the US have always been able to police sleeping in public spaces GIVEN there was an alternative (e.g. a non-full shelter) where people could go to instead. What changed with the new US supreme court ruling is that they are now allowed to do this regardless of weather or not there is any alternatives.
Cities always had this right the Supreme Court just upheld it.
How narcissistic do you have to be to think that the person you witnessed wanted to be there?
I never stated that.
Homelessness is out of control on the west-coast of the US (and elsewhere) but fines and jail time aren't going to make these people magically stop existing.
I don’t see homeless encampments out in the open by highways in other parts of the country. Yes there are homeless, but it is on a whole other level on the West Coast.
Side note:
Multiple studies have shown that homelessness is directly correlated to housing affordability. If you want to help fight homelessness, support building more affordable housing (which usually equates to denser housing).
Cool idea sounds like something you should fight for in your community.
Hope there are enough homeless shelters for them to move into. Otherwise you would be suggesting the inconvenience you face from having to see them sleep in the streets justifies making it impossible for them to in their desperate situation have even that.
Yep, sure do hope those communities are wealthy enough to support housing the homeless. I wonder how that will play out with the local tax payer when they are deciding how to allocate money to local schools, the park system or a homeless shelter.
I wonder how they would like to see their tax dollars spent..🫤
Do you... actually think this solves anything? Like, at all? It's short-sighted, pointless, and genuinely selfish. "I don't like looking at the unhoused, so they need to go... elsewhere."
Housing is becoming unaffordable for the middle class, what are these people supposed to do!? We as a society have abandoned them, and it's now costing more money to harass and bully them, and to get them some semblance of health care and remove their bodies when they die out in the streets than it would to house them. Look it up! We have enough housing for everyone, but investments in homes and AirBNB and time shares and tourist rentals and property management companies have to continue making rich assholes more money every year...
The moment living on the streets is a choice for all the unhoused in this country is when I will join with you to regulate where they choose to slum it and not a second before.
Do you... actually think this solves anything? Like, at all? It's short-sighted, pointless, and genuinely selfish. "I don't like looking at the unhoused, so they need to go... elsewhere."
No it’s a sanitation, public health and safety issue. Citizens who live there and experience the problem first hand feel the same way or they would not be passing vagrancy laws.
Housing is becoming unaffordable for the middle class, what are these people supposed to do!? We as a society have abandoned them, and it's now costing more money to harass and bully them, and to get them some semblance of health care and remove their bodies when they die out in the streets than it would to house them. Look it up! We have enough housing for everyone, but investments in homes and AirBNB and time shares and tourist rentals and property management companies have to continue making rich assholes more money every year...
Yep, all of which are issues caused by low interest rates and the elevation of capital over labor. Raise rates, reshore jobs, make unions more powerful and housing will change.
The moment living on the streets is a choice for all the unhoused in this country is when I will join with you to regulate where they choose to slum it and not a second before.
If they were living in your back yard you may think differently.
You were rampaging in my home city of San Francisco for roughly 30 years now. The state had a Democrat supermajority for 25 of those years. You had all the resources you needed at your disposal and no opposition. You did not 'fix' homelessness, in fact you turned San Francisco into a literal shithole.
Please shut the f**** up amd let adults fix the problems you created.
You had all the resources you needed at your disposal and no opposition
Bullshit, you NIMBY fuckers have been opposing us for your entire lives. If we had no opposition there would be shelters and safe injection sites in fucking Noe Valley and the outer Richmond, and apartments all over the place.
Yeah we have a Dem supermajority but the Board of Supervisors has a death grip on SF politics and they're all virtue signaling fucks who are happy to shovel money into their corrupt non-profit CEO friends but never actually fix the problem. All they care about is property values going up at any cost.
YOU PEOPLE are standing in the way of the problem. The ONE good idea you have is financial oversight, other than that you'd just make shit worse.
Maybe you could find if all those homeless are from California or from other state. It could be a surprise that other states took their homeless and gave them a ticket to San Francisco.
I'll pledge a % match of my networth to a billionaire's % networth in tax dollars to solving the housing crisis, healthcare crisis (including mental, dental, and vision care) and providing a UBI to US inhabitants.