A few months ago I witnessed something that disturbed me. While riding MARTA (Atlanta rapid transit) I watched as two transit police officers ordered several people off the train I had just boarded. I surmised that those people were homeless, and they had been riding the train to stay out of the cold. Believe me when I say it can get crazy cold in Atlanta!
On the one hand, those unfortunate people have the right to find a warm place for shelter. On the other hand, the MARTA cops need to do their job. If they didn’t chase the unsolicited off the trains, soon the cars would be full of the homeless. I would not be surprised if the officers acted with at least a little reluctance. Just about anybody could hit rock bottom.
The real problem is not homeless people using public transit as a warming center, or cops ordering them off trains. The real problem is lack of resources for the homeless. Not everybody has a reliable backup plan, family or friends who can take them in. Affordable housing is scarce, as is compassion for those in need of shelter.
Not long after the MARTA incident, members of the Reynoldstown Civic Improvement League (Reynoldstown is a neighborhood of Atlanta) voted 79-16 against a proposal to turn a dilapidated vacant house into 42 studio apartments to house undomiciled people. The reason? They were concerned about people with mental health or substance abuse issues living in their neighborhood. I can understand the concerns, but those civic league people apparently don’t know, or conveniently forgot, that not all homeless people are winos or junkies, or mentally ill. Many are reasonably stable people who had some rotten luck – they lost their jobs and couldn’t find work, they made bad investments, they lost their savings to medical bills, or something else beyond their control. Any of the people who voted against building housing for the homeless could join their ranks. There are homeless people who were once multi-millionaires.
I have written about the unhoused before, and I had to write again because of how hard it is to bounce back from rock bottom. Also, recently I read an article on how US residents have been programmed to regard the homeless as less than human. Dehumanizing a segment of society is just the first step towards the gulag. Considering how insatiable is the maw of the prison-industrial complex, and that homeless lack resources or recourse, shoveling them into prisons to provide greedy corporations with slave labor looks like a probable motivation.
Culver City, CA recently passed an ordnance against living in tents. The aim is clear – drive out all homeless people. Similar bans have been passed in other communities, with little success. Opponents of the ordnance say it criminalizes vulnerable people. California has a serious homeless problem, with over 170,000 people having no permanent roofs over their heads. Gentrification, which leads to a lack of affordable housing, is often to blame.
The homeless need our assistance and our compassion. Our country’s treatment of the unhoused is execrable, inhuman, inhumane, inexcusable and unforgivable. Those who regard and treat them as vermin, those who pass laws that make life even more unbearable for those without permanent homes, should consider that they could easily join the ranks of the unhoused.
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