comments:
You know who wrote the big article about homelessness in Rittenhouse? That douchebag kid that I fucking hated when I worked at the center. The one who bossed me around like I was beneath him. And you know why the tone of the article is like that? Because he’s one of the elite, privileged folk from the ‘burbs who can relate to the poor, suffering, image-conscious folk who live in Rittenhouse (the neighborhood, not the park). Fuck that noise.
I think part of the problem is that it’s so hard to know what it will take to get people “back on their feet”—or to define what that would look like. Some homeless people really would be “back on their feet” if they could get help with some of the “start up costs” of living—security deposits, etc. Some have never been “on their feet” in a way that the kind of people who write newspaper articles would recognize, and probably honestly need a lot more help than money—like people who have spent their adult life in prison (another issue entirely—don’t EVEN get me started) they simply lack a lot of necessary life skills to really keep on their feet. And others, as much as it sounds cruel, will probably never be “on their feet” in the ways we wish they could be, at least not pending major cultural/political/funding shifts in health care and attitudes toward mental illness and addiction. I think it’s hard to know how to help those people—to institutionalize them seems cruel, and costs money people don’t want to pay. IDK.
on 07/23/2008 at 06:34 PM 2008
the philly area has a really good low-cost to free funded and well-structured mental health system in chester. Helping people with illness get housing, benefits, etc.-- even to the point of hand-holding or doing the paperwork for them.
I’ve never been aggressively panhandled in the city or anywhere else, and I have been homeless in the couch/car sleeping sense, but thankfully never had to sleep on the streets yet. Being poor forever gives you a different set point for a lot of things; though… clothing wear; hunger, living conditions. It’s absolutely *horrifying* to wealthy or even middle class people how people can live at those levels and consider themselves “comfortable”. But they do.
But yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that there isn’t any uproar about it until it’s infringing on rich folk’s view. Then it’s a “blight” that needs to be “cleaned up” or a “problem” that needs to be “corrected”.
on 07/23/2008 at 10:07 PM 2008