Nah, this ain’t staying hidden in the tags:
#Free ability to exist safely in public too.#I know that’s not quite the same category of thing but I also think a society where people can’t exist safely in public has also failed.#For example: public benches to accommodate people who can’t walk very far and public bathrooms.
When I was on the streets, my biggest concern – above food, water, shelter, medical care, or any other thing – was remaining housed-passing. People who look homeless don’t have reliable access to community resources that do exist. Sit down on a bench? You’re likely to be chased off or have the cops called. Use the bathroom or wifi at the coffee shop with a sign on the door saying you don’t have to buy anything to sit and use these things? Nope; you’re very likely to be turned away at the door, or told to move on if you sit down instead of getting in line. Get a library card? Fuck you. You’re lucky if they let you sit in there at all. Use the laundromat? There’s gonna be problems the second someone notices that you don’t have a clean outfit to wear while the rest is in the wash.
The only way I could access any of that shit was by pouring every ounce of energy I had and any resources I could access into looking like I had somewhere else to go, and having lies at the ready to make myself appear to not be unhoused. I know I’m not alone in this. The homeless folks who couldn’t pass didn’t even try to enter the library anymore. They knew the free water at Starbucks on hot days wasn’t for them. They didn’t ask employees for help at the post office; they asked me, because they’d already internalized the idea that no housed person would treat them like a human being.
Most of the other homeless people I knew didn’t even speak English well enough to get through the process of applying for food stamps, so I’d share the fruit and granola bars I bought with mine with anyone who needed it. Doing so was illegal (‘food stamp fraud’), and if I’d been caught I’d have lost my access to food.
And none of this is even getting into harassment, or outright assault.
I was painfully aware every second of every day how immensely privileged I was (while living in a city park) that I could pass for housed most of the time, and am fluent in English. Because if I hadn’t been able to, I would absolutely have fucking died.
ellievsbear
stormborns
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
kianamaiart
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
janainaart
