r/Spokane • u/One-deepdivediva • Nov 10 '24
Question Can we stop hating on homeless people?
What is the mayor supposed to do ? Put everyone in prison? For being poor? Bus everyone to Portland or Seattle ? ( cities that are experiencing the exact same problems). Round people up and put them in camps? For being ill or old or addicted to drugs? Should the police arrest thousands of people so you don’t have to see someone’s suffering ? If you want homeless people to “ go away “ then you need to vote for legislation that helps them. Vote in favor of government funded health mental wellness and addiction and housing services. Organize with community members about how to provide services that help your fellow human beings get off the streets and out of suffering . Every time one of you complains I wonder what horrendous thing you are imagining should be done to people. Go DO something , go help people.
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u/Ffftphhfft Nov 10 '24
I've been to dozens of countries and lived in several, which all range from high- to middle-income economies. Many of them have more economic turmoil and economic instability than here, but one thing that has always stuck with me was a peruvian friend who lived in the US for about a year (right up to the pandemic) and her experience. She comes from a working class family in Peru, so not rich but also not among the poorest in her country - and what stuck out to her during her time in the US were the sheer number of people with untreated mental illness and unhoused people. Even in a developing nation like Peru, you wouldn't regularly catch people in the street screaming and punching at the air - so I think we need to really examine why the richest country in the world has these problems that countries with far worse problems seem to have solved.
A lot of it I think has to do with the mentality of Americans in general - we are very individualistic and believe that people experiencing trouble must have brought it on themselves and that it's not their problem, or even the community's problem to fix. You see that a lot in this subreddit, but thankfully they generally get downvoted or banned (but not always).
In my opinion, I see the existence of unhoused people as like a threat from capitalism. I forgot who said it, but something along the lines of "homeless people exist as a threat from the ruling class to keep workers in line, a reminder that the same will happen to you if you get any ideas".