Being homeless is an awful thing. Forget the obvious things such as danger, crazy people, rain, drug addicts, drunks, rapists, and just the worst men and women that one could ever meet, the kind of people that would stab a man for a few dollars because he wants a snack pack of pre-made donuts in a plastic wrapper from the local corner store and values human life less than that. This is not to say that all homeless people are like this, for there are many who are not, but if one works with the homeless, this is what one will experience on a regular basis, and eventually see such things as not abnormal, but must another day at the “grind” of life and work.
What I am talking about is not the above. I am talking about the obvious question of “where do I go from here?” Homelessness has that effect- it strips a man of his “rooting” and like a plant thrown out from a pot, can lead a man to perish or whither away into nothing in a matter of a very short time. Even if one has an apartment in a bad neighborhood filled with bugs and bad tenants, a bad pot is often better than no pot because it is a place that one can tie oneself to and live in. Even people who live out of vans full-time have their automobiles organized so they are essentially apartments with wheels, thus tying them to the vehicles as opposed to nothing. It is this difference that psychologically as well as mentally and for the purposes of daily life, physically gives the connections to people that enable them to function as “normal people” by way of providing the means for organization. Without a place, one might as well live in a suitcase, and that always tends to disorder unless there is an environment around into which one can place himself to organize his things, such as a hotel room, which is an attempt at “rooting” even if it is for just a time.
I have been warning because of COVID-19 and based one the economic models that have been coming out from the government fiscal reports, the Federal Reserve bank, HUD, employment reports, and forecasts from major banks that the current economic crisis is going to be long-term and will lead to a housing crisis because being unable to pay their bills, people will lose their homes and become homeless. One may remember tales of the “wandering men” in the 1930s who went from town-to-town. homeless and looking for work but only to find nothing, and yet that is what may happen again if current economic forecasts come true. As the AP reports,
…according to The Aspen Institute, as moratoriums enacted because of the coronavirus expire and courts reopen. Around 30 state moratoriums have expired since May, according to The Eviction Lab at Princeton University. On top of that, some tenants were already encountering illegal evictions even with the moratoriums.
Now, tenants are crowding courtrooms — or appearing virtually — to detail how the pandemic has upended their lives. Some are low-income families who have endured evictions before, but there are also plenty of wealthier families facing homelessness for the first time — and now being forced to navigate overcrowded and sometimes dangerous shelter systems amid the pandemic.
Experts predict the problem will only get worse in the coming weeks, with 30 million unemployed and uncertainty whether Congress will extend the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits that expired Friday. The federal eviction moratorium that protects more than 12 million renters living in federally subsidized apartments or units with federally backed mortgages expired July 25. If it’s not extended, landlords can initiate eviction proceedings in 30 days.
“It’s going to be a mess,” said Bill Faith, executive director of Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, referring to the Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, which found last week that more than 23% of Ohioans questioned said they weren’t able to make last month’s rent or mortgage payment or had little or no confidence they could pay next month’s. (source)
Ask yourself, what is going to be done to solve this?
The problem is simple- home prices, rents, etc. are too expensive. They aren’t going to be lowered, because they cannot be lest the owners of said properties are unable to pay their bills, and in turn find themselves homeless like the rest of the people they rent/loan to.
There is no happy ending to this. Right now, we can see that the answer which the government has been attempting to apply is to print more money. But how long can this go on for if there is no work to be had and the laws and regulations that exist- not to say that laws or regulations are not needed -that are helping to keep prices high are not taken away, let alone the threat of constant litigation?
The future is going to be foreclosures, evictions, and for a not just millions, but tens of millions, homelessness to the level of going physically onto the streets and sleeping in a tend or other makeshift shelter.
As I stated above, the effect of this is incredibly demoralizing, is physically destructive, puts a man into grave physical danger, and is an active threat to the stability of any society. It is also generational too, since if one person seriously falls, it is very difficult to ever recover without a lot of work, and it is likely this person’s children will be in poverty and even grandchildren or possibly great and great-great grandchildren too.
What we are witnessing is the collapse of the political system by way of economics. If the people can’t root themselves, the society cannot stay politically rooted, and such is not the soil of stability, but the soil that is a breeding ground for a revolution.