Unless you live in a large city, homeless people are usually only seen during the daytime and few are aware of any encampments in the area as, wanting to be left undisturbed in what they have to call a home, such encampments are where people just do not generally go- the far fringe of a local airport, a small stand of trees near an industrial park.

In places like Los Angeles, although there are some isolated places where the homeless might set up an encampment, so many people go West for the good weather that there are very few such places and this forces encampments to grow on the streets of the concrete jungle usually in areas with the least traffic than the rest of the city.

They are on the streets of Los Angeles because that is all that is there, streets.

As with icebergs, there are more homeless people than most people know because they only see what can be seen. The assumption of what a homeless person is supposed to look like has the general population noting those on the low end of the downward spiral while not seeing those, like children, who do not fit the stereotype.

Why are those children hanging around that homeless guy?

While there are solutions, these cost money, even if only an initial outlay, and take time, so the go-to solution to homelessness is architecture that prevents the homeless from lying down in certain areas because of the placement of spikey things where a person could lie down, or constructing obstacles to make panhandling difficult by making smooth surfaces impossible to stand on, with the most popular approach being the annual clearing out of the homeless encampments that people see for the first time and realize they never noticed them even though they were right there when a picture of the sport of Homeless Encampment Clearing is printed in the media or videos show up on television news broadcasts.

Where the homeless end up going is of no concern. That they have to go somewhere else and become someone else’s “problem” is enough to claim the homeless situation has been addresses.

In a city like the one in which I live, sprinkled with closed factories from its heyday of manufacturing, any available old factory building gets converted into high end loft apartments and condos for those with no problem finding housing. Yet, in spite of all its claims to be a renaissance city, what with all the new money moving into the homes others had to leave and perhaps become the homeless, and touts all the great new construction and city renewal, and in spite of investing money in the city improvements not for the people already here but those they want to attract once they get the Great Unwashed out by purchasing real estate, the city could take the time and funds to take one of these empty factories and convert it into places for people presently homeless as, besides a place to call home, a person needs an address to get a job, and that might be all that is keeping a person unemployed and homeless.

Some cities have taken empty lots and constructed little houses for the homeless with strict residency requirements among which are usually the requirement to attend counseling sessions, show up for medical appointments, and looking for work if able bodied, all with the goal of re-establishing oneself to move on and back to the housed.

 These lots have little houses as plain or as fancy as they need to be to match the ambience of an area. Converting a factory makes fitting in automatic as, presently, the big factories, as high-end condos or abandoned, all look the same- long, three-story buildings, with huge windows, plenty of open space around the building, and a useless smoke stack from the past. Unless a sign indicated it was housing for the homeless, such a place would be as much a blight on the neighborhood as the expensive apartments and condos would be.

But that takes time and money.

We used to care about the homeless or, at least, put up a good front. Our tax dollars were used so that we, without having to lift a finger, were helping those less fortunate.

That changed when during a speech in 1981 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel Ronald Reagan told religious leaders that if they each took care of 10 needy families and the homeless, the problem would eventually work itself out. Subsequently, HUD had its funding cut by 60% and this eliminated programs that subsidized housing or supplied housing vouchers which, along with the closing of federal institutions dealing with the mentally ill, forced many people out into the street.

Now the homeless are just eyesores

During the recall attempt of California Governor Gary Newsom, one of the candidates, John Cox, said he would step up enforcement against people living on the streets.

“If someone is just insisting that they can live on the street, they either have to be arrested and put in jail or they have to be arrested and put into a place where they can get the treatment they need. If they don’t want either of those, they can certainly leave California.”

The assumption being that all homeless people have a drug addiction or mental illness, ignoring those who, like the rest of us could have and still might, became homeless when living paycheck to paycheck failed.

I and the tenants in 23 other apartments faced homelessness because of gentrification and, with many living paycheck to paycheck, this could have rendered some homeless as seemed certain with some of the tenants.

Last spring, Tennessee State Senator Frank Niceley educated his Chamber on history.

“In 1910, Hitler decided to live on the streets for a while. So, for two years, Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory and his body language and how to connect with the masses, and then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books​. So [for] a lot of these people, it​’​s not a dead end. They can come out of these homeless camps and have a productive life, or in Hitler’s case, a very unproductive life.”

I understand the intention, but question why Hitler and not some American Dream, up by the boot straps figure, unless the intention was to subliminally turn people against the homeless on any level it is necessary to equate them to a known evil to make the state’s job easier.

The usual, “Oh, they can give money to the homeless, but what about my insulin?”

Gays to pedophilia sort of thing.

As a Gay man, I am all too familiar with the tactic of making the claim that if something is, by another’s definition, a life style choice, it can be easily condemned as superficial and optional, and this allows for the denial of rights, goods, and services.

With the homeless, this excuses anyone who, while in a position to address the problem effectively from actually doing what needs to be done, things that take time, energy, and funds, conveniently blaming the homeless for their condition and all it would take is the “love of a good woman” to make the change.

And, although he may want to inspire the homeless to “come out of these homeless camps and have a productive life”, he never gives even a hint at how this could be done and who would be best to help.

In Hitler’s case, maybe some guidance would have helped.

Another politician explained that being homeless, although a poor one, was a lifestyle choice and, finding it convenient, many choose this lifestyle, so, why should the rest of us worry?

After visiting California in the summer of 2019, Trump disparaged the homeless population of San Francisco in an interview, and his EPA accused the city, where many of us have left our hearts, of violating the Clean Water Act because the city’s homeless people were contaminating the water supply with raw sewage.

Trump was mad at Pelosi and used the homeless as a tool without doing anything to correct the problem.

And, if you can’t get people to hate the homeless directly because they are just there or, as in Caitlyn Jenner’s case, ruin the scenic drive to the airport where she keeps her private plane, better to get people to feel a threat from their presence and one’s own need to, like Christ, feed the hungry and give a widow a mite.

However, in some places the widow might get her coin but at the giver’s legal expense.

Republican Charlotte, North Carolina Councilman, Tariq Bokhari, said that people who are bringing food and clothing to homeless shelters are “only making themselves feel good,” and suggested that “perhaps we explore making that a misdemeanor” that way as his city looks for solutions, people can just go hungry even though as a temporary form of assistance people get Christ-like. He wants the best medical care and will forgo the first-aid until it arrives.

“People aren’t getting it, and they’re still bringing food and clothing and resources directly to folks that are out there right now. They’re only making themselves feel good.”

Presently, his city’s leaders are creating a plan to end homelessness and expand affordable housing that will take five years to get up and running. In the meantime, there will either be increased appearances in court or very hungry homeless people.

In Massachusetts, already an expensive state, as in many other places, the dream of making their cities Class-A ones because of the money that translates into has many city leaders allowing the uprooting of people presently living in their cities and who, regardless how low it might have fallen, stayed and supported the city until it was ripe for their removal and replacement for monetary gain limited to a select few, and that means no homeless as they ruin the real estate pictures.

Just across the border in Rhode Island an encampment was bulldozed after its residents, having been told by authorities to choose what is most precious to them among their possessions and leave the rest, were removed to a charitable facility.

The thing is, when you basically have nothing, anything you have is precious. It’s like when you move or lose a loved one. As you go through what to keep and discard, the value of things takes on a new meaning.

I was present in court when a homeless man was called to the bench for having a shopping cart which in that state was a crime although he had found it abandoned in a ditch. He objected to having to give it up as it was his mobile home. In the end he lost the cart but got to keep his filled trash bags he would now either have to carry around or go through and give things up. All for an abandoned and rusty shopping cart violation.

The ruling was made, the cart taken, and the man was walked out of the building and back onto the streets.

In Rhode Island, the day after this encampments was removed, additional encampments were bulldozed with the people who refused to move somewhere else still in residency.

What should be disturbing is not the presence of these encampments, but the number of them and who the residents are.

And rather than tear them down, creative ideas need to be presented for preventing their need in the first place.

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