28 Nov 2018 - Graham
previously: the new mediocrity aka some movie reviews
Someones else mostly wrote this one. Thanks to Corey G. and Caitlin A. who shared their perspective after I complained about a “liberal” I overheard complaining about the homeless.
Yes, Giving Tuesday was a sham that further propped up the non-profit industrial complex. But here’s three objectively good causes I gave a few bucks to and 1 other idea:
James F.T. offers this thing from a guy who also released an album (bandcamp) for my 30th birthday. Here’s a teaser quote:
I have the thought: I am in a negative mood and should probably not write my piece for Talkhouse right now. Actually, I should say, I am in a great mood–but not a marketable mood. I’m feeling vital and critical and negative.
Dan S. found good evidence for my suspicions about the root causes of boringness in the movie industry:
[Ben Fritz] methodically read through the Sony hack emails to see what they said about the economics of the film industry. Among the subjects he examines is how brand franchises (like Batman) rather than star franchises (like Tom Hanks) are more reliable and scalable when it comes to the bottom lines of studios… Peter Kafka has a good interview with Fritz that’s offers a decent summary.
Caitlin A. analyzes data to better understand how people move through the homelessness services systems (and hopefully ultimately obtain permanent housing). Corey G. provides legal support to individuals experiencing homelessness (getting driver’s licenses unsuspended, advocating for them when prior evictions or criminal charges prevent them from obtaining housing, etc.).
For starters, Corey points out how much selfishness is involved in most concerns about homelessness.
Homelessness is very visible and I can see why it’s an eyesore, but its pretty fucked for people to be more concerned about having to “see” it than they are about the human beings experiencing it. And as far as crime is concerned–Seattle’s level of property crime is quite high, but it seems complaints about crime map much better to areas of wealth/privilege as opposed to where crime is actually the highest.
Yet both Caitlin and Corey emphasized the importance of empathy as a rhetorical tool for dealing with the selfish complainers.
Corey: I try to acknowledge the experiences of people who are afraid of rising crime or public disorder and try to bring them on board to advocate for solutions that are effective in actually addressing those problems. Primarily that means building affordable housing and providing coordinated case management services (as opposed to a punitive carceral response which has shown to be ineffective)
Caitlin: I too struggle with how to respond to people who complain about the visibility/crime related to homelessness. I know that my worldview – that people have little personal agency and therefore punishment is useless - is pretty radical, so that’s a hard place to be working from. But I think actively listening to these folks and validating when possible can be helpful. Once I’ve disarmed the person I’m talking to with empathy, I then talk about how we all want a solution to homelessness, including the vast majority of the homeless population (page 21). This often comes as a shock. Sometimes, people outright won’t believe me, but if they agree, I talk about how homelessness isn’t so much the absence of housing or shelter (although that’s a big part of it) but more so the absence of a social safety net.
Caitlin finds that there are limits to empathy in “liberal” Seattle.
In Seattle at least, I think most people can follow this line of thinking for people who have a history of foster care placements, or LGBTQ youth who’ve been disowned by their parents, and even sometimes the systematic impoverishment of the black/African-American community through our country’s history of slavery, red-lining, racism, etc. They agree that it would be really hard to stay financially afloat and housed without parents or a community with resources to support them.
But I’ve noticed people still get hung up on people with substance use disorder, viewing them as personal failures undeserving of a safety net supported by taxpayer dollars. But for people experiencing homelessness, substance use disorders are typically the manifestation of untreated mental health conditions.
A majority of people experiencing homelessness in Seattle have at least one untreated mental health condition from depression, to PTSD, to schizophrenia (the behaviors of which people often misattribute to drug abuse) (pg 9). People with substance use disorder might be self-medicating for these untreated mental health conditions.
Yet even “liberal” Seattleites fail to recognize and destigmatize the relationship between untreated mental illness and substance use disorder. I don’t know why this is…
They emphasized two different parts of the solution.
For Corey:
Seattle has done far too little to help the approximately 12,000 people in the city who are homeless. Sadly, as homelessness continues to remain very visible in Seattle, a growing number of people have started to advocate for a law and order “solution” to homelessness. According to advocates of this “solution,” homelessness remains a problem, in part, because the homeless refuse to accept shelter.
However, when you talk to those living on the street, it becomes clear that true shelter is little more than a mirage. Shelters are frequently infested with rodents and bed bugs, leave their occupants subject to frequent theft of personal belongings, kick out those who suffer from substance use disorder, require intimate partners to sleep in separate sleeping areas, have no place to store larger personal belongings, and require occupants to leave every day and then return to wait in line every evening to get in. Seattle has recently begun to operate more well-resourced shelters that avoid these problems; these shelters allow pets, larger personal belongings, cohabitation, long-term stays, and drug use.
Housing costs are probably the largest driver of the problem. Obviously there are many factors that lead to homelessness (mental illness, substance use, etc.) but I don’t believe those issues are more prevalent in places like Seattle. We see those same issues in rural america but we don’t see homelessness at nearly the rates, and I think that is in large part because housing is so much more affordable. The vast majority of those experiencing homelessness could be housed if they had the financial means (or financial support).
For Caitlin:
I think that Seattleites are frustrated by policies that legalize homelessness, permit homeless encampments, and don’t enforce drug use. But these policies are rooted in empathy for people experiencing homelessness and a recognition that arresting folks for being homeless amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
Until Seattleites are able to empathize with the human beings experiencing homelessness and agree to finance a public safety net for people who have lost their own social safety net – including those with substance use disorders – they will continue to be frustrated.
Evicted by Matthew Desmond is probably one of the Top 5 best academic books of all time. It’s a beautifully told and deeply researched story about the plague of housing insecurity. I was continuously appalled while reading it. Here’s three shocking facts:
Jacob Hacker has a similar analysis of contemporary poverty in general. While absolute deprivation remains a horrifying problem for far too many people, his data suggests that many times more people suffer from economic insecurity. Economic inequality today manifests not only as an unequal distribution of resources, but as an unequal distribution of risk.
For example, this month in America 1 in 6 kids will go hungry. And this snapshot underestimates the true depth of the problem. Less than half of families that experience food insecurity in one year experience it the next - families move in and out of food security. A much much larger share of kids will experience a period of hunger at some point in their lives.
This is why systemic solutions are so important. We must feed people who are hungry today, we must house people who are exposed today. We have to deal with the present emergency. But we must also think about the people at risk of deprivation. We must also redesign the economy to shift risk away from the people least able to bear it.
next post: against the wirecutter, part one