An Issue

An issue in this world that truly bothers me a lot is poverty. As abject as that statement is, when you have done the research on these issues and see the possibilities; homelessness and poverty are such an issue as thus.

You could (if you wanted to) talk to me all day about how these issues are larger than these simple numbers and what you see and research online. This unfortunately is not true; the issue of, homelessness however while you may be taught is a difficult issue to fix; again, this is a misconception that is very disappointing to see. In terms of broad issues, I will be watering it down simply to homelessness in this discourse.

Recently, a facebook post arose and gained a lot of attention; it stated that there were 633 thousand homeless people and around 14 million vacant homes. This is laughable, of course, and completely false. The correct numbers are about 553 thousand homeless people and 17 million vacant homes. It takes no mathematician to figure out the sheer stupidity of the situation. These statistics were met with INSANE claims, like “these people should be able to live in a home; and not have to pay.” Ludicrous I know. I thought to myself ‘it can’t be that simple, there must be a reason these people can’t live here.’ I decided to do some more looking for a counter argument that is suitable for statistics as harrowing as this.

Another avenue I decided to delve into was that of the shelter situation in the US. After not looking for long at all, I found an abundance of reasoning duggesting why so many of those impoverished people would choose the streets rather than a shelter. The utmost point was that their safety was not ensured any greater at shelter than it is outside, if not more so dangerous. I found that along with safety, the only real reason that people utilize the shelter is the fear of hypothermia. The majority of shelters in the US have been proved to be an unsafe “alternative” for those experiencing homelessness.

I looked at several outfits and arguments to the antithesis of mine. I ran into a lot, and I mean A LOT, of banking, insurance and governmental bullshit; explaining how the housing of these people would be a bad thing. Shockingly enough, there wasn’t a single ethically viable reason as to why people don’t deserve housing. The main reason I found was the banks. The banks in a sense build the homes; and when nobody buys them, they close the house down and leave it be. To be very clear, and explain this fully, the prominent reason that people are not permitted basic human rights is due to the fact that the person who has built his own third home isn’t getting any richer by these people living in the homes.

The fact of the matter is that there is no good enough reason, within the ethical bounds of what would be considered common courtesy for these people to live semi-comfortably is very sad.