The slippery slope to houselessness
America has an unspoken caste system. The people at the top are treated now as celebrities and space cowboys while the people at the bottom are stigmatized and criminalized. This disparity seems to be part of the new normal. “All of a sudden” people are more houseless than before, like, more people just decided that was a way they wanted to live?
The vast majority of the American people live much closer to poverty and houselessness than they do to millionaires. The profiteers of this inequity would have us think that it's personal failings and addiction, or criminality that are to blame for the uptick in houselessness.
According to the 2022 Personal Capital Wealth and Wellness Index, only 53% of Americans are in a position to handle an unforeseen $500 expense without worry.(*1)
According to a survey by Charles Schwab, 59 percent of Americans are a paycheck away from being on the street.(*2)
Many Americans struggle to cover medical expenses even with insurance. This problem only gets worse when that medical emergency is then followed by a loss of income due to needing time off with no sick leave in many cases.
Rampant inflation driven by record breaking profits and share buybacks is crippling normal people's purchasing power. Massive investment banks are buying up property that they do not intend to rent, thus they drive up the market price for the units they do rent.
We are feeling the consequences of end-stage capitalism. This bloody machine doesn't give a shit about human suffering; It feeds on money and the myth of unending growth. The ugly truth is that only recently have the consequences of this system been felt so acutely here in the US. This growth for growths sake mentality has had many casualties globally; we've looked the other way about the human rights abuses that this has had abroad. Only recently have those consequences been on our doorstep. There is no indicator that that system wouldn't do the same to the people here in America if allowed.
The lower classes need to stop seeing houseless people as a sad and cautionary tale. They must start seeing houseless people as victims of this unjust system and realize they need to fight. Until the lower classes unite and leverage their power this brutal disparity will only get worse.
(1.) (www.personalcapital.com/assets/public/src/2022-Wealth-and-Wellness-Index.pdf)
This is an important post to understand. How many know that Rupert Murdoch, the cartoon figure at the top with all the cookies, goading on the worker, is himself, a foreigner from Australia, who gave up his Australian citizenship to satisfy legal requirements to own a TV network?
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