I couldn't think of a more profound title for this but it's starting to get me thinking about the situation in the U.S.
I'm currently struggling to find a new place because my landlords have decided to sell the property. Evidently they're being overly generous by giving me until the end of the year to be out rather than only 30 days as is required by law. I don't make much and most apartments want you to have 2.5-3 times the amount of monthly rent in income. I live in California and even with our minimum wage being higher than most states, that's asking a hell of a lot.
The neighborhood and surrounding area I'm in have massive homeless populations. There are entire blocks that have had homeless encampments erected all along them, over a block long, and that were there for weeks because we don't have enough police to drive them out and clean it up. And we still don't seem to be attacking the root problem that makes this happen in the first place.
I don't know if this is accurate but I keep hearing that we in the U.S. have more empty housing units than we have homeless people and that's insane to me. It's as insane as places that serve no purpose other than to be places for worship services not dedicating themselves to becoming homeless shelters, but religious hypocrisy is for another topic.
The ultimate threat to making any kind of positive progressive change is, in my eyes, homelessness. Workers can't effectively strike because having no income threatens their ability to keep a roof over their head. People can go without money for many things, food, utilities, clothing, but once you lose the place to lay your head at night, there's very little chance of coming back from that. There's also the fear of what comes along with being homeless, namely being arrested for vagrancy and ending up in prison and the associated trauma, potentially crippling or deadly violence and sexual assault that can happen there (or even just out on the streets).
But why should this be surprising in a nation where it cannot even the universal right to healthcare cannot be agreed upon? How has a country that's been so ass-backwards economically for so long not already collapsed? It boggles the mind.
It's hard to hold out any hope that things will get any better, for me personally or for just the state of affairs in general. If there was a way to actually get the people who have the resources to help and those who SAY they want to help to actually work together and combat the wealthy, corrupt elite's ultimate weapon against the people they exploit, then maybe there would be. But empty rooms will stay empty because no one can afford them or has the heart to actually say enough is enough.
Am I crazy or is making housing a universal human right not the biggest step in reducing wealth inequality? All else aside, having that singular, most significant foundation seems like it should be the number-one priority, but we're still struggling to afford medications. I don't even know what to say anymore.