Fw: Homelessness: A Capitalist Tragedy
Bruce D. Burleson (anvil@quik.com)
Tue, 5 May 1998 17:17:37 -0400
OK Tom,. will do! Here it is. :)
----------
> From: Tom Boland <wgcp@earthlink.net>
> To: Bruce D. Burleson <anvil@quik.com>
> Subject: Homelessness: A Capitalist Tragedy
> Date: Tuesday, May 05, 1998 8:16 AM
>
> Bruce, please consider sending your article below to <HPN@aspin.asu.edu>
> (if you haven't already done so). It's very well written.--Tom
>
> HOMELESSNESS: A CAPITALIST TRAVESTY
> -----------------------------------
> By Bruce D. Burleson
>
> Article published in Socialist Action, January 1998.
>
>
> I work for a homeless shelter and housing agency here in Boston.
> For two months I worked as a counselor in one of the shelters--a place
> located, oddly enough, on an island in Boston Harbor.
> In my brief stint there, I met a man named Jeffrey (not his real
> name). Jeffrey was a short, round, bald middle-aged man with a quick wit
> and a spring in his step. He also held a Ph.D in music and was a
> professional piano player.
> Some bad things happened in Jeffrey's life. He lost his job
playing
> piano at a posh Boston hotel bar. He also was fighting a drinking
problem
> as well as depression. To make a long story short, Jeffrey was unable to
> pay his rent, and wound up on the streets.
> Luckily he was able to get into a shelter and get back on his
feet,
> but it was an uphill struggle. Without a permanent address, it is
extremely
> difficult to get a decent job. And without a job, getting a permanent
> address is an arduous task. It's a Catch-22 situation faced by many
others
> I met in that shelter.
> I know what Jeffrey was going through, because I was once
homeless
> myself. There is nothing more frightening than finding oneself in
Harvard
> Square with a carload of personal belongings and nowhere to go.
>
> Who are they?
>
> Homeless people. We see them every day. In subway entrances, in
> bus stations, collecting cans from the trash, begging for spare change
> outside shopping centers. Sometimes we take note of them, maybe give
them
> some change, maybe buy them a sandwich. More often they just become part
> of the landscape, dismissed as irrelevant or eccentric by passers-by.
> But who are these people? Why are they there? What's the matter
> with them anyway? Why don't they just get a job? These are the
questions
> people often automatically ask about the homeless. And they are also the
> questions left unanswered, or misleadingly answered, by the bourgeois
press.
> The homeless are you and me: white, Black, Hispanic, Asian, male,
> female, gay, straight, young, old, able-bodied, handicapped. The list
goes
> on and on, because millions of people in the United States experience
> homelessness at some point in their lives.
> Estimates of how many homeless people there are in the United
States
> depend on who you ask and how the question is worded. There are between
> 300,000 and 7 million people who have no permanent address. The National
> Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that on any given night, 750,000
> Americans will be without shelter, and that 1.3 to 2 million Americans
will
> become homeless sometime during the year.
> Boston alone has an estimated 4,600 to 6,000 homeless people.
> Indeed, at Boston shelters, the overnight population reached 120 percent
of
> capacity at certain points last winter. And this winter they're
expecting
> even more people, due to government cutbacks on social programs.
> The end of welfare as we knew it, engineered by Congress and
signed
> into law by President Clinton, and also cutbacks in Supplementary
Security
> Income (SSI), are sure to lead to a dramatic increase in homelessness.
> All of these figures depend, of course, on how one defines
> homelessness. Is it sleeping under a bridge, in a shelter, or on Aunt
> Shirley's sofa after being thrown out of the house by an angry partner?
> Is it living in a place against one's will, or living in a room at the
> YMCA? All of these factors make it difficult to know exactly how many
> people are homeless.
> For our purposes, let us consider homelessness to be a condition
of
> being without a permanent place to live and to keep one's belongings.
>
> Myths
>
> Myths about homelessness abound. One is the belief that most of
the
> homeless are mentally ill. But, according to the National Coalition for
the
> Homeless (NCH), only 23 percent of homeless people are mentally ill.
> The NCH also notes that, prior to their homelessness, most of the
> "mentally ill" homeless never needed psychiatric care of any kind. In
other
> words, homelessness contributes to, but is not usually the result of,
mental
> illness.
> Another myth is that homelessness is caused by
> "deinstitutionalization"--the release of great numbers of the mentally
ill
> from state-run hospitals. The fact is, according to NCH, 65 percent of
the
> decline in the population of mental hospitals had already occurred by
1975,
> whereas the number of homeless has tripled since 1980. So it is clear
that
> although this phenomenon may have contributed to homelessness in the
past,
> it is not the major cause.
> Still another myth is that most of the homeless are alcoholics or
> drug abusers. But NCH has determined that "only about 33 percent of the
> homeless are substance abusers. The well-off in our society go to
clinics
> for substance abuse, but the poor are treated much differently."
> This is not to deny that sometimes conditions such as mental
illness
> and substance abuse contribute to a person's becoming homeless. The
> homeless who suffer from these conditions are also more likely to freeze
to
> death, because they're too sick to realize they're in danger.
> The politicians and their media often blame these individuals for
> their own predicament. There is a grain of truth in what they say. Some
> people can pull themselves together, and often do. But ultimately, it is
> cutbacks in social spending--engineered by the politicians--that lead to
> these deaths on the street.
> Another misconception is that the homeless are all single "bums,"
> but families with children represent 35 percent of the homeless, and are
> the fastest growing group.
> Other statistics about the homeless disprove the myths. For
> example, a common myth is that homeless people are lazy. However,
working
> people make up at least 30 percent of the homeless--meaning, they can
> afford food but not housing. Moreover, many of the homeless who are
> unemployed still work hard at one thing or another, whether it be
> collecting cans for recycling, panhandling, and even publishing and
> activism.
> Indeed, if one wants to find lazy people, the place to look is
not
> on the streets, but in the executive offices of corporate America!
>
> Homelessness and housing
>
> Over the past 20 years there has been a growing shortage of
> affordable housing. In the Boston area, for example, the end of rent
> control--a ceiling on what landlords could charge tenants for rent--has
> meant skyrocketing rents. Recent changes in the New York City
rent-control
> laws have eroded low-income housing protection there as well.
> In cities across America, gentrification--the replacement of
> low-income housing with high-priced luxury apartments--has meant less
> affordable housing available for poor people.
> According to NCH, between 1973 and 1993, 2.2 million low-rent
units
> vanished from the market, while the number of low-income renters rose by
> 4.7 million. On top of that, only 26 percent of families that were
> eligible for housing assistance received it.
> Not only are low-income units being lost, but housing that could
be
> renovated and used to house the homeless sits empty--a total waste.
> Throughout Boston's neighborhoods, one sees "triple deckers," or
> three-family houses, boarded up, with Century 21 signs out front. Office
> buildings, old warehouses, and factories stand unused or underused, a
slap
> in the face to homeless people.
> In cities across the country, homeless people suffer a wide
variety
> of abuses by the police. They are chased off park benches, arrested for
> "vagrancy," and evicted from makeshift shanties.
> In San Francisco, on the orders of "progressive" Mayor Willie
> Brown, police have recently used helicopters equipped with heat-seeking
> devices to round up homeless people in Golden Gate Park. In the first 11
> months of Brown's term, 15,588 people were cited for vagrancy. In other
> words, it's basically illegal to be without a home in that city.
> Some cities are downright mean. In Houston, park benches have
been
> redesigned with "homeless-proof" bars across them, to prevent people from
> sleeping on them.
> Most recently, a police officer in Santa Cruz, California, gunned
> down a homeless man and then strip-searched him as he lay bleeding on the
> street. He was refused first aid and later died from his wounds.
>
> Homelessness and capitalism
>
> All of the so-called "causes" of homelessness that are often
> discussed are better described as contributing factors. There has never
> been any "proof" that alcoholism, mental illness, laziness, or any other
> individual condition "causes" people to become homeless.
> Such analyses only blame the victims of homelessness--the
homeless
> people themselves. They are lumped together with immigrants, "welfare
> cheats," single moms, inner-city Blacks, and gays, to be blamed as
> scapegoats for the general deterioration of living conditions.
> Capitalism, and nothing else, causes homelessness. Under
capitalism,
> housing costs money. Houses and apartments are built, sold and rented
for
> profit, not for human need. As the capitalist system continues to decay,
> poverty spreads and deepens, and the most vulnerable members of society
end
> up on the streets.
> Housing is a right. A fight needs to be waged for lower rents
(no
> more than 10 percent of a person's income). We need an emergency program
> to build low-cost housing. We must also defend social services such as
> welfare, food stamps, and unemployment insurance, so as to guarantee
> everyone the basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter.
> But in the long run, such reforms will not solve the problem. Only the
> overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist society can
> ensure that no one is ever left out in the cold.
>
>