Homelessness comes home to roost

 (c) by Mark Dempsey

My Nextdoor feed was full of people distressed that the unhoused population is becoming more visible in our neighborhood. Reactions ranged from sympathetic ("It could happen to anyone") to less so ("some people just want to live that way."..."It can hurt property values"..."They're defecating on sidewalks"). 

What's missing is an appreciation of the history. The federal government used to build affordable housing, but the Nixon administration put a stop to that. Rent support is extremely hard to get, too. The Reagan administration cut taxes on the wealthy roughly in half in support of "trickle down" economics, but at the same time cut HUD's affordable housing budget 75%, and not incidentally, with Bush 41, raised payroll taxes eightfold. The local charitable homeless management agency (Loaves & Fishes) dates from the Reagan administration.

When he was governor of California, Reagan also closed the asylums that housed the mentally ill, so mental illness plays a role in the unhoused situation, although recent studies pinpoint rent rising faster than incomes as the cause of most homelessness. 

The Federal Reserve (our central bank) also reported 40% of the American population couldn't afford a $400 emergency, while 60% of wage earners live check-to-check, and 65% of seniors have only The attack on the poor has been longstanding and bipartisan, too. Clinton and Newt Gingrich conspired to turn AFDC ("Aid for Dependent Children") into TANF ("Temporary Aid for Needy Families"), a much less generous program. Of those needing public support, 76% got AFDC, but only 26% get TANF.

Underpinning this persecution of the poor is the belief that they deserve it. "They must be mentally ill, or at least addicts." Demonizing the poor as deserving their fate is almost as bad a celebrating the rich as deserving their wealth. As one relative who worked in philanthropy (giving away rich people's money for tax breaks) told me, after meeting many wealthy people. "Most of these guys were born on third base, but they all want to act like they hit a triple."