Homeless pinball

In the small town of Willard, Ohio, in about 1979, my 8th grade music teacher, Mrs. Essex, introduced us kids to the rock opera "Tommy," by The Who.  I loved it, even though I wasn't really into hard rock then.  That was a brave act by Mrs Essex at the time, in conservative, small town Ohio, and I appluad her for it.  It opened me, and others, up to a lot of great music.  This is the best known single from that 1969 double album, "Pinball Wizard."  "Homeless Pinball" is what I call it when homeless people are forced out of a spot, and bounce around from one place ot another.

Don't you hate it when a complete stranger walks into your house and says, "Hey, we're demolishing this place tomorrow, so you have to get your shit out."  No, you don't hate it, because that doesn't happen to average people.  "This is America!" you shout, "they can't do that here!"  OK, I won't get into eminent domain, that's not the point of this post.  The point is, if you live in a house or apartment, whether you own it or rent it, strangers don't come in a tell you to get out with a few hours, or a day's notice.  

Even if you are behind on rent, or haven't paid your property taxes in years, a government official doesn't just walk in one day and say, "You gotta get out."  There's a process, we have a reasonably functional rule of law in this country, even now.  Yes, there is institutional racism, sexism, and other "isms" at work in our legal system.  But compared to most of the world, we have a functional rule of law, and there is a process for evicting a person, foreclosing on a mortgage, and getting people out of houses they aren't paying for.  That process has many steps, and it can take months or years to get someone out.  That's one of the securities of living in the United States of America.  

But not when you're homeless.  It doesn't matter of you are homeless because your house burned down a month ago, or because you're a lifelong, degenerate crackhead.  When you are homeless, you make your "home" on somebody else's property, either private property, or government property.  That's because every single piece of land is someone else's property.  

At some point, when a homeless person camps out- ANYWHERE- someone in the area, or the property owner, gets sick of you being there.  You could be on a vacant, overgrown lot that no one ever paid attention to, but as soon as homeless people camp there, it's suddenly a national monument in that neighborhood.  It's like George Washington took a leak there in 1783 or something, the land is suddenly sacred, once a bum pitches a tent there.  "They need to leave!" some neighbor shouts, then they try to rally others. 

This is happening, right now, as I type this, at the place I've been sleeping at, for the last six months.  I started sleeping there when I spent 5 days with Covid-19 in January, so I could be close to a restroom and a mini mart, to buy water and Gatorade to get through that illness.  For the record, I got both Pfizer vaccines, and I think it helped me get over Covid quicker.  

There were two of us sleeping along the side of this building then.  Then three.  Then five.  That number has gone up and down since, as a handful of neighbors have pulled every string they could to get us out.  Recently friends of one of the people started hanging out, smoking meth (which I don't do, see my last post).  Someone even hired a regional gangbanger to phyiscally threaten us a couple of weeks ago.  This kind of stuff happens on a regular basis, all over, in cities everywhere.  

Yesterday a guy I'd never seen before walked up to us and said that they would be powerwashing the sidewalk, on both sides of the street, this morning, and that we had to move everything.  I said, "I'll be gone."  I moved to another spot last night.  The others will do the same.  I call this "Homeless Pinball."  Nobody will go very far.  They just wind up in another spot nearby, but out of sight of one group of local renters.  

A couple people might get taken to "housing," which your tax dollars pay for, by the way.  Just for the record, housing, eventually, puts homeless people in long term places, usually ghetto apartments, and your tax dollars go to a bunch of ghetto landlords to pay their rent.  Maybe you're cool with that.  Personally, I'm not.  Almost no one who goes into homeless "housing" gets a good paying job and rents their own apartment again.  Ever.  "Housing" is your tax dollars (and inflation dollars) paying the rent for thousands of homeless people, indefinitely.  Keep that in mind.  

But most of the people moving from my old spot today, and the others getting moved out of other spots, simply move to another piece of land, usually within a few hundred yards.  Sometimes people just move across a city line into the next town, which is what I did.  There is no legal process, we have no recourse about getting forced out of a spot with little or no notice.  We repeatedly lost much or all of what little we own.  No one cares.  Homeless people get "bounced" around areas like pinballs in a pinball game.  That's why I call it Homeless Pinball.  It's a short term solution to a long term problem, which keeps getting bigger.  

As a society, we don't want ot actually house all the down and out people, that's obvious with a trip through any major city.  As this blog goes on, I'll look at some of the ideas for dealing with homeless people, and give my thoughts on what works and doesn't work with the various programs.  I'll even write about my best ideas on how to deal with homelessness, at some point.  Meanwhile, the homeless population will keep growing, because it's not just an addiction or mental health issue, it's a long term demographics issue in the U.S. and Western society, at this point.  

The powerwashing today will move the 7 or 8 people out of that 50 foot stretch of sidewalk.  Within a week, they will start being replaced by even sketchier homeless people, the full blown, hardcore tweeker and crackhead, walking zombie types.  And the people of this neighborhood will be pissed off again.  Bing-bing-bing... us bums just keep bouncing around.  Inflation and this recession we're sliding into will add to the numbers.  Anybody up for actual solutions yet?  No?  I didn't think so.  Maybe someday...

Blogger's note- 8/9/2022- The sidewalk I wrote about above did get a much needed powerwashing, and most of the people moved across the street.  No one went to housing.  Most of the people who have been frequenting this area are still there.  Meanwhile, L.A. city council just passed ordinance 41.18 last week, which outlaws "sitting, sleeping, or camping" in many of the places homeless people traditionally camp to keep out of the way.  The ordinance is incredibly vague in some of its language.  More on that later.  The drama continues.  But, the sidewalk is much cleaner.  If any city people are reading this, the bus stop around the corner could really use a powerwashing. 

The sidewalk I mentioned, right after the powerwashing, much cleaner now.  My photo.