Housing Should Be a Right for All

Housing a right for all

Unless you have been through some form of housing insecurity or homelessness, you probably cannot truly relate to people who have. You can imagine and try to put yourself in their shoes, but it’s not the same as living through it. Becoming homeless is traumatic. It is life-altering, as is living with the constant threat of it. 

Housing is a basic human requirement; food, water, air, and shelter. Housing should be the right of all living beings – a place where they can feel safe and secure. However, maybe that was never possible.

From ancient times, really good, livable caves were prime real estate. Whether those places were shared without violence or not, I cannot say for sure, but at least part of the time, it likely was not. Whether ancient people had it easier than us is hard to say. But the idea that beings with very short, temporary existences can actually “own” land, which was there long before they were born, and would presumably be there long after they are dead, is, in my mind, ludicrous. 

Like everything else, it’s all based on greed. But some would argue effectively that this is simply the “fittest of the fit shall survive” in play. An unprecedented number of people believe that if a creature cannot survive and thrive on its own, it should die because its weak genes should not be passed on to the next generation. You would be shocked how many people think this. 

I recently saw a video of a turtle floating on its back, struggling to get right. Every turtle in the pond swam to the one who needed help, and they all worked together to set them right.

There was no profit in it for them. Arguably, they would have had one less “deadbeat” to share their food with. So is this “the fittest of the fit” in play? Why did all the others help the one in trouble when there was nothing in it for them? I argue that it is unnatural for all of nature to be greedy, self-centered, and profit-driven. Those turtles alleviated the suffering of another being, and in doing so, they all continued to swim. 

In the past, I have written about the mentality illustrated by Scrooge in Dicken’s Christmas Carol story. Published in 1843, that story with the mentality of the “haves” toward the “have nots” has not changed for the most part. The poor are still seen as lazy and weak, while the wealthy are idolized.

Scrooge is depicted as an ill-mannered guy and a greedy hoarder of more wealth than he could ever use as a single, past-middle-aged male with no wife or children. However, more people would want to be him than be poor Bob Cratchit. Of course, Bob is hard-working, underpaid, and underappreciated in this fiction. He is like so many modern people who work long hours for wages that often can’t keep a roof over their heads, under the boot of a greedy employer with a dragon’s lair of wealth who cares nothing of other people.

How sad that this story must remain entirely relevant almost two centuries later! 

Some people are very optimistic and believe that humans will evolve past this thinking, but I disagree. In fact, I have far darker theories about where humans will end up. In short, I believe the poor will be wiped away, our labor replaced by AI, automation, and technology, and the wealthy will inherit the earth because, let’s face it, they already own it!

Why would they want to dump money into helping fellow humans out of poverty when they can eliminate them? They have no need to care about anyone but themselves. They think poor and disabled people are inferior.

I wish I could have a Pollyanna philosophy about life, but I can’t. They will use and exploit the poor and lower incomes until there are none left.

Even now, they know poor people can least afford to buy a new vehicle. The greedy have been buying used vehicles and offering them for often triple what they are worth. The only way to buy it is to accept their payment plans, which will cost you far more than the already overinflated vehicle price!

Who would be able to live with themselves after hurting people like this? Obviously, the greedy have no conscience about it. They are living just fine. 

What about the predators who rent storage units?

The well-to-do don’t need them because they have homes big enough to have all their belongings. Usually, the lower middle- to low-income folks rent them because their apartments don’t come with attics and garages.

You’ll initially get the unit for a reasonable price, and then they keep raising the rent month after month. They know few people will want to move a unit full of stuff to another facility. Even if they did, most storage places aren’t owned by “mom and pop” anymore but by greed-driven corporations, so it will happen again.

I wish I could have optimism, but I cannot. Affordable housing will stay in very short supply overall. Of that housing, virtually none will be generally acceptable for people with disabilities.

In a recent column, I mentioned that if the Canadian MAID program existed in America, I would petition for it. Medical Assistance In Dying, or MAID, has been extended to people like me. I’ve already read about cases of people who had it granted and had many of the same medical problems I have.

Currently, only terminal people can ask for euthanasia in some states in the US. But as MAID becomes acceptable in Canada, it will likely become available in the US.

People like me cannot afford as much as a shack on a tiny bit of land, so the government will gladly grant us death and say, “Hey, it’s what they wanted! We didn’t tell them to do it.”

They’d rather exterminate us than give us a chance to get back on our feet because it’s cheaper and easier. And let me tell you, when you have been trying to stay afloat for decades, all you eventually want to do is stop struggling – let go and be sucked down into the abyss where your suffering for nothing will finally end. No doubt, the powers that be love the idea of that.


Homeless Loki

Homeless Loki

  

Homeless Loki is a disabled homeless person also on the autism spectrum currently homeless in upstate New York

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