It’s often been said that visionaries and artists can see the future and bring it into the collective consciousness of humanity. They express what others could only vaguely imagine or could not imagine at all. It has always been the artist’s job to record history in some way and create a new future through design and innovation. However, I often wonder: Do artists and visionaries foresee the future or create it by having thought of it? It’s a “chicken or the egg” question.
A favorite example of mine is science fiction. How much of the original Star Trek technology has already come to pass? The communicator inspired the flip phones of the 2000s, for instance. Eventually, the PADD was introduced in the Trek shows of the 90s, and Steve Jobs referenced that device when first introducing the iPad. Visions of the future created by Roddenberry and the prop builders of the past inspired a tech visionary to make it real, along with other things like FaceTime. All this stuff exists now.
With that in mind, what does this have to do with homelessness?
Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. In the future, they won’t need the poverty-stricken masses as cheap labor anymore because machinery, robotics, and artificial intelligence can make anything they need. This could lead to the elimination of poor people, a trend that many feel is already underway as life becomes increasingly unlivable and impossible for poverty-stricken people. If you eliminate poor people, you eliminate homeless people, but what do they do with us in the meantime?
Star Trek visited that query, too, in the 1990s. It was a story called “Past Tense,” and it was a two-part episode that took place in 2024! The episode features a time travel tale where Captain Sisko and Dr. Bashir find themselves accidentally transported back to 2024. Having landed on the sidewalk, passed out cold with no identification, they are picked up by security officers who bring them to a “Sanctuary District.”
Here is where sci-fi meets reality (or maybe it’s the other way around). Right now, in some parts of the United States, entities are trying to create actual “sanctuary districts” that are almost identical to those seen in the 1997 Deep Space Nine episodes.
The fact that it took place in 2024 in the series and is now 2024 in reality as the idea is proposed strikes me as more than a coincidence.
When a dystopian future tale is written, is it a prediction, or is it giving birth to the idea that leads someone to bring it into reality? People have said, for example, that the George Orwell novel, “1984” was intended as a cautionary tale, not a guidebook. But since it was written, Big Brother has been more of a reality that keeps worsening! It seems that no matter how often humanity is warned of the dangers of something, the warning is not only ignored, but humans will do the very thing they were warned against, consequences be damned.
One of the key things about the “Past Tense” two-part story is that those forced into the Sanctuary District rebelled and started a riot. This would eventually lead to reforms because the riots made the public aware of the horrors of these districts and the fact that they were not the idyllic “sanctuaries” for homeless people that they were proposed to be. It’s a stark reminder of the need to prevent inhumane treatment of homeless people.
What I find equally disturbing is the term “think tank,” referring to the organization that supposedly came up with this unique solution.
Again, my hardcore fellow Trek fans probably immediately think of Jason Alexander on Voyager, trying to recruit Seven for their “think tank.” Like that episode, this real-life “think tank” is not some altruistic group trying to better life for all, but instead, it claims to focus heavily on entrepreneurship or profit.
In the Deep Space Nine episodes, Sanctuary districts are places where people who are elderly, disabled, unemployed, poor, and homeless can be placed in a safe area with access to medical care, social workers, food, etc.
In the episode, they tell us that the public accepted the idea of Sanctuary districts because they believed what they were being told – poor and homeless people would be off the streets in safety and finally getting help. But, of course, this is a case of “out of sight, out of mind,” which is precisely what the homeless internment camps being proposed now in real life would be.
They are nothing more than a dumping ground for the eyesore of homeless people. Those who create and fund these places will profit in the same way private prisons do. Far from being sanctuaries for those who’ve had it hard in this life, these places will be never-ending nightmares from which the greedy profit.
So, I ask, did the writers of DS9 predict homeless internment camps? Or did they inspire the idea? If so, the date of 2024 seems perfect for those who propose this to push for its creation.
It’s important to remember that history often repeats itself. The concept of poor relief in England, which began in 1601 for the “deserving poor,” took a sinister turn in 1834 when England essentially criminalized people experiencing poverty. This historical precedent should serve as a stark reminder of the potential consequences of societal and technological developments if not managed carefully. I encourage everyone to learn from this history and watch the excellent video I found on this subject.
The Trek wiki, Memory Alpha states:
“By the 2020s, the American government – reacting to serious problems of homelessness and unemployment – created special Sanctuary Districts (essentially walled-off sections of the city grid) in most major cities. Unfortunately – while established with the benevolent intent of providing free housing and food, as well as prospects for future employment – the Sanctuaries quickly degenerated into inhumane internment camps for the poor and mentally ill. Even though people with criminal records were not allowed inside Sanctuaries, it didn’t take long for the homeless and unemployed to be joined by violent social outcasts.”
The general public was unaware of the true conditions inside. An “out of sight, out of mind” mentality had set in, and people in the district started to believe that their needs were forgotten.
As I see it, my future is bleak. I am disabled, and sooner or later, I will be back on the street, only this time without a vehicle to hide in. A hellscape like Sanctuary may well be my ending. It’s just shocking that anyone would support this idea, which, in the end, is the epitome of societal failure due to a world devoid of compassion and filled with self-serving greed. They can build internment camps, but not safe, affordable housing?
