But Where Homeless People Are Supposed to Go Remains Unsaid
New York City mayor Eric Adams has just enacted his plan to send teams of social workers and police officers into the city’s subways to remove the people who are sheltering in trains and stations this winter. In a statement announcing the plan, Adams said that allowing homeless people to sleep on subway trains was “cruel and inhumane.”
But are there any kinder options available?
At the same time, Adams half-heartedly mentions the safety of the homeless people in question. This program is being branded on a larger scale as a safety effort designed to improve the safety of the housed subway rider. Following several recent violent incidents in the subway system, some people have felt unsafe riding. To eliminate the “perception of fear,” as Adams called it before walking that statement back, it seems that a scapegoat is needed. And who makes a better scapegoat than the most powerless among us- sleeping homeless people with nowhere safer to go?
While recent high-profile tragedies like the fatal subway shoving of Michelle Alyssa Go provide a palatable pretext, Mayor Adams makes no attempt to hide his motivations for this sweep. In his initial announcement of the program, he nakedly says of the subway, “it’s how tourists move throughout the city. If they don’t feel safe, they don’t come and shop and explore our city, and it’s a major impact on our financial ecosystem.”
Out of the Subway, into the Shelter?
The “happy ending” that’s being sold to people watching this sweep take place is that homeless people will be removed from the unsuitable environment of the subway and into a mythical shelter, which we’re left to imagine as a place of sunshine and rainbows where all problems will be solved. If you’ve been reading Invisible People for a while, you know that’s not usually the case.
Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether or not there are even enough shelter beds in the city to accommodate the estimated 1,700 people sheltering in the NYC subway (there aren’t), the people who are choosing to shelter in the subway rather than a homeless shelter are doing so for a reason.
Maybe they feel safer on the subway than they do in the shelter (that’s saying something).
Perhaps they have a job that keeps them out past the shelter’s mandatory curfew.
Maybe they have family members or a pet they don’t want to be separated from in a shelter.
Or maybe there just aren’t enough available spaces for them to get a bed
Whatever the reason, scooping people from the subway station and depositing them at the nearest homeless shelter isn’t a solution. And it certainly does not address the needs of homeless people in the slightest.
But all of this is just a guess at how the system is supposed to work. The details on this have been scarce beyond a terse, “this is not about arresting people, it’s about arresting a problem” from Mayor Adams.
Which still kind of sounds like they are arresting people.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
From the lack of any details of how this program will actually help unhoused people it’s targeting and the speed at which it was deployed -with very little time for planning or preparation – it’s evident that what the mayor and supporters of this sweep really hope to get out of it is not long-lasting stability and safe, affordable housing for their neighbors without homes.
As usual, they really want to avoid looking at homeless people, anywhere, ever, as soon as possible. Please and thank you.
They don’t care one bit about what happens to these people afterward. They are content knowing they don’t have to experience their heart rate rising at the sight of someone sleeping on a subway bench.
Now on its own, this isn’t a bad impulse. It’s difficult to face society’s failings that allow people to live in poverty so the rich can get richer. Of course, it’s nowhere near as difficult as being the person living in that state of extreme poverty.
It is quite a normal human impulse not to want to see people experiencing homelessness. But too often, that feeling gets twisted into simply not wanting to see homeless people.
The difference is that not wanting to see people homeless means that you want there to be no homeless people because everyone is adequately housed. Not wanting to see homeless people just means you’re content with not facing the problem on your daily commute.
Where Does Discomfort Come From?
When it comes right down to it, these two groups are having different reactions to the exact same feeling.
The people who don’t want to see people homeless are acknowledging the injustice of our current situation. They don’t shy away from it or make excuses. They view housing as a human right, not something that individual people can deserve or not deserve.
The “I don’t want to see homeless people” crowd, on the other hand, feels that same discomfort at seeing inequality. However, they quickly rationalize it away to ease their cognitive dissonance. They mischaracterize their uncomfortable recognition of injustice as something else – fear, disgust, hatred- anything to avoid digging too deep.
They’re seeing someone else live in extreme poverty while they themselves live in relative comfort. Their brain screams, “make it make sense!” So they invent justifications and stereotypes to explain how the poor person somehow deserves their lot in life. At the same time, they deserve their position of privilege because of their good choices, hard work, or superior morality.
All of these mental gymnastics just to avoid the fact that we’re all human and life isn’t fair.
