It is true that homelessness greatly removes you from what most consider mainstream society. Although many homeless people are employed, they are not housed. And, without a doubt, life not housed is such a difficult concept for those who have never been homeless to grasp. It is nearly impossible to comprehend life without housing unless you’ve experienced it yourself. This truth of itself, can and does completely change your entire world view.
Two years ago, and even before that, when my husband and I lost our apartment after an 8-month long fight in housing court against our tyrannical landlord (and his holster of expensive lawyers), I held fairly left-leaning anarchic-principles, especially those that are centered in mutual aid, direct action and solidarity. But these principles were very much birthed from observation from the outside, and hardly, if ever, put in action or use. Today, that is no longer the case.
Even before I lost my home, I was fully aware of the rising cost of living. Even more so, I was aware of how incredibly impossible it is to choose another path to safety and shelter that isn’t renting in such a grueling housing market.
The Owning Class Does Not Make Community
In The Indentured Tenant: A Story of Rent and Extortion, we learn that “the ability to open businesses, own land, and buy luxuries is only awarded to the owning class. This class makes up a very small percentage of people, but the difference is even more stark in our urban centers.” Such is the case in New York City, where I live. Those such as myself, work, raise their families, and build their lives here. We make this city what it truly is.
And yet, most of us do not own property in the place we live.
We rent, while our landlords live an hour and a half off the cost of Long Island, collecting 50, 60, even 70% of our hard-earned income. This is while they shamelessly amass dirty money – wealth created by poverty and subsidized by the government.
With all that said, it still wasn’t until I stood in front of an indifferent judge, fists clenched, shaking, among sharks, that I realized the magnitude of the situation I found myself in. As I sat in a crowded courtroom, shoulder to shoulder, some sitting on the floor, among families who would soon check into the same homeless shelter I would.
It was not until I sat across the table from dangerously smart anarchist college students. It wasn’t until I fed, clothed, and supplied internet to newly made homeless friends. When I traded tinned meat for cigarettes and tampons for toilet paper. It wasn’t until strangers from the internet started sending me cash for groceries and a winter coat off my Amazon wish list that I truly understood the meaning of community efforts. It wasn’t until “friend” morphed into “ally”.
Surely, it wasn’t until I met Franky. In fact, I learned everything I needed to know about mutual aid and being an ally from Franky.
I remember that day like it was yesterday. It was a quarter past 10 when she knocked on our door. She said, “We just got back from the food bank. There is no way we can eat all of this, so I’m going around and knocking on people’s doors.” After pantry hopping all over the city, Franky distributes her bounty. A few times a month, she takes her car and drives to several food banks in Manhattan.
Sometimes she goes into Brooklyn. This is no easy task. It is an all-day thing. In fact, you end up sitting outside, on blistering concrete, for 5-6 hours. You don’t always walk away with something. Sometimes you must leave empty-handed. For some, the elderly, the disabled, the lost, they are alive because the tribe, because Franky, makes sure they do.
This tribe-like ideology has stayed with me ever since. Even after I celebrated my 1-year anniversary of being housed, I actively participate in mutual aid efforts by scanning Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, and our Facebook support group for current and formerly homeless people in need. I do what I can, as much as I can, as often as possible.
Sometimes that means sending $25 via Pay Pal to a formerly homeless Mom in need of food tonight. Or sending a care package of toiletries and pantry goods to a woman couch-surfing at a friend’s place. It means actively making phone calls and surfing the web for shelters. Sometimes that means lending an ear, a shoulder, and a heart that perhaps only we, those who understand, can provide.
Municipalities Are Banning Sharing Food with Homeless People
As I reflect on these realities, I realize how much this sort of “war on the homeless” has pushed us in that direction and continues to push us – further and further away from the rest of society. Consider that “…local governments are explicitly outlawing giving to the homeless, despite homelessness being a significant lingering problem for the US economy. 33 U.S. cities now ban or are considering banning the practice of sharing food with homeless people.”
Author Cory Massimino continues by sharing that “the policy is not only completely backwards; it is simply cruel. It’s difficult to imagine the mindset of someone so obsessed with making government programs responsible for helping people that they propose using force to prevent anyone else from doing so. People often accuse anti-poverty programs of creating a culture where poor people are dependent on the government (which they do). But now we are starting to see policies that institutionalize that culture by force.”
How disturbing is it to force homeless people to rely on a system that clearly does not work? How disturbing it is to force Americans to turn a blind eye, to ignore extreme poverty? What kind of message does that send about us, about mainstream society?
Homeless and formerly homeless people turn to each other because we must. There is no housing, homeless services, social services and the government itself does not always work. Because now, we have no one else but ourselves.
