“Just help me get on my feet.”
This is the cry of many of the city’s residents lost in a vicious cycle influenced by greedy aristocratic Americans (who can easily change homelessness in New York City). Today’s event at the QC Dining Hall Patio room featured two powerful, yet homeless speakers. Both women enlightened the audience about the cruel realities of the unhoused in our area, disbanding numerous preconceived notions and stereotypes toward this portion of our population. First they established credence through revealing the many decades they worked for the City and federal government. For one lady, the imminent death of her mother, grave sickness of her husband, duty to tend to her father, and increased rent by her landlord, all led to pilled bills. She was soon told she had to move.
As a NYC public school teacher with a masters, she was instructed to go live in a shelter for the time being, and within 90 days she would have an apartment. That was her first mistake. Once in “the system” she was then told that there was no available housing, and has remained there for 18 months.
The other speaker enlightened the audience to the fact that many vacant apartments and lots for potential buildings were being withheld from the public. Thus, Intro 48, a law to require the City to expose these properties would allow those in need to be given a place to live. Furthermore, as homeless beings, they are worth $3,500 a month by the govenment, money being collected by sneaky landlords, politicians and banks, when only $900 would suffice to pay a month’s rent at an apartment building. Instead, these individuals are being locked in a cycle, all while pushing them out of Manhattan into other boroughs to lower the homelessness rate in the city.
Today’s meeting represents the all too familiar sound of Wall Street protesters who exclaim, “the one thing we all have in common is that we are the 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. ” Whether one sympathizes with the Wall Street protestors or not, it is indisputable that government and the economic sector is often irresponsible and corrupt with money and spending. When banks that were bailed out (by tax payer dollars) rewarded their CEO’s with 10 million dollars in bonuses, totaling $1.6 billion, unhoused persons still continued to starve. However, many of the homeless do not expect to be magically given a brand new house, but only aid to help them get back on their feet. This can be achieved with affordable housing which available, yet being withheld due to a profit on these very homeless people.
When it all comes down to it, money can give, take away, recreate, or enslave. Those in a position to make a difference should set aside selfish ambitions to help others. Thankfully, many kindhearted people do so, which is why the speakers stressed the importance of “people power,” their greatest need in the fight for justice.
The daunting aspect of their stories of those who find themselves trapped in “the system” is the reality that many of these people were hardworking, tax-paying citizens beforehand. So next time one passes a homeless person by, he/she should avoid quick judgement because as one of the speakers effectively pointed out: “YOU are only a few checks away from being homeless.”
We need the tireless efforts of those who can untangle the red tape and get the system to work. given how easy it is to tell any story with statistics, it would be interesting to follow the details of the argument that there are sufficient apartments out there for the homeless.