On Wednesday, I attended the Homelessness in Focus event in the Patio Room on campus. The event consisted of two speakers from Picture the Homeless, an organization that draws attention to the homeless community in New York City. The two speakers are currently homeless, and spoke to us about their experiences from becoming homeless, to their mistreatment by the shelters and the government. Instead of the typical image of a homeless person, these women had previously been government and state employees before becoming homeless. One woman was a postal worker for over 20 years, while the other was a teacher for 23 years. Both were forced out of their apartments because of unfortunate incidents with their landlords, and growing medical bills. To visit the Picture the Homeless Website, click here.
The two women opened the audiences’ eyes to the money-making schemes that the city’s wealthy officials are perpetrating. According to the women, and the information that the Picture the Homeless brochures provided, the city pays shelters $3.500 per homeless person per month, while to rent an apartment in the outer boroughs can cost anywhere up to $1,100. The shelters do not provide comfortable living, and are often times under equipped to handle the amount of people that come to their doors. If the shelters are receiving that much money per person, the shelters should be able to provide housing and food to everyone who comes to their doors. According to the presenters, the owners of the shelters are pocketing the money. If the city wanted to be truly economical, they would provide housing to the homeless for the much cheaper rate of $1,100 a month. The Picture the Homeless people told us that the City’s reasoning for their method is that there is not enough housing in the city. While this appears to be true, the Picture the Homeless organization are performing investigations and have found hundreds of vacant apartments and lots throughout the city. For more information, click here to go to the housing campaign website. The discussed the many issues with homelessness today, and the misconceptions that the majority of the population has today.
You may be wondering how this applies to Occupy Wall Street. Recently, the Occupy Wall Street Movement was evicted out of Zuccotti Park, and so the occupiers have needed to find other places to sleep. This situation has left many of the movement feeling as the homeless do every night. As Seen Here, in the article “Why Homelessness is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue,” the movement has taken on the issues of homelessness because people who have been living on the streets for the past few months realize how terrible it is. According to the article, it is illegal to perform the basic human function while being homeless. Police will bother you for sitting, standing, lying down, and sleeping in public areas. Especially for truly homeless people, they do not have any place to go, and so they live their lives as if they are fugitives in their own country. Since vacating Zuccott According to the New York City General Assembly, the Occupy Wall Street Declaration one of their points is “They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.” This falls in suit with what the two homeless women were telling us. They lost their homes unfairly, and are now living in the shelter system. The Occupy Wall Street movement is attempting to remedy this issue, among other things.
One of the ways that the movement is attracting attention is through their signs. As an example of impromptu art, the movement’s visibility has drastically increased with the various signs on display. Orginially made of cardboard, the signs are now being massed produced and are beginning to have common themes. As an example I have posted this one to the blog. The signs express many of the grievances the movement has, and are beginning to be unified under a main theme. This particular sign, goes hand in hand with Wednesday’s presentation, because many of the homeless people in society are jobless, and they can relate to this image.
There was an undeniable power to the Nov. 17 rally. It was inspiring to be part of something that had motivated such a large number of people to act. However, there is a huge gulf between a successful one-day event (or even a months long occupation) and the political and legislative change that needs to occur. It is an interesting time.
When I attended the Homelessness in Focus event, what struck me the most was the utter corruption underlying the issue. The two dynamic speakers made it clear how, like you said, the city pays shelters $3,500 per homeless person per month, meaning that homelessness technically has the funding to be fixed. But the owners of these shelters are secretly pocketing our tax money to increase their personal profits. This trend sounds all to similar to the scandals on Wall Street and our government’s passive role in stopping this corruption.
One of the reasons why Picture the Homeless has had such a hard time asserting its voice and protesting backwards policy is because of the exact position they are backing- homelessness and poverty. In this country, the homeless are the ones denied an education. Without an education, these people lack the judicial knowledge, extensive networks, and necessary funding to protest and get our government to make changes.
We see this issue in our own communities, even if we do not encounter homelessness on a daily basis. Large corporations and manufacturers build toxic and environmentally unfriendly factories and waste dumps in lower-income areas because they can. The inhabitants of these cities are too poor to protest and the companies know this. And building these dangerously harmful sites only continues the cycle of environmental injustice that poverty-stricken people are stuck in, just like pocketing funding keeps the homeless in shelters and under the poverty line.