#if this inspires even one person to be more charitable and empathetic to an unhoused person when otherwise they wouldn't

[arakkne]

I met a houseless woman today sitting outside the store I was shopping at. She was in real bad shape with some sort of skin condition and when I asked if she was okay, her voice was tinny and cracking as she asked for "just a few dollars."

I gave her what I could and then went back inside to get her water as well. Then I sat with her for a bit. I learned her name and that she had leukemia. She was in so much pain it was tangible. I invited her to sit with me as I got dinner in the place right next door. We talked some more but I think it was hard for her because she kept laying her head down and not making eye contact. She kept saying that she wasn't important and didn't want to be a burden. She refused my offer of food or more money for an Uber ride to her destination. Finally she just stood up and said that she had to go. She thanked me, looked me in my eyes, and said I was very important. And left.

I cried. I cried the whole way home. I'm about to cry now. I cried at how the city / the system has failed her so acutely. At the blatant injustice of it.

Now, not to dox myself, but I'm staying in Eugene, Oregon this summer. Basically Portland-lite. A very progressive, leftist, hippie city (on the surface) but with the nation's highest rate of unhoused people. Mostly due to a lack of affordable housing.

On June 28th, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that cities are allowed to arrest people for sleeping in public spaces, even if they have nowhere else to go. Already, the Eugene Police Department has begun aggressive sweeps and "clean-ups" of homeless encampments, stealing the belongings of unhoused people, and arresting or threatening to arrest them just for trying to survive. The Eugene shelters are not an option for many, if not most. While Eugene has many mutual aid and city services supporting the homeless, the law clearly sides with heavy criminalization, an inhumane and ineffective approach.

It makes me fucking sick.

Houselessness exists at the intersection of ableism, racism/xenophobia, sexism, and classism. It's a multi-dimensional issue that I can't believe still exists. It should be common fucking sense to feed your neighbor, clothe your neighbor, house your neighbor, give your neighbor universal basic fucking income. I don't go to church but even I know that's what Christ was all about.

I don't know how to convey to others that people without a place to go are still people. Many of them are disabled and unable to keep up with exorbitant rent and medical bills. Houselessness is the biggest sign of our failure as a country.

None of us are free until all of us are free. I read recently in Ijeoma Oluo's Be a Revolution a quote from Edgardo Colón-Emeric. It goes, "hope has two daughters: courage and anger." That has helped me reframe my anger not as despair but as hope. As a source of fuel to help right these wrongs.

Don't give in to apathy and cynicism, especially as your kin are being abandoned, harassed, and policed on the streets. Be angry. Be courageous. Be hopeful. Be loving. In spite, in spite, in spite.