Homelessness Should Be Easier To See

My favourite Louis CK joke isn't really a joke. It's more of a scathing critique of modern society that happens to be funny. 

A young girl from the country visits her cousin in the big city and sees a homeless man for the first time. 

“We passed this homeless guy, and she sees him. I mean, we all passed him, but she saw him. She's the only one who actually saw him. Me and her cousin were like, ‘So? He’s supposed to be there. There's a perfectly good reason why that's not me and it's him...’”

But the girl, horrified, has already rushed over to see if she could help. 

“Oh my god, sir, are you okay?” she asks. “What happened?! Can we call someone?”

Louis and the girl’s cousin walk over to correct this odd behaviour. They pull her away from the homeless man and reassure her that everything is as it should be. After all, the good people always end up on top, right? 

“So, is he okay?” she asks quietly, as they lead her away.

“No, no,” Louis replies, "he needs you desperately...we just don't do that here…”

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I've spent the past few days thinking about Jordan Neely, which means, amongst other things, I've spent the past few days thinking about homelessness. 

While researching stories about homelessness, I was reminded that back in January, in the middle of winter, Collin Gwin sprayed a homeless woman with a hose because he didn't want her sitting outside his shop.

In February, Deshawn Thomas shot a homeless man in the head, in broad daylight, for no apparent reason. 

Heck, a few years ago, a woman shot a homeless man in the back and didn't even face any jail time. 

We should all be horrified that people live in this kind of vulnerability. Yet somehow, it's as if we don't see it. 

Progressives, as they do about everything that can be reduced to a rhetorical game, bicker about whether it’s more virtuous to say, “homeless people” or “unhoused people” or “people experiencing homelessness.” 

Conservatives, as they tend to do about everything that isn't war or putting people in prison, argue that there isn't enough money to fix the problem.

Billionaires, as they tend to do about everything, assure us that it'll all work out if we keep shoving so much money into their hands that some of it "trickles down" between their fingers. 

And all the while, the homelessness problem keeps getting worse. 

At this point, some of you are asking, "Well, what do you want to do about it, Steve? After all, it's easy to slap away at your keyboard and hard to solve complex economic and social problems."