Quote from: Tills on Yesterday at 10:04:31 PMBefore the pandemic I was in Connecticut and the amount of homeless people was absolutely shocking.
Monday evening, I looked up local news stories about the homeless. I found even more empathy and compassion than I expected. Since the extremely cold weather last August, politicians have been outdoing each other, pressing for better conditions for the homeless. They reassured their constituents that free housing, food, social services, and health care is always available to the homeless. A conservative right-wing politician went so far as to say that no one would choose homelessness if there were enough opportunities. Imagine! Opportunities as a solution!
We passed a housing co-op last week. I had read that these are buildings that are designed, built, maintained, and occupied by homeless people with government and skilled professional support. I'm intrigued.
I know that some people deliberately prefer homelessness for many reasons, but the compassion, heart, care... consensus is so wonderful. I want to experience it more closely.
Meanwhile, back in my New York homeland, my friends are fighting City Hall to let them establish warming/cooling centers and day care programs for the homeless. They are fighting neighbors who insist, "Not In My Back Yard." They are collecting and distributing food and personal care products to the needy. It's such important work that we're glad we could support as we lightened our load so we could move here.
QuoteI very much doubt I'd ever want to return there.
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Hear hear. We're very glad that we gave up so much to be able to be here. Now, we're eager to see where we can make a difference, now that we have the freedom and safety to speak our mind.
I have been seeing polls that reassure us that the majority of US people is compassionate about homelessness, trans, poverty, war... Something is very wrong with the US government when polling results are so widely disregarded.