invincible cities

exploring alternative living options (or, a defense of the homeless)

hi there. did you come here from blOgbuefi looking for more? good, i'm glad.

now, on with the stories.
only this isn't a story.
it's a tirade.

and undeniably, disappointingly true...


"exploring alternative living options"
very few people i know can say they actually kne/ow what it's like to be homeless and persistently aware of their survival and to worry for it all the time.
most people i know, like me, had the privilege and comfort of middle/upper-class childhoods and suburban neighborhoods.

that's the funny/terrible thing about class: it's cleverly invisible, in that it's mostly psychogeographic, rather than physical/tangible. it perpetuates itself in our psychosomata, and what's more, it's something we don't choose, but come to accept and enforce. the poor become poorer, the rich become richer, the gap between becomes a canyon.

we all know the story, so why do we repeat it?

anyway, how this relates to my chicago experience is simple really.
as of yesterday, i am officially homeless in chicago. i am a person without a place, no semblance of a home or a place i own or that owns me.

what does this do to one's perception of self, of belonging, of place and space and familiarity? what do these words even mean, when one is struggling to find a place to live?

i might have to face a whole summer in chicago on the streets, because i was forced to leave my apartment and had/ve no where to go.

but, sadly, there are many more out there in much worse shape than i.
the community of homeless in chicago, like the homeless in any other american city, i suspect, are ignored and stigmatized members of society avoided like diseases or miscreants.
but really, they're people. just like you and me. just trying to survive.

only instead of struggling to make money to pay the bills or feed the kids, they're struggling to find the money to buy the meals to feed themselves, wishing they could have the kids they've always wanted, or lamenting the families they've lost along the way, who they've abandoned, or who abandoned them, because life's troubles are too many to have to handle more than your own share.

it's not that they're lazy. they've walked the whole city on foot and then some, til their soles and souls bled from their efforts, looking for work. but when the odds and society stack against you, what can you do? when people look at you with disdain and recoil away from you, what is one to do?

one individual is easy to ignore, but how about a whole population? a whole city? for that is what we have here, a city full of invisible persons, missing and forgotten,
lost to the trappings of ideology and the wrinkling of time.

and i am now one of them.

the only difference is that i have the capability to talk about it in this kind of free forum. imagine all the others, the hundreds of thousands of other human beings in the world, whose lives are spent in this way. how we ignore our fellow human suffering and somehow go on with our daily business without deep and handicapping shame is beyond me. there are so many who could use our help, so why don't we offer it?

please. i know what it is like. there is nothing more humiliating or lessening to the spirit than having to beg for your life and only be denied, repeatedly and cruelly, every day.

these people greet each day's rising sun, not with the simple pleasure that we, who have the privilege, attribute to them, but rather, with fear and concern, as it brings the heat, the strokes, the pains and struggles of the city.

and things like this only help to worsen the perception of the homeless in america. (compare to more progressive literature, such as this.)

understand, it's no one's fault.
but there is something you can do: help, offer your kindness, your respect, and seek to understand and change.

and love your fellow human beings. it is all we have in this world to give that is free.

love,
stephanie

posted by stephanie lee @ 10:21 PM