Does anyone ever hear this one? It doesn’t make sense to me. Why do we need the option to be homeless? Do you want to be Diogenes or what?
I mean shit if someone really wants to be homeless let them. But no one can truly make that decision freely unless the option of not being homeless is as easy a choice to make
Exactly this. Once you’ve accounted for untreated mental issues, if someone wants to live on the streets they should be allowed to do so, provided it is a choice freely made.
Really, there’s no reason (save capitalism) we couldn’t construct our public spaces to accommodate people living comfortably in them.
But I don’t imagine those people will ever number even 1% of the populace, frankly. It’s kind of a silly gotcha.
I don’t know if I’m down for the idea of freely choosing to live on the streets, since that presents an immediate hazard to a person’s life.
Ask them what percentage of homeless they think are choosing to be homeless. If it’s not in the single digits, there’s the misconception you need to address first
That and that people often think of homeless people as dirty vagrants or people with mental health problems because that’s who they notice, nevermind thousands of people living out of their cars but otherwise still participating in society normally.
When I was a kid we moved around a lot because my mom quit her job constantly. I was in my late twenties before I put together that extended stays with extended family in between apartments were homelessness.
I’ve heard this line of reasoning a few times. The person I’m thinking of is saying it’s wrong to force someone choosing homelessness into a home.
Definitely varies based on what you’re defining as “homelessness”, too. If someone enjoys couch surfing or living out of an RV, more power to them. Most people who do that, though, have some sort of home address or PO Box to receive mail. There should be considerations made for that and I don’t really see a universal housing project “forcing” them to suddenly own a house.
Buiuuut I have a feeling that more often than not people are talking about people who have had addiction issues or have “had their chance” at getting housing and “messed it up”. It’s a much deeper misunderstanding of how homelessness and addiction play into each other and exactly how unrepresentative the most visible unhoused people are of the entire group
They should still be provided a home when they want one.
Its a nonsensical argument since 99.9% of people chooses to not be homeless but are unable to be homed. We can look at other socialist nations like the USSR where homelessness as a structural issue was abolished (although there were claims of homelessness by western media. the structures that they built did not lead to homelessness unlike capitalism where the reserve army of labor is necessary for its function)
When they say, “choose to be homeless” they’re actually thinking of anti-homeless propaganda that homeless people now choose to have no home. Right wing sociopaths want to believe this because it resolves the contradiction that their perfect system creates homelessness and their propagandists provide people who can’t/won’t live in barracks-style night-only shelters as “choosing” to be homeless.
Fight their faces.
