The King County Executive, Mayor, community leaders announce unified homelessness response...
(If you enjoy yawning, watch the video. If you're interested in the truth skip to my response below.)
(If you enjoy yawning, watch the video. If you're interested in the truth skip to my response below.)
Stop treating homelessness as if it were a normal condition. As if,homelessness on an epidemic scale has always been a fact of life like death and taxes and there is nothing we can do about it except manage the symptoms. If worldwide homelessness were a disease it would be on scale with HIV, or malaria, or syphilis infections. In the United States alone, the self-proclaimed richest country on Earth, homelessness has spread to as many people as Hepatitis B worldwide. Here, in our very own King County, homelessness afflicts 20% more lives than those claimed by schistosomiasis globally each year.
Full Stop!
Here are the truly alarming statistics:
Homelessness is nearly 100% Preventable and Curable.
However, when treated as merely treatable, it spreads.
Here is the regrettable truth about our condition, Dow...
We like to talk a lot about doing something about homelessness because we must appear socially conscious. We blather on about the corrosive effects of homelessness on children, women, veterans, and the mentally challenged. We collect and collate data. We attend symposiums. We design graphs and charts to illuminate the statistics. We write and publish papers in psychology, sociology, and social issues journals. We accumulate continuing education units in classes on how to identify and treat the symptoms of homelessness. Some even go so far as to post their new approaches to homelessness on social media.
However, when it comes to actually doing something to eradicate homelessness rather than just treating the symptoms... *Insert the sounds of crickets chirping here*
Why?
Well, Dow, you and I know that the only way to really end homelessness is… homes. The title of our disease contains the cure. It’s not really hidden either. It’s the first four letters of the pathogens name. But home is a four letter word for people like you because the more you build, the more property values drop. The more property values drop the faster those voters with property will throw you out of office for destroying their huge over inflated real estate investment bubble they call HOME. That four letter word that stuffed with urban sprawl land restrictions, green spaces, habitat and forest protection, sustainability strategies, public spaces, and draconian zoning restrictions coupled with exclusionary property taxes to pay for it all!
FOUR LETTER WORD, Dow. Four letter word.
Anything else is more HOMEless.
