homelessness – Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com

I posted this the other day, intending for it to be a shitpost:

https://twitter.com/nfinitefreetime/status/1432731944215789568?s=20

And something interesting has happened: I can’t stop thinking about it, and on top of that I’ve started thinking about the connection between UBI and veteran homelessness. I did get a suggestion in comments that I alter the criteria from “one year” to simply “honorable discharge,” which I’m not necessarily upset about and makes pretty good sense.

But here’s the thing: is there a pathway to getting progressive ideas in place for everyone by applying them to the military first? America loves its soldiers, or at least likes to pretend that it loves its soldiers; the fact that veteran homelessness is such a big problem in the first place is a sign that we don’t live up to our ideals here any more than we do anywhere else, but that’s a whole different post. All the same, I’m imagining a situation where a politician runs for office with a major plank of her campaign being to end homelessness among veterans. And what, pray tell, is the mechanism for this plan? A solid UBI and guaranteed housing.

(Side note: You may recall, accurately, that I despise Andrew Yang; one of the reasons I do so is that he seemed entirely unaware that the people who needed his $12,000 the most would see their money immediately gobbled up by their landlords. UBI without some sort of control over the housing market makes no sense at all.)

Don’t get too caught up in the details right now; this is entirely hypothetical and I don’t plan to run for office anyway. But let’s play a game here: if said politician was able to push into law a plan where honorable service in the military earned you a livable wage and a place to live for the rest of your life– so that there was no way for a veteran to end up homeless short of deciding to do so– is there also a hypothetical world where a few years down the road that logic gets extended to, say, service professions, like cops and firefighters and teachers and whoever, and then maybe later on gets extended to everyone if it works?

There’s a ton of room, obviously, to quibble around the details of The Plan, and how guaranteed housing would work, and of course there’s tons of room for such a thing to be done poorly, because this is the world, and I get that. I’m just wondering about the strategy of it all, and I’m trying to imagine the reactions of people who would want a UBI but who would also prefer no further money gets spent on the military at all. Would it be worth even trying such a thing, counting on American lip service to venerating their military to carry the plan through? (Who’s going to be the politician arguing that veterans should be homeless? Good luck.)

Is the existence of the VA and the lack of universal healthcare a guarantee already that this is a pipe dream?

I dunno. But I’m thinking about it.

I am out running errands. I am doing this despite being horribly sick because I am a misanthrope and believe society deserves plague, and also because I need the shit I’m doing done and not all hanging over my head going ha ha ha, you haven’t done us yet and I know ferdamnsure I’m not getting anything done tomorrow. None of the errands I’m doing are remotely Christmas Eve-related; I could have needed to do them any day of the year, but it just happens that I’ve chosen to get them done now.

One of the tasks is to get a bunch of dead CFL bulbs to Lowe’s, which has a recycling station for said bulbs in its entryway. (Sidenote: Do I just not remember how often the old bulbs burned out? Because these things really don’t seem to last any longer than the old ones did. Screw ten years; I know I’ve replaced every bulb in the house at least once or twice since we moved in here.) (Second sidenote: WordPress does not think “sidenote” is a word, and insists on replacing it with “sidetone,” which is definitely not a word.)

Anyway. I’m dressed neutrally; I can tend towards the shabby on weekends, but I’m wearing my nice leather coat and a leather hat, so I figure I don’t immediately scan as broke-assed as I usually do on the weekends, but I’m also not exactly in fashion plate mode; it’s not like I’ve come from work and I’m wearing business clothes or anything. As I’m walking toward the entryway to Lowe’s I see a person who initially scans as either crazy or homeless or both standing in the entryway. She’s asking everyone who comes in if they have a cigarette that she can borrow and everyone’s saying no and avoiding her in the way one typically does when approached by the crazy and/or homeless in public.

(Another sidenote: I got used to this when I lived in Chicago, but it’s extremely rare in South Bend. I know that there are homeless people in this town, but panhandlers, especially in retail spaces, are vanishingly uncommon. So the reaction she’s getting isn’t entirely surprising.)

Anyway. I prepare myself to tell her I don’t smoke (true) and realize that I have a couple of loose dollar bills in my pocket and am in the process of deciding whether I’ll give them to her when she… ignores me. She’s asked every person who walks in. She says nothing to me.

Huh.

Well, okay; I put my CFLs in the recycling bin (they have to be individually bagged and put in one at a time so this takes a while) and then cut through the store to exit through the proper exit rather than exiting through the entrance, which I suppose would have been perfectly fine.

I enter the store behind two grandmotherly-looking black women who, importantly, are pushing an empty cart, generally a signal that you intend to buy something. I am trying to accelerate to cruising speed and have nothing in my hands. There is precisely one greeter standing in the doorway, a white woman of perhaps thirty years of age, who walks right past the two black women to make eye contact with me and ask me if I need help.

The two women stop dead in their tracks. I say no and then look over at them with what I sincerely hope is a did that shit just happen? look on my face. I mean, shit, you couldn’t just do some sort of generic “Welcome to Lowe’s, does anyone need assistance?” and direct that shit to everybody? And not to be stereotypical while I’m accusing somebody else of racism but I suspect the two elderly women pushing a cart just might be slightly more in need of assistance in the home improvement store than the middle-aged dude. Maybe.

The situation ends without anyone raising a ruckus; I nod apologetically to the two women, not sure what the hell else I might do short of causing a scene, and they continue on their way and I head for the exit. You have to cut through the checkout lanes to get out of the store. There are two people sitting on chairs just past the registers, and I cannot explain this any further other than to say I notice them in a way that I didn’t notice many other people as I walked through the store. They… maybe look familiar? I guess? A bit? Or maybe not.

And then the gentleman of the couple looks right at me and says “Hi, Steve.”

Now, in this scenario, let’s pretend that “Steve” is my real first name, which it isn’t, and let’s also pretend (this part is true) that I go by my middle name, and not my first, and that no one anywhere actually calls me Steve. And I swear to you that this guy says Steve in the exact same tone that a girl who had a one-night stand with someone who later found out that he’d been lying about his name might say Steve if she ran into him at the bar again later and wanted to embarrass him. Like, “I know this isn’t really your name, you asshole, and I’m calling you that to draw attention to this fact.”

It… uh… takes me a bit by surprise, especially since these people are vaguely familiar but not enough that I have any idea who they are, and double-especially because of the weirdness of addressing me by a name that no one calls me. I stop. I stare at them, a no-doubt extremely quizzical look on my face.

And then Steve, who was directly behind me, and not expecting me to suddenly stop in my tracks, runs into me, and he apologizes at the very second that the man’s wife figures out what has just happens and breaks into laughter.

“You must be Steve too,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Sorry.”

“Merry Christmas,” she says.

I consider replying Happy Holidays, and then it hits me that given the last ten minutes that might lead to some additional nonsense, and say Merry Christmas to her too and leave the store.

I’m, uh, not gonna go back to Lowe’s for a while.