Cedar on Nostr: Trying to address homelessness under capitalism is kinda quixotic - it's not going to ...

Trying to address homelessness under capitalism is kinda quixotic - it's not going to stop without systemic change. But since it is one of the worst forms of hyper exploitation that people face in our society, it is understandable to want to try and do something about it. Especially in a rich country like Canada, it is pretty maddening to see people left to live in total misery.

There is a whole industry that exists around homelessness, and even one that exists specifically around preventing and ending homelessness. A lot of people who want to do something end up involved in it. But the further removed this work gets from service provision, the harder it is to justify and the less it satisfies that visceral desire to do something about obvious injustice. And service provision is never going to see everyone housed.

So we get this caste of researchers and policymakers and comms people and lobbyists and grant writers and so on. All of whom are tilting at windmills trying to solve homelessness without calling into question the underlying economic system. Until the work just starts to feel like an end in itself, and showing up stops having anything to do with our values. It becomes a paycheque.

I try to not engage cynically, but it is hard to believe that anything positive comes from editing a document that will be read by some lobbyists who might influence a policymaker who might change a law that might benefit in some small way someone in the worst period of their life. I don't need my job to be my contribution to society, but it is a way I spend a lot of my time and energy, so I do want it to be not totally bullshit if I can. But maybe cynicism is the right response - letting go of our false hopes may well be the only way of seeing what is truly possible.