My city has a recorded homeless population of just over a hundred.

I know there are more people struggling, but it's really fucked up that a single apartment complex could end homelessness in my city.

Instead we have parking lots, franchises that go out of business, and encampments that get routinely cleared out.

I know it's more than indifference to human suffering. It's spite at the thought of anyone else catching a 'break.' It's the belief that being an eyesore is worthy of the death penalty so long as they don't have to see it.

It's the result of a lack of class consciousness. It's social murder in slow motion.

Bruh, maybe it's the commuter apartments and the bloated police budget and not the panhandling that's the problem.

I saw a sign that said 'keep the change' as I left a grocery store, discouraging people from giving money to people desperate enough to use change to survive.

I hate that there's this delusion that people carry about homelessness that it would never happen to them. One day they'll say they're blessed and lucky, but then say that homeless people are just ill or made bad choices.

We don't live in a fucking vacuum. Where does someone get treatment for mental health? Why does it have a price tag? What bad choices were freely made and not under the duress of immediate survival in a cruel society?

I give money when I'm able, sometimes when it hurts me. I believe in a world that could cut out all the bullshit middle parts and let people lead lives of dignity. It doesn't even have to be communism.

If they increased taxes by 10 dollar a year per person, that would be $2,000,000 for the hundred people in our recorded homeless population.

Ten dollars a year, and that would make a world of difference in my community. I'd pay more than that, but we're fucking building prisons and sending weapons to countries most people couldn't point to on a map.

It's fucking horrifying to think of the reality of homelessness in this country. I live in a blue state and I still think about the ways summer and winter affect homeless people because they're an inconvenience.

I'm writing this because I'm struggling worse than I have ever struggled in my life and it's not a fraction of what people are going through while unhoused. I'm writing this because I know there are people like me who had two financial hardships happen when I just had one. I'm writing this because nobody in my life wants to talk about it because it's too depressing for them. I'm writing this because things don't have to be this way, but the powers that be need a homeless population to keep capitalism working.

It's sick and I feel powerless in the face of this reality.