#to prisoners and the homeless

[pillarsalt]

MAiD is not a mercy -- it's an excuse to refuse to spend money on sick people who need it so their lives can improve. It's a way to guilt vulnerable people who could heal into killing themselves, because apparently needing help from others means you should just die actually. Fuck you, Canadian government.

[theconcealedweapon]

And who enforces this? Is it just a few bad apples, or is it all cops?

How hard is it for them to find cops willing to enforce this? Do they have to sift through hundreds of heroic cops who refuse until they find the one cop who's monstrous enough to enforce this, or do they easily find cops willing to enforce this because monstrous cops are everywhere and being a monster is part of the job?

"All cops are bad" is not a stereotype. It's literally a requirement for the job that every single one knew about.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Studies about how giving people money is more effective at stopping homelessness than anything else are never actually going to make conservatives support UBI or anything like that. Under capitalism, homelessness is necessary as a threat to keep workers in line; you're more likely to accept bad wages and exploitation and abuse when the alternative is being thrown out into the street.

Homelessness is the stick that keeps the mule moving. The person riding the mule knows that the stick hurts it, that's the entire point.

[amygdalae]

have never understood why squatting is considered a crime. loitering too. sir you have been arrested for the crime of....chilling. and hanging out. and taking a little nap

[millenniallust4death]

On April 22, the Supreme Court is set to hear the case of Johnson v. Grants Pass, the most significant case in decades about homeless people’s rights. The case will determine whether cities can arrest or fine the homeless — even if there’s no other shelter. As the homeless plaintiffs wrote, this would be “punishing the city’s involuntarily homeless residents for their existence.”

Mark Horvath, Adam Westbrook, and Lindsay Crous in "Criminalizing Homelessness Won’t Make It Go Away". The New York Times (16 April 2024). Link here.

The city of Grants Pass in Oregon wants to make being homeless a crime in order to drive the homeless into other areas. I am so tired.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

There needs to be a national level discussion about eviction and not one with millionaire politicians putting their two cents in. I’m not justifying some gun nut shooting it out with law enforcement by any means but if this were handled differently lives could have been saved. Forcibly making someone homeless is one of the top ten most traumatic things that can happen and people are going to resist it. If it was indeed just unpaid taxes then other less severe measures could have been taken. Community leaders, social workers, and activists could step in and help plan a course of action. Sending armed officers in to every conceivable social situation needs to stop. The guy probably owed thousands while billionaires who owe hundreds of millions never have law enforcement sent after them.

Further, the push by Republicans to evict everyone immediately needs to stop as does their relentless drive to criminalize the unhoused. Nobody wants to be homeless. Decades of tough guy bully talk from right wing Fox News, conservative talk radio, Neo-confederate racist Republican politicians, and oligarch controlled social media has turned this nation into a cruel heartless place with no compassion for the vulnerable.

Red state legislatures are turning their privatized penal systems into debtors prisons. Being poor shouldn’t be a crime, nor should homelessness. We need solutions to lift everyone up not trickle down schemes to keep transferring wealth to the billionaire class.

Finally you can no longer be a Christian and a conservative. The term “Christian conservative” has become a contradiction in terms. Conservatism once meant low taxes, military preparedness, and a robust foreign policy that protected our allies and our trade. Now it has degenerated into being hateful animals consumed with rage, petty jealousy, contempt for the vulnerable, and hatred to everyone not in the MAGA camp. It is an abomination. A vengeful mob of ignorant degenerates led by media savvy Neo-Nazi oligarchs and power hungry Republican demagogues. Demagogues who preach literal Nazism, often openly quoting Hitler himself, to a mob that thinks wrong is right, hate is right, and corruption is good.

We have become the French Revolution in reverse. The angry mob is propping up the oligarchy that oppresses them while tearing down American democracy which seeks to level the playing field and treat everyone with equality, decency, and respect.

[galvanizedfriend]

Klaroline Fic: The Wolf IV [01/13]

Summary: Five years after the downfall of the Mikaelson family, Caroline returns to New Orleans to fulfill the promise she made to Marcel: one day, she would be back for the man he has been keeping prisoner in the bowels of the old compound, and she would not be leaving without him. But the plans to abandon the city's eternal loop of tragedy behind once and for all are thwarted when a new enemy with unexpected old ties resurfaces, threatening not just Eve's life, but Caroline's as well.

--

S04E01 Gather Up the Killers ✨

The thing about finally getting something you longed for what feels like an eternity is the accompanying dread that it might be taken away.

Even after five years, Marcel is still not used to having it. Peace.

Nobody tells you how unsettling peace is. How it manifests as a constant nagging in the back of your mind, like you're forgetting something, getting soft, letting your guard down. It's quiet and harmonious, yes, but it's also a kind of fear. A cold shudder at the pit of your stomach, as though at any second it can all be snatched away from you.

If he doesn't watch himself, it can easily descend into paranoia.

He doesn't think there has been a single day where he hasn't been on full alert mode, looking over his shoulder, watching over the city from his not-so-new penthouse like a vigilante, waiting for the monsters to come out. And then he remembers that there are no monsters anymore. None greater than him, anyway. He is the thing that everybody fears.

He's always tiptoeing around that delicate line separating caution from madness, one sudden move around a corner away from overreaction that could send all the hard-earned balance they've achieved blown into the air.

One wrong move from turning into him.

Read the full chapter here

-- Took forever and a day, but ta-da! Starting part 4 was so much harder than I thought, but well. Here is something! Like I said, I'm not starting a new AO3 story for this, it'll be [22/34] there, but for the sake of being clearer here, I'm using the S4 numbers and a new summary.

I don't have any art or edit or anything to go with this story, so I just searched my old edits folder and found something that more or less applies, so there you go. :D As always, your comments/kudos/reblogs mean the world to me and I really hope you guys enjoy it! Cheers!

[uncanny-tranny]

Jailing homeless people is not "housing the homeless," it's worrisome to know some people think the prison industrial complex is the solution. I cannot emphasize enough that prison is not a viable, long-term, sensible solution if you actually care about the issues of unhoused people and not the fantasy of enacting as much violence as possible

[comrade-onion]

[lastcatghost]

On one of the least surprising turn of events since oregon decriminalized substance use, the lack of accessible and realistic resources to actually help people gain a footing in recovery, instead in the public eye, ignorant of the reality, the general assumption is so many people using in the open, the blame shifts entirely on the people suffering, if they're still using they just don't want help. The changing of the law also aided the misplaced judgment as people general grew more and more resentful at the lack of police interactions and incarceration of homeless users.

Now as anyone understanding this tactic could see coming, cities across Oregon and many pig chiefs are starting to publicly call for re Criminalization of substances, and they'll likely not only succeed with this, but I'd bet anything when the law changes back to locking users up again, it will be even harsher than every other state. They'll claim decriminalization was a failed experiment and proves heavier sentences and allowances for the police to pursue any suspected user or dealer.

God forbid they give people things like housing and actual treatment so they can have a way to even attempt recovery, when instead they can publicly be used as live public propaganda pawns, thus increasing the publics approval for incarnation in the slavery system that is US prisons, it's providing housing that they can profit off of, so clearly that's what's better for business after all. Can't have a surplus of slave labor if people get real help.

[compassionatereminders]

Honestly saying that mental illness can't be disabling, to a schizophrenic, is especially insulting to the community, given the numbers of schizophrenic people who are on the streets or in prisons or locked away in institutions. Implying that being lost in severe psychosis, or being unable to do things as a result of negative and/or cognitive symptoms is a CHOICE when it literally has people starving in the streets, is nothing short of disgusting.

Yeah. Like I don't give a flying fuck if anon doesn't feel disabled by THEIR mental health issues or whatever, but claiming that NO ONE EVER IS is just such a horrible take... 🤢

[existennialmemes]

Let's review a few things real quick, shall we? "Removing" homeless encampments can only be accomplished three ways:

Getting all the housing deprived people into permanent homes to live in

Eliminating all of the housing deprived people in a permanent fashion

Kidnapping & enslaving housing deprived people to work in labor camps (prison)

California has about 180,000 housing deprived humans. California also has 1.2 MILLION vacant living spaces. But which option do you really think they're gonna go with?

When a Governor says they're going to "remove homeless encampments" I really need you to think about what that actually means.

[tekra-brings-the-rain]

There’s a new law in the works to keep house less people from sleeping on the street, and not in a good way.

This could go to ways: institutionalization (especially targeting disabled people) or jail/imprisonment.

I’m mainly going to talk about the former here, since I am disabled and have been unhoused.

The state uses many times more to institutionalize disabled people (a lot of times to use them as jobs) than to keep them in the community. The state is making money off of people being locked up.

The goal is, of course, making sure you work until you die or are disabled, then if that you don’t die you can’t afford anything, become unhoused, then go to a prison, and can be forced to work. It is legal to be a slave if you are incarcerated, and even if you get out if they make it a felony you won’t be able to vote to change anything.

We are seen as more valuable locked away than in society. Disabled people have been trying to raise the alarm about these policies, like that of Gavin Newsom’s new care courts, and nobody listens.

I ask you, this time, listen.

[g0thsoojin]

.

[ceevee5]

[remembertheplunge]

If you don't help me, I'll sleep in the trash dumpster

October 27, 1986. Monday

I met a guy tonight as I took out the trash. He had a big chain around his neck. He wore a leather coat, and a dragon ring. It was another sad session of “ I have no place to stay, no food. If you don’t help me, I’ll sleep in the trash dumpster. He showed me a box of record albums that he had been carrying around. Into the box I delved. And, there were his worldly possessions: the records (probably hot ((stolen) but maybe not. “They are original 60’s stuff” he said. Also in the box was a Sony walkman (his pride and joy) and an old plaid shirt. These were his things in life. And, as I picked through, he told me that he was a Vietnam War  Veteran. He had been a prisoner of war for 2 years. He was in the service from 1968-1972. He is 36 years old. He has shaggy, shoulder length brown hair and deep, dark, knowing eyes. A good person. He sang he said. His old lady had just thrown him out. “Do you know where F & M records is?” Will you give me a ride?” He asked. 

I went up to get him $5 for a record. I gave him the money. He refused to give me the record. He was demanding $10. I said “honor is at stake here. Give me the record”. He did. The situation was a bit tense.

Last night a man screamed many times “Jesus Christ, fuck you for leaving me in the alley with no food, and to pick through garbage. Fuck you. Do you hear me?”. This went on for some time.

And, the shopping carts trundle by constantly. Even after the Truckbugs chewed down another crashing good breakfast, within minutes, the street people were there to sift the residue.

Footsterps again pass beneath my window. The alley—a river of pain and endlessness and satisfaction. In its eddys and flow, one man’s trash turns to crystals of value for another, the bloom instead of the field. A sad endless march. But, life—no less—and, don’t be fooled. There is a sweet dignity there, beneath my window, and within them, too.

End of this part of the entry

Notes: 5/23/2024

I wrote the above 10/27/1986 entry in my apartment in Sacramento, California. The apartment was on the second floor. An alley ran directly behind the apartment. It had a steady stream of homeless running ing throuhgh it, especially at night.

I think what I meant by "trash bugs chewing down breakfast" was trash trucks dumping the trash dumpster in the alley.

In 1986, I had little interest in the homeless. I didn't sleep in the apartment the first night or two out of concerns about the homeless in the alley. During my time living in the apartment between 1986 and 1987, I had few direct contacts with the homeless in the alley.

But, by March of 2017, a little over 30 years later, I had changed. I could "see" the homeless and they could "see" me. Meaning, we were aware of one another as equal. We were human beings. I call my homeless meetings encounters. And, I find that in the encounter, the homeless heal me. I'll blog more about my experiences with he homeless in future blogs.