Media Room

It’s Painful Enough Being Homeless

How bad can it be that people are homeless, but despite their vulnerability, inspire politically motivated talking points against immigrants?

First and foremost, immigrants do not want to take anyone’s jobs and they are not here to get free handouts. Most immigrants, if not all, have to work hard enough or even harder to earn a honest living.

Fine, some people have bad intentions but that’s not all immigrants and that’s not only immigrants. We all have our own ills and it’s selfish and pointless, sitting on our high horse, condemning an entire group of people. How much can we exploit the manhood of vulnerable people?

The novel thing [perhaps only as new to me] is that we use the homeless or veterans as excuses to trivialize immigrants. In every argument that seems to benefit immigrants, the unusual responses are either: “What about our homeless?” or “What about our veterans who fought in war?”

It’s always the immigrants fault for some reason. There are always some immigrants who are hurting us.

But going back to the homeless situation [that is but a societal scourge] – sadly, we find reason to blame them too. It’s either their fault that they are homeless or they are simply taking advantage of the welfare system.

How do we blame a child who is homeless because he/she had to abandon an abusive home?

How do we blame someone with mental illness or a disability who cannot cover his/her insurance bill?

How do we blame a family [unemployed or otherwise] without sustainable income?

How do we blame someone who lost their home?

Where is our conscience? It won’t always be the immigrants fault and neither will it always be that of the homeless.

If we care so much about our homeless population, I think a good place to start, is to stop scapegoating them and using them as excuses to advance purely political motives.

At the end of the day, who feeds these people? Who shelters them? Who walks with them in the cold? Who stands with them at the bus stop? Who cares?