This is from the city where it’s illegal to be homeless. One man even collected over $100,000 in fines for being homeless.
Yeah, that’ll help.
It’s not “being homeless” that is illegal, though. It’s drinking in public, begging or sleeping in the metro. And it sure is tough not staying in the metro during winter. There are some organisms that can provide shelter, but not enough for everyone, and it usually cost a couple dollars, which not everyone have everyday. And it’s a real problem on both sides, as the metro was not meant to become a shelter for the homeless, and people have been complaining more and more that they feel unsafe there.
Sure “being homeless” isn’t the crime itself but you’re being naive if you don’t think the laws make homelessness illegal. What are they supposed to do? Go find a piece of land no one has claim to and freeze to death?
And what are we supposed to do? Legalize all drugs and being drunk in public just to avoid having to fine them, and install beds everywhere in the Underground City (and in this post’s case, in emergency stairwells at the Complexe Desjardins) with no regard for their regular use?
Sure, let’s work on proposing more accessible legal alternatives. Just take note that these laws weren’t created to punish the homeless, but to have a clean and safe public space - which have been degrading for some time now.We could just house them. That seems to work.
That sound pretty much like the “If you’re poor, just buy a house” people.
I think you don’t know much about Montréal. There are solutions already in place to help homeless people who want to go out of the street, but the housing crisis is pretty new and it will take years to solve. It wasn’t so bad a few years ago.It’s actually nothing like that at all. What you’re describing is putting a societal problem on the shoulders of individuals. What I’m suggesting is that society should actually fix the problems it has created.
Every place that has taken a “housing first” approach has seen success out of it. But people insist on making the problem more complicated than it is, because we’ve built an entire society on the false idea that poor people somehow deserve to be poor and anything done to help them is somehow unjust.
Great way to lose customers
Having said that, what’s up with the “unhoused” thing? It homeless. Are we now calling it differently because homeless is now all of the sudden insulting? How long until “unhoused” suddenly is a bad word?
Can we please just stop pushing changing words? Homeless is fine, you’re without a home. It sucks, people should support you, not shun you, but changing words is just virtue signalling that doesn’t do anything to make anything better for anyone
but changing words is just virtue signalling that doesn’t do anything to make anything better for anyone
… And if you are the type of neoliberal politician that wants to pretend they care about people while never actually doing anything to help anyone other than the megacorps when you get into power – Then this is literally all you’ll ever do for people. Linguistic fuckery. Making up new words for things. Fucking around with definitions. And you know that there will be an army of people who will defend this, and shoot down people who actually want to do something on grounds that they said the “wrong” words.
The argument for ‘unhoused’ is that it humanises the person – But it’s really pushing it.
Yeah, this… Stop haggling with words, actually do something to fix it
Spoiler: they won’t
Homeless what, exactly? Sorry, you’re gonna need to throw in the word “person” just to be clear.
I’ll asume y’all are stupid and privileged and not just cruel. Home can be a public shelter, it is about people. A house is a thing you rent or own.
Not everything is politics, virtue signaling or about you. We use different words because language changes, because society changes. That is why you don’t speak Anglo-Saxon anymore.
It’s about precision. The condition people are talking about is not having a house, regardless of whether they have a home. This is why unhoused is being used more often.
It’s not part of an agenda, it is not about you. Grow up.
Of course! Relax. It’s more precise to be clear they’re talking about people unhoused.
