The New American Homeless
I can&#x27;t make it through this article. I know what the point is supposed to to be, but it probably will fall on deaf ears. The prejudice against the homeless runs too deep, the desire to justify that prejudice and insist it isn&#x27;t merely shitty behavior deeper still.<p>I am probably two or three generations removed from low level German nobility. I was one of the top students of my graduating high school class. I won (and turned down) a National Merit Scholarship to one of the top two universities in my state.<p>My father retired from the military as an E-8, a fairly high rank. I was a military wife for about two decades. The ex also retired as an E-8.<p>I got divorced and got a corporate job at a Fortune 500 company, the biggest non military employer in my home town at the time. While I had that job, I would make small talk at eateries or the like and people would ooh and aah that I worked at Aflac, having no idea what I did. I had an entry level job I couldn&#x27;t get promoted out of, but locals acted like I was clearly part or the privileged few to work there at all.<p>Then I quit to go live in a tent for health reasons. That long personal history of always being respected and accomplished and one of the privileged few in whatever circles I ran in was no protection from the prejudice against the homeless. It did seemingly nothing to get me taken seriously, respected or result in real help to resolve my problems.<p>I&#x27;m not sure it makes any difference for me to leave this remark. HN is a bastion of goodness compared to everything else, yet still is part of the problem. It seems to mostly just harm my reputation to talk about homelessness, not convince other people that there are systemic issues grinding people beneath its boot.<p>The only winning move is to not get ground under that boot. After it has marked you, the entire world will heap abuse upon you, deny you real help and tell you, clearly, you are a junkie or crazy.<p>I&#x27;m quite tired of the entire thing. I increasingly want desperately to just be free of this shit and maybe that means I should just care less about injustice in the world and worry more about covering my own ass. &quot;The World&quot; certainly doesn&#x27;t give a rat&#x27;s ass about me or remedying any of the actual injustice in my life.<p>I increasingly hate articles like this. They do an even suckier job than I do of making that point and often just give ammunition to the people of the world who want to blame those whose lives don&#x27;t work.  (&quot;Maybe she shouldn&#x27;t have had six kids!!&quot; Etc ad nauseum.)