These days, we hear all over the news about the homelessness crisis, and anti-homeless measures being put in place to evict the homeless from their temporary abodes. But this begs the question - what brings us to these issues?
Let us first define homelessness:
“Homelessness is the absence of home. It is not just a lack of a roof over one’s head, but also about being deprived of physical, emotional, and social security, and a stable place to live in peace, dignity, and safety.” - United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
Homelessness is not black-and-white. Many often stereotype the homeless as being drug addicts, or that their current predicament is a result of bad life choices. In reality, it is a much deeper issue than just that.
The main root cause is structural issues systemically. Authorities do not make enough of an effort to fix the problem; instead, they hide it. Take Paris last year, for example. With Paris hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics, the government took those experiencing homelessness and others living in squatter settlements and sent them to the outskirts of the city - clearly as an attempt to hide the situation from the 3 million tourists coming in to see the Olympics. Thousands were evicted from the city with promises of shelter elsewhere in France. Yet in reality, many were simply evicted again after some weeks at the next shelter, leaving them far from Paris in a state of profound uncertainty, or worse: with their futures derailed
Some may argue: “at least the authorities are providing shelter”. However, this glosses over the “physical, emotional, and social security” one needs, as laid out by the definition of homelessness from the UN. Sending someone experiencing homelessness away from the city they know extremely well, where they have built a life and network to a completely different place at immensely short notice is simply unfair.
Picture this. You are in your mid-30s, a single mother in Paris. You work two jobs, totaling about 17 hours of the day. Those two jobs are just enough to feed you and your son, whom you send to school. It also gets you some temporary shelter. Suddenly, you are forced off to another part of the country, where your life is reset, back to square one to find a home and a career. On top of that, your son also needs to find and adapt to a new school environment, having lost all his friends. Now, imagine this same situation happening to thousands of people all at once.
Hiding the situation simply makes it worse. However, it is not just Paris that does this. Many metropolitan areas around the world face similar structural issues, thus worsening the lives of the millions experiencing homelessness worldwide. These people are people, with their own lives, ambitions, and unique stories. Just because life has thrown them into an unfortunate predicament does not mean that they do not deserve proper treatment from their community, especially their own government, which was set in place to safeguard its citizens’ best interests.
Still, what I have laid out here is merely the tip of the iceberg. To learn more about the systematic issues surrounding the homelessness crisis, and how we as a society can best support homeless individuals, stay tuned for our next blog!
Works Cited:
Holly, Edward. “Hiding a City’s Homelessness Crisis through Displacement: What the Olympics Remind Us about Harmful Practices.” National Alliance to End Homelessness, 6 Aug. 2024, endhomelessness.org/blog/hiding-a-citys-homelessness-crisis-through-displacement-what-the-olympics-remind-us-about-harmful-practices/.
Willsher, Kim. “Thousands of Homeless People Removed from Paris Region in Pre-Olympics ‘Social Cleansing.’” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 3 June 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jun/03/homeless-people-removed-from-paris-before-olympics.
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