How the United States Chose to Become a Country of Homelessness
Advocates have been sounding the alarms for months issuing reports, penning press releases, warning politicians as an increasing number of Americans made jobless by the pandemic have fallen behind on their rent. Now, the warnings unheeded, the United States is facing an unprecedented homelessness crisis, one that is as predictable as it was avoidable.
I first saw signs of this coming catastrophe on May 26, as the markets in New York City roared the Dow was up 530 points, and the S&P hit an 11-week high. But in San Diego, Rudy and Christina Rico rummaged through a blue recycling barrel set out on the street. The couple, married for 37 years, hoped to scrape together $50 worth of bottles and cans. It meant dinner.
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Over the course of the day, photographs and videos of Trump supporters brawling with police on Capitol Hill, stalking the halls of Congress, and generally just clowning around poured across social media. They raised a giant cross outside the Capitol and inspired copy cats in Albany, Atlanta, Olympia, Salem, and Topeka. Asked why the cops hadn’t forcibly driven the demonstrators out of the federal buildings, one Capitol Police officer told a
New York Times reporter, “We’ve just got to let them do their thing now.” As another cop told a
Bloomberg reporter, “We were just not prepared.… I hope they don’t do this shit during the inauguration. We don’t have the people to handle it.”