It's an instinctive and defensive response. The problem has to be explained away somehow and victim blaming is the simplest tactic for explaining away inconveni

It's an instinctive and defensive response. The problem has to be explained away somehow and victim blaming is the simplest tactic for explaining away inconvenient and complicated truths. I've caught myself imagining what it would be like to be homeless and how I'd go about things. I always think the first thing I'd try to do is sign up for some kind of social welfare program and work my way out of whatever rut I was in but this is clearly the wrong perspective. It becomes much harder to plan for things when you are socially ostracized and malnourished. Your IQ takes a huge hit and mental capacities start to slowly and consistently wither away. Then it becomes clear that it is definitely not a choice when you end up in such a situation. Making good choices that compound becomes exponentially harder. So the usual agency that regular people take for granted and the perspective they analyze the problem from simply does not exist for the homeless person and saying "it's a choice" in the words of a famous physicist is "not even wrong".