I'm going to post this even though there is a large chance that it's going to be poorly received: This is simply an extension of what happened to urban poor (p

I'm going to post this even though there is a large chance that it's going to be poorly received: This is simply an extension of what happened to urban poor (particularly blacks) in the latter half of the last century, and our failure to solve those issues adequately is simply allowing the dynamic to self-replicate. It happened with drugs (crack cocaine vs opioids), it happened with housing (contract housing and gentrification vs subprime loans and asset inflation), on and on. See also Native Americans on reservations, essentially abandoned by the state for having the audacity to want some measure of self-determination. Whatever we allow to happen to the least of us, will eventually happen to most of us. I come from the perspective of a military brat, a descendent of slaves, born overseas. My ancestral home is either unknown or a town built on the site of a plantation, depending on your perspective; my childhood home is an abstract idea shattered across 5 states and a dozen physical buildings; I have no memory of my place of birth and would have to get a visa to see it. I have a strong predilection towards dismissing sentiments concerning "home" because the society I live in has ruthlessly ground out any sentimentality I might have had towards it. However, I also know what the break-up of community has done to black people in the US, the ignoble gift of desperation that the dissolution and rot of family and economic opportunity leaves to people. That's now playing out for American whites, and as we've seen, it carries with it a very serious and threatening sense of aggrievement, rooted in the kind of entitlement minorities could never claim without putting their lives on the line against their fellow countrymen. Therefore, even in my own grievance, I see the necessity of compassion and action. I don't think a modern Homestead Act is necessarily the answer, though, because it doesn't get to the crux of the issue, which is our willingness as a country to let despair fester in one pocket or another, as long as it's not too close to home. I don't know what fixing that is going to take. Giving people money to move might be a part of it, but I don't think it's the be-all-end-all. There needs to be a more fundamental shift in how we view the right of people to secure shelter and build community, and perhaps of our responsibility to sacrifice and provide for this when it comes to people who aren't our own, may not live or look like us, may vote differently or work different jobs or have different dreams. We're all tied together.