4 ms·
It's not wrong, though. This is just a rephrasing of the same problem. Imagine two people, one with a family that will take them in in an emergency and another
by dionidium 4y ago
It's not wrong, though. This is just a rephrasing of the same problem. Imagine two people, one with a family that will take them in in an emergency and another with nobody. They both become heroin addicts. The addiction results in a job loss and a few arrests. Soon they've sold all their possessions, their health is declining, and they're behind on rent.
Person A puts their tail between their legs and goes and sleeps in mom's basement.
Person B becomes homeless.
It would be fairly deranged to say that "life choices" and "events" didn't matter "at all," that the second person's homelessness can be entirely explained by the lack of supportive family. It's both things. Homelessness arises when poor choices intersect with a lack of options.
- fnimick 4y agoAnd what happens when your hypothetical "emergency" isn't due to a personal failing? There are people homeless in the US right now because of medical debt due to illness, is that their fault too?
- SoftTalker 4y agoMedical debt can be discharged in bankruptcy, there's no reason anyone should become homeless over it.
- hezralig 4y agoHave you tried renting with a lack of a credit score or with a tanked score? It is increasingly out of reach.
- SoftTalker 4y agoLots of people with bad credit scores manage to rent. If this were impossible then a quarter of the population would be homeless.
- dionidium 4y agoI don't feel a ton of emotions about phrases like, "personal failing" one way or the other, so it doesn't really make that much difference to me and I'd just say that obviously the illness was a factor. That's what we're talking about here: whether to describe obvious factors as such. It would be equally silly to claim that the illness in that case was not relevant.