The reason the meme doesn’t work is because it’s forgetting the core sticking point: cost. Of course people would rather homeless people have housing instead of living in tent cities everywhere. But they also don’t have any desire to pay for it when it comes time to do something and of course make moral arguments against the homeless. It’s all gross and true but the meme fails to communicate it by framing it as an aesthetic issue.
TL;DR: The two choices don’t frame the debate correctly.
Of course people would rather homeless people have housing instead of living in tent cities everywhere. But they also don’t have any desire to pay for it when it comes time to do something and of course make moral arguments against the homeless.
These are two different groups of people
The first, who are on board with state housing projects, are the common people who still have empathy for their fellow people
The second, who are totally on board with homelessness because the housing projects are “too expensive”, belong to the political and economic elite
Dude it’s exactly like public transportation. Everyone allegedly supports it and pays lip service but then never wants to pay or use it. You’re acting like it’s so clearly bisected but it’s a venn diagram. Most people aren’t pieces of shit and don’t want people to be homeless, but then they’re unwilling to do anything to solve it because it requires money and effort. We also have internalized that a lot of homeless people “did something wrong” to get there, which doesn’t help.
You’re trying to oversimplify a complex cultural issue. That’s what is truly misleading here. I have no idea why you’re picking an argument with someone who probably largely agrees with you. But this site has quickly become reddit-lite so I’m not surprised.
Sidebar: That’s not what cognitive dissonance means. It’s a question of willpower/desire to actually help. No one wants people to be homeless but they also aren’t willing to do anything about it. That’s not cognitive dissonance.
Most people aren’t pieces of shit and don’t want people to be homeless, but then they’re unwilling to do anything to solve it because it requires money and effort.
Dishonest framing. The average worker has nothing to do with this issue. They are not the people we’re asking to solve this. Like I already said, it’s the political and economic elite. Capitalists. The state. Where is the worker’s money supposed to be sent? On what is their effort to be put?
We also have internalized that a lot of homeless people “did something wrong” to get there, which doesn’t help.
Yep, neoliberal chuds, as I said
You’re trying to oversimplify a complex cultural issue
How? What variables have I abstracted into a black box, here? What few mechanisms have I reduced the issue to? To me, “people want affordable housing but don’t wanna pay for it” sounds extremely oversimplified.
I have no idea why you’re picking an argument with someone who probably largely agrees with you.
I’m not “picking an argument with you” lol. I’m just correcting what I see as a defeatist, “what can we even do” attitude.
That’s not what cognitive dissonance means. It’s a question of willpower/desire to actually help. No one wants people to be homeless but they also aren’t willing to do anything about it. That’s not cognitive dissonance.
Sounds like semantic fudging to me. “These people need homes! No, stop building homes, it’s too expensive!!” sounds like cognitive dissonance to me.
When did I ever say we can’t do anything about it? You’re just making shit up now. I am describing a societal impulse, a general attitude. It clearly exists, as evidenced by the lack of housing for the homeless and the utter disdain we often treat them with.
There is a difference between what policies people support and what they say they support on an individual basis. People say they want infrastructure and good roads, but then suddenly they rage when it’s time to pony up. It’s not cognitive dissonance, it’s framing and understanding. It’s stated vs actual preferences.
I don’t get what you’re trying to accomplish here.
That’s just a cop out. Of course it’s complex. No reason to just throw your hands in the air and say “it’s too hard, let’s just leave it to the market”. We already tried that. It led to this.
Also, no one is saying, literally, “building more houses will fix homelessness alone, nothing else needed, DURRR”. That’s just a strawman.
What we also need is a complete end to landlording. But this of course won’t happen under the current system, because capitalism fucking worships private property.
The entire post is about low income housing as a solution to people sleeping in tents. Building more apartments won’t stop people from living in tents.
Pointing out that it’s a complex issue that isn’t solved by more houses is pretty much the opposite of a strawman
No, that is not the point it’s making. It’s making the point that neoliberal chuds would prefer to see homeless people than affordable housing. It doesn’t say that building housing itself is the sole solution. Hell, it doesn’t say anything at all about building. We don’t see any construction in that picture, the blocks are just there. You could read it as saying that already built flats should just be given to people.
Nonono, it’s unreasonable for taxes to go toward helping the poor. They live on the street and starve by their own choice. No one wants to pay for those wretched people!
Where are the police when you need them to quickly usher the inconvenient truth of my selfish lifestyle out of my sight?
But most people aren’t really complaining about there being apartments. They complain about paying for the apartments. It’s not the actual visuals that come up. That’s at best a tertiary concern, it rarely comes up if ever. The image of the soviet dacha or Khrushchevkas is a bit of a fringe reference for most americans, definitely in the context of discussing housing the homeless. They’re just not really linked unless you REALLY want to stretch the point and discuss housing projects. But that really would be a stretch. You’d be better off dropping the soviet apartment idea altogether, because housing projects are less about visuals and more about who occupies them.
You’re in lemmy.ml, a Marxist instance, reading a meme criticizing capitalism and saying that Soviet apartment buildings are a stretch?
No, they’re the whole point of the meme. Paying for them is the point, who paid for the Soviet buildings? The message is that the Soviet Union built these and American capitalists allow people to live in tents on the street (while calling those buildings ugly). Housing projects would be a perfect “yeah but” except they are very low priority and not so common.
Ugly Soviet buildings are themselves a meme. Up there with the hammer and sickle and the color beige when Americans visualize the Soviet Union.
Honestly I just feel like you can scroll around this comment section and see the various ways this has been interpreted to see that, at the end of the day, it’s just too unclear here.
You’re possibly right here. The meme is just framed too poorly to be sure lol
It’s also forgetting that a significant portion of homeless people are homeless by choice, or are homeless for reasons that just providing housing won’t resolve.
People have this idea that all homeless people are just regular people who experienced hard times, but that’s just a minority. Most homeless are mentally ill people who won’t take their meds or drug addicts who aren’t willing to quit.
It sucks, and they shouldn’t have to live on the streets, but you can’t force people to change.
I don’t think people have that idea at all, if anything they are more likely to assume a homeless person is mentally ill and drug addicted than they are to think they are experiencing hard times or employed but unable to pay for housing.
However housing first has been pretty successful, but goes against many people’s values for some reason. The big fear of someone getting something undeserved is strong.
You’re more than welcome to look up statistics. ~60% of the chronicly homeless have life long mental health issues, and ~80% have substance abuse issues.
Pretty much every city/state has resources to help the homeless, but the homeless have to be willing to accept the help. Most shelters are drug free, so addicts don’t want to stay there and they won’t accept people whose mental illness makes them violent.
You can’t force a person to take their medicine or stop doing drugs unless you want to start building more prisons.
Again, I was never saying that all homelessness is a choice, but a lot of people choose not to accept the help that’s available.
Source: My wife has her masters in the field and used to work with these populations as an addiction counselor, in Texas, so I know that resources exist at a state level even in a state that clearly hates it’s citizens.
You’re more than welcome to look up statistics. ~60% of the chronicly homeless have life long mental health issues, and ~80% have substance abuse issues.
When did I say anything remotely resembling what you’re implying here? You are saying it is mostly a choice. That is what I am disputing. That is not statistics. You are assigning value and making assumptions in the absence of evidence.
Again, I was never saying that all homelessness is a choice, but a lot of people choose not to accept the help that’s available.
I did not say you said all homelessness is a choice. I said, for the 3rd time now, that I objected to your assigning choice as the primary cause that explains why most people are homeless. Stop reducing our points and putting up strawmen. Stop pretending I’m saying things I didn’t say. Stop responding to arguments I am not making. So let’s try this again:
You said:
“People have this idea that all homeless people are just regular people who experienced hard times, but that’s just a minority. Most homeless are mentally ill people who won’t take their meds or drug addicts who aren’t willing to quit.”
I said:
“Framing this as primarily a choice is deeply problematic.”
So are you going to actually talk about what we said or are you going to keep building strawmen and pretending you can’t read what I’m writing?
Neoliberals never seem to get around to actually address what’s being said. They just hem and haw about why they can’t do anything about it, as they pull their SUVs into the third stall in their garage.
Honestly, it feels even more pernicious than that. People like him just try on opinion like hats, to borrow from the “alt-right playbook,” then discard them when they are no longer convenient. They aren’t even trying to make a coherent argument, they’re just trying to tear down the argument of whoever they are talking to. And when that fails, they just go “well, it’s not like I ever made a statement about what I believe. I’m just explaining the logic” and similar nonsense.
Yeah, liberals and conservatives only differ on whether gay people should be put to death, so you’re not really saying much. And being liberal does not, whatsoever, make you immune to conservative propaganda. We live in a capitalist society, founded on liberal values: whether conservatives know it or not, it is liberal values they are conserving.
Also, as I’ve said about 5 times now, no one is saying that building houses alone will solve the issue. So stop beating that strawman.
I believe you are arguing in good faith, so I’m hoping you can provide a source for your claim that the majority suffer from mental illness or drug addiction.
Yeah that can’t be right… The problem with these discussions I think is there’s a very big difference between the technical definition of homeless, and the one people use colloquially.
It’s the most visible minority of homeless people that tend to be the entrenched ones people think of when they think of homelessness, and those people essentially have nothing in common with the other “homeless” people other than having no permanent home. It makes the discussion harder as people are using the same word but talking about different things.
The reason the meme doesn’t work is because it’s forgetting the core sticking point: cost. Of course people would rather homeless people have housing instead of living in tent cities everywhere. But they also don’t have any desire to pay for it when it comes time to do something and of course make moral arguments against the homeless. It’s all gross and true but the meme fails to communicate it by framing it as an aesthetic issue.
TL;DR: The two choices don’t frame the debate correctly.
These are two different groups of people
The first, who are on board with state housing projects, are the common people who still have empathy for their fellow people
The second, who are totally on board with homelessness because the housing projects are “too expensive”, belong to the political and economic elite
Yeah, that cognitive dissonance doesn’t exist, and is misleading.
Dude it’s exactly like public transportation. Everyone allegedly supports it and pays lip service but then never wants to pay or use it. You’re acting like it’s so clearly bisected but it’s a venn diagram. Most people aren’t pieces of shit and don’t want people to be homeless, but then they’re unwilling to do anything to solve it because it requires money and effort. We also have internalized that a lot of homeless people “did something wrong” to get there, which doesn’t help.
You’re trying to oversimplify a complex cultural issue. That’s what is truly misleading here. I have no idea why you’re picking an argument with someone who probably largely agrees with you. But this site has quickly become reddit-lite so I’m not surprised.
Sidebar: That’s not what cognitive dissonance means. It’s a question of willpower/desire to actually help. No one wants people to be homeless but they also aren’t willing to do anything about it. That’s not cognitive dissonance.
Dishonest framing. The average worker has nothing to do with this issue. They are not the people we’re asking to solve this. Like I already said, it’s the political and economic elite. Capitalists. The state. Where is the worker’s money supposed to be sent? On what is their effort to be put?
Yep, neoliberal chuds, as I said
How? What variables have I abstracted into a black box, here? What few mechanisms have I reduced the issue to? To me, “people want affordable housing but don’t wanna pay for it” sounds extremely oversimplified.
I’m not “picking an argument with you” lol. I’m just correcting what I see as a defeatist, “what can we even do” attitude.
Sounds like semantic fudging to me. “These people need homes! No, stop building homes, it’s too expensive!!” sounds like cognitive dissonance to me.
When did I ever say we can’t do anything about it? You’re just making shit up now. I am describing a societal impulse, a general attitude. It clearly exists, as evidenced by the lack of housing for the homeless and the utter disdain we often treat them with.
There is a difference between what policies people support and what they say they support on an individual basis. People say they want infrastructure and good roads, but then suddenly they rage when it’s time to pony up. It’s not cognitive dissonance, it’s framing and understanding. It’s stated vs actual preferences.
I don’t get what you’re trying to accomplish here.
There’s also the third group of people who realizes that homelessness is a complex problem that won’t be solved by more housing.
That’s just a cop out. Of course it’s complex. No reason to just throw your hands in the air and say “it’s too hard, let’s just leave it to the market”. We already tried that. It led to this.
Also, no one is saying, literally, “building more houses will fix homelessness alone, nothing else needed, DURRR”. That’s just a strawman.
What we also need is a complete end to landlording. But this of course won’t happen under the current system, because capitalism fucking worships private property.
The entire post is about low income housing as a solution to people sleeping in tents. Building more apartments won’t stop people from living in tents.
Pointing out that it’s a complex issue that isn’t solved by more houses is pretty much the opposite of a strawman
No, that is not the point it’s making. It’s making the point that neoliberal chuds would prefer to see homeless people than affordable housing. It doesn’t say that building housing itself is the sole solution. Hell, it doesn’t say anything at all about building. We don’t see any construction in that picture, the blocks are just there. You could read it as saying that already built flats should just be given to people.
I don’t think it fails, but it does come from a specific cultural perspective.
Those are “ugly Soviet buildings” built by the government. That already communicates cost and the unwillingness to bear it in the US.
Nonono, it’s unreasonable for taxes to go toward helping the poor. They live on the street and starve by their own choice. No one wants to pay for those wretched people!
Where are the police when you need them to quickly usher the inconvenient truth of my selfish lifestyle out of my sight?
But most people aren’t really complaining about there being apartments. They complain about paying for the apartments. It’s not the actual visuals that come up. That’s at best a tertiary concern, it rarely comes up if ever. The image of the soviet dacha or Khrushchevkas is a bit of a fringe reference for most americans, definitely in the context of discussing housing the homeless. They’re just not really linked unless you REALLY want to stretch the point and discuss housing projects. But that really would be a stretch. You’d be better off dropping the soviet apartment idea altogether, because housing projects are less about visuals and more about who occupies them.
You’re in lemmy.ml, a Marxist instance, reading a meme criticizing capitalism and saying that Soviet apartment buildings are a stretch?
No, they’re the whole point of the meme. Paying for them is the point, who paid for the Soviet buildings? The message is that the Soviet Union built these and American capitalists allow people to live in tents on the street (while calling those buildings ugly). Housing projects would be a perfect “yeah but” except they are very low priority and not so common.
Ugly Soviet buildings are themselves a meme. Up there with the hammer and sickle and the color beige when Americans visualize the Soviet Union.
Honestly I just feel like you can scroll around this comment section and see the various ways this has been interpreted to see that, at the end of the day, it’s just too unclear here.
You’re possibly right here. The meme is just framed too poorly to be sure lol
Exactly. It’s not hard to keep the exterior of those buildings looking nice. You just have to pay someone to maintain it.
It’s also forgetting that a significant portion of homeless people are homeless by choice, or are homeless for reasons that just providing housing won’t resolve.
People have this idea that all homeless people are just regular people who experienced hard times, but that’s just a minority. Most homeless are mentally ill people who won’t take their meds or drug addicts who aren’t willing to quit.
It sucks, and they shouldn’t have to live on the streets, but you can’t force people to change.
I don’t think people have that idea at all, if anything they are more likely to assume a homeless person is mentally ill and drug addicted than they are to think they are experiencing hard times or employed but unable to pay for housing.
However housing first has been pretty successful, but goes against many people’s values for some reason. The big fear of someone getting something undeserved is strong.
Some might say the big fear of someone getting something undeserved is strong enough to prop up an entire political party.
But it is not exclusive to them, of course. Some are just very bad about it.
Framing this as primarily a choice is deeply problematic.
For many it literally is a choice, and framing homelessness as something that no one has control over is problematic.
No don’t change the parameters here. You said “most” are mentally ill or drug addicts who are
“unwilling” to get help.
I never said it was something no one has control over. I said “framing it primarily as a choice.” Do not put words in my mouth.
You’re more than welcome to look up statistics. ~60% of the chronicly homeless have life long mental health issues, and ~80% have substance abuse issues.
Pretty much every city/state has resources to help the homeless, but the homeless have to be willing to accept the help. Most shelters are drug free, so addicts don’t want to stay there and they won’t accept people whose mental illness makes them violent.
You can’t force a person to take their medicine or stop doing drugs unless you want to start building more prisons.
Again, I was never saying that all homelessness is a choice, but a lot of people choose not to accept the help that’s available.
Source: My wife has her masters in the field and used to work with these populations as an addiction counselor, in Texas, so I know that resources exist at a state level even in a state that clearly hates it’s citizens.
When did I say anything remotely resembling what you’re implying here? You are saying it is mostly a choice. That is what I am disputing. That is not statistics. You are assigning value and making assumptions in the absence of evidence.
I did not say you said all homelessness is a choice. I said, for the 3rd time now, that I objected to your assigning choice as the primary cause that explains why most people are homeless. Stop reducing our points and putting up strawmen. Stop pretending I’m saying things I didn’t say. Stop responding to arguments I am not making. So let’s try this again:
You said:
“People have this idea that all homeless people are just regular people who experienced hard times, but that’s just a minority. Most homeless are mentally ill people who won’t take their meds or drug addicts who aren’t willing to quit.”
I said:
“Framing this as primarily a choice is deeply problematic.”
So are you going to actually talk about what we said or are you going to keep building strawmen and pretending you can’t read what I’m writing?
Neoliberals never seem to get around to actually address what’s being said. They just hem and haw about why they can’t do anything about it, as they pull their SUVs into the third stall in their garage.
Honestly, it feels even more pernicious than that. People like him just try on opinion like hats, to borrow from the “alt-right playbook,” then discard them when they are no longer convenient. They aren’t even trying to make a coherent argument, they’re just trying to tear down the argument of whoever they are talking to. And when that fails, they just go “well, it’s not like I ever made a statement about what I believe. I’m just explaining the logic” and similar nonsense.
This is just conservative propaganda
I’m a liberal, buddy. Homelessness is a very complex issue that won’t be solved by building more housing.
Yeah, liberals and conservatives only differ on whether gay people should be put to death, so you’re not really saying much. And being liberal does not, whatsoever, make you immune to conservative propaganda. We live in a capitalist society, founded on liberal values: whether conservatives know it or not, it is liberal values they are conserving.
Also, as I’ve said about 5 times now, no one is saying that building houses alone will solve the issue. So stop beating that strawman.
I believe you are arguing in good faith, so I’m hoping you can provide a source for your claim that the majority suffer from mental illness or drug addiction.
Yeah that can’t be right… The problem with these discussions I think is there’s a very big difference between the technical definition of homeless, and the one people use colloquially.
It’s the most visible minority of homeless people that tend to be the entrenched ones people think of when they think of homelessness, and those people essentially have nothing in common with the other “homeless” people other than having no permanent home. It makes the discussion harder as people are using the same word but talking about different things.
https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaigns/homelessness_programs_resources/hrc-factsheet-current-statistics-prevalence-characteristics-homelessness.pdf
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