Sparkle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
myownface) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2017-01-18 08:41 am
myownface) wrote in fandomhigh2017-01-18 08:41 am
Entry tags:
Urban Survival - The Uglier Side of City Living, Wednesday, Period 2
Sparkle was not completely at 100% today. He really couldn't even put a finger on why. Sure, Kathy had stopped by to pay him a visit over the weekend, and that had kind of left him a little... something. Vulnerable. Something. But it wasn't like he'd had anything really big and traumatic happen to him. Uh. Within the past couple of weeks, anyway.
He was going to just chalk it up to seasonal affective disorder and a lack of sleep, and keep on truckin'. And looking a little like he'd been hit by a bus anyway.
"Okay," he said, "so, this week we're going to talk about the reasons people might end up homeless. Using, you know, facts and data, instead of that 'oh, he's just going to spend it on drugs' bullshit speculation that a lot of people throw around when they pass some panhandler on the side of the road, making me immediately want to smack them into next month. Maybe they are. I dunno. You dunno. But it always kind of feels like people say that sort of shit because it dehumanizes the person sitting in the gutter that little bit more. Makes it easy to pretend they aren't there."
Which, in this class, he was saying just as much to get students to stop it if they did as he was to brace them for overhearing that shit if they ever wound up in that situation.
"Reasons for homelessness vary from city to city," he noted. "Or, at least, the frequency of those reasons varies. But a quick list, from a survey taken in Vancouver, has, from most to least, poverty as the number one reason, with 85.6% of people surveyed claiming it as a factor. From there, the list names housing crisis as a factor, followed then by substance abuse, mental illness, medical needs - yes, even in Canada this shit happens, family or relationship breakdown, abuse or a lack of safety, or being a new immigrant with no real options. You can dig into any one of those categories from there and make subcategories for them, if you want to, or draw lines connecting one and the next. Reasons for poverty might include things like racism or transphobia making it nearly impossible for somebody to find work. Mental illness and abuse are often linked - often, it's important to note. Not always."
He pulled in a deep breath. Oh. Right. He wasn't at 100% because some of this stuff really struck a nerve. Like, oh, the next part.
"There are other factors to take in, still. Things like how, in America, while only five to ten percent of the total youth population identifies as LGBT - a difficult thing to take an accurate measurement of because of anything from it being unsafe to come out as queer to self discovery being a journey that can take years, up to forty percent of homeless youth identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans. And out of those kids, family rejection and abuse are some of the top factors leading to them being on the streets."
And another deep breath. Okay, cool. He was doing fine.
"Last week, I said something about equal rights being a trap," he went on. "Which bears elaborating here, too. There are a lot of factors that the people who are at the top of the food chain are going to use to keep other people down once they're at rock bottom. They'll point at things like race, disability, mental illness, gender, religion, sexual identity, and so on, and then use those things to justify to themselves that the people who are at the bottom deserve to be there. Once you can be identified as any one of those so-called undesirable things, things you have no control over and which shouldn't be factors that society uses to place value on another person, it gets a lot harder to keep your head above the water. There's active pressure from the people with money and security to keep you down, as somebody with neither, because for fucked-up, 'you aren't a white, straight, able-bodied Christian male' reasons, someone thinks you don't deserve it."
And shit, Sparkle had gotten off pretty light on that checklist. He smiled humorlessly, and then sighed and leaned back at a desk.
"I can't ask anyone to, like, come up with catch-all solutions to any of these problems here in class," he noted. "The fight for equality... basically anywhere... is always a long and hard-fought one that can't be remedied overnight. It should be remedied overnight, because that shit is bullshit, but that just... isn't how people work. And in order to address poverty as the number one issue leading to homelessness, half the battle is going to be running down that list and tackling those other factors, too. But, you know what? I'm gonna let you all give it a try, anyway."
He waved a hand.
"Anything I mentioned today. Throw rocks at it. Pick it apart. Try to figure out why it's a thing, or what people can do to make it less of a thing. Mental illness is on that list. So does society as a whole need to have a conversation about the stigmatization of things like depression and PTSD? What about the homeless queer kids? Or the abused? The ones in need of medical assistance who just can't find the care they need? Bounce it around. And keep an open mind when you do. Maybe you'll learn something." He cast a kind of wry look around the room at... you know... nobody in particular. "Try to keep this one civil today. I have a spray bottle if anyone starts name-calling and hair-pulling, and I'm not afraid to use it."
He was going to just chalk it up to seasonal affective disorder and a lack of sleep, and keep on truckin'. And looking a little like he'd been hit by a bus anyway.
"Okay," he said, "so, this week we're going to talk about the reasons people might end up homeless. Using, you know, facts and data, instead of that 'oh, he's just going to spend it on drugs' bullshit speculation that a lot of people throw around when they pass some panhandler on the side of the road, making me immediately want to smack them into next month. Maybe they are. I dunno. You dunno. But it always kind of feels like people say that sort of shit because it dehumanizes the person sitting in the gutter that little bit more. Makes it easy to pretend they aren't there."
Which, in this class, he was saying just as much to get students to stop it if they did as he was to brace them for overhearing that shit if they ever wound up in that situation.
"Reasons for homelessness vary from city to city," he noted. "Or, at least, the frequency of those reasons varies. But a quick list, from a survey taken in Vancouver, has, from most to least, poverty as the number one reason, with 85.6% of people surveyed claiming it as a factor. From there, the list names housing crisis as a factor, followed then by substance abuse, mental illness, medical needs - yes, even in Canada this shit happens, family or relationship breakdown, abuse or a lack of safety, or being a new immigrant with no real options. You can dig into any one of those categories from there and make subcategories for them, if you want to, or draw lines connecting one and the next. Reasons for poverty might include things like racism or transphobia making it nearly impossible for somebody to find work. Mental illness and abuse are often linked - often, it's important to note. Not always."
He pulled in a deep breath. Oh. Right. He wasn't at 100% because some of this stuff really struck a nerve. Like, oh, the next part.
"There are other factors to take in, still. Things like how, in America, while only five to ten percent of the total youth population identifies as LGBT - a difficult thing to take an accurate measurement of because of anything from it being unsafe to come out as queer to self discovery being a journey that can take years, up to forty percent of homeless youth identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans. And out of those kids, family rejection and abuse are some of the top factors leading to them being on the streets."
And another deep breath. Okay, cool. He was doing fine.
"Last week, I said something about equal rights being a trap," he went on. "Which bears elaborating here, too. There are a lot of factors that the people who are at the top of the food chain are going to use to keep other people down once they're at rock bottom. They'll point at things like race, disability, mental illness, gender, religion, sexual identity, and so on, and then use those things to justify to themselves that the people who are at the bottom deserve to be there. Once you can be identified as any one of those so-called undesirable things, things you have no control over and which shouldn't be factors that society uses to place value on another person, it gets a lot harder to keep your head above the water. There's active pressure from the people with money and security to keep you down, as somebody with neither, because for fucked-up, 'you aren't a white, straight, able-bodied Christian male' reasons, someone thinks you don't deserve it."
And shit, Sparkle had gotten off pretty light on that checklist. He smiled humorlessly, and then sighed and leaned back at a desk.
"I can't ask anyone to, like, come up with catch-all solutions to any of these problems here in class," he noted. "The fight for equality... basically anywhere... is always a long and hard-fought one that can't be remedied overnight. It should be remedied overnight, because that shit is bullshit, but that just... isn't how people work. And in order to address poverty as the number one issue leading to homelessness, half the battle is going to be running down that list and tackling those other factors, too. But, you know what? I'm gonna let you all give it a try, anyway."
He waved a hand.
"Anything I mentioned today. Throw rocks at it. Pick it apart. Try to figure out why it's a thing, or what people can do to make it less of a thing. Mental illness is on that list. So does society as a whole need to have a conversation about the stigmatization of things like depression and PTSD? What about the homeless queer kids? Or the abused? The ones in need of medical assistance who just can't find the care they need? Bounce it around. And keep an open mind when you do. Maybe you'll learn something." He cast a kind of wry look around the room at... you know... nobody in particular. "Try to keep this one civil today. I have a spray bottle if anyone starts name-calling and hair-pulling, and I'm not afraid to use it."
Sign In
Lecture
And he hasn't even gotten to the surviving part of this semester.
Discuss
Because, hey, someday maybe it'll be you out there, homeless and disabled, or impoverished, or mentally ill or black or abused or gay. And somebody will walk by you and avoid eye contact and whisper to whoever they're talking with as though being homeless means you're also deaf, 'they'll probably just spend it on drugs anyway.'
But keep discussion civil. Not everybody is from 21st century America with access to Tumblr or anything. Explain, don't argue. Sparkle has a bad kitty bottle on hand if he needs to break anyone up today.
Talk to Sparkle
But he is here.
Talk to the TA
OOC
Re: Sign In
Re: Sign In
Re: Sign In
Re: Sign In
Re: Lecture
Re: Discuss
Re: Talk to the TA
She wished the Chief had been able to stick around longer than two days. It was a lot easier to get away with yelling at people when you were really old than when you were really young.
Re: Sign In
Re: Discuss
"People who join up with th' carnival...it ain't usually because they got a happy life at home," she said slowly. "But we can't be everywhere, and we ain't for everyone."
"Nothin' thrives where it doesn't belong. Lots of people end up homeless 'cause they just don't fit where they are; they're a little too loud or too bright or too much and stayin' where they are is killing them on th' inside. Don't mean that th' street is where they belong, but when you're desperate enough t' take th' chance, anywhere's better than where you are."
Re: Discuss
People who lived outside the cities in Arizona tended to be, well, like Ada's family. Highly individualistic, and not exactly willing to put up with entitled bullshit.
Re: Discuss
Re: Sign In
Re: Lecture
Because that definitely would help.
Re: Discuss
She may have given Tip a look at that.
Re: Discuss
"I mean, I'm the last person to say someone doesn't deserve food, trust me," he said, "but drugs can be a pretty dangerous path on their own. Generally the people who have wound up homeless because of drug abuse have done so because they'll give anything for their next hit. And the sort of drugs that leave you in the gutter are typically pretty dangerous. They can be lethal if they're done incorrectly, and things like shared needles can transmit disease, too. Sure, it's their choice to do this to themselves, but people with serious addictions like that are... it's like a sickness. If the money they have isn't enough, the next thing they might give up is food anyway. They need more than to be left to their own devices and given handouts. They need real, serious help."
Sparkle had seen a lot of this, among kids in the home. He didn't tend to take things like addiction to hard drugs lightly.
Re: Discuss
RE: Re: Sign In
RE: Lecture
RE: Discuss
So there goes your white christian model, SparkleShe frowned. "I don't think I've ever heard someone say that it's because they use drugs or are sick. People usually just say (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Japan#Specific_aspects) that they can't get hired anywhere. That there aren't enough jobs anymore. And without a job, they can't afford a place to live."