Where our Mayor, who has been not-so-secretive about his efforts to block the development of low-incoming housing in Berkeley (for obviously crypto-racist reasons) has spent a good portion of a low income housing grant on Big Consultants to tell us we need to separate out the "chronically homeless" from the "not really" homeless who have managed to find friends to couch surf with. These "not really homeless" people should be encouraged to continue to impose on these friends for as long as possible (while the friends are probably desperate to get them off of their couches) since that is somehow seen as a regular housing situation.
http://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2014-09-30-WS-Item-01-Homeless-Data.pdf
You better believe this is exactly what you're talking about: making it seem like there are fewer truly desperate people than there actually are. And by continuing to withhold help from these masses of desperate people, who have been holding on by their fingernails for months, if not years, already - our esteemed Mayor Bates hopes to persuade the people who just happened to fall into poverty "move on". And once he gets their displaced asses out of here, he can encourage more tech millionaires to move in and rent the new Luxury Shoebox Apartments built by his cronies - if not his very own relatives!
I've sat beside the coordinators at local nonprofits while they've taken call after call from people seeking housing, and there is nowhere to refer them to. The current political situation is the equivalent of a "lie of omission". We as a society didn't *actively* takeaway you're housing, so we are weaseling out of all blame and we feel no guilt as we look away as you become homeless. Of course we didn't do anything to address the housing crisis either. Is it our fault we left more potholes than road, and you fell in a pothole? Nawwwwwwwwww....
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