Homelessness is a natural part of urban life. Homeless is unfixable. Homelessness is caused by personal failings and irresponsibility. These are poisonous lies implanted in your worldview from a young age by our apathetic society and its elite who benefit from the othering of the disadvantaged. Our dodgy, ineffectual politicians would have you believe that there just isn’t enough space for these unhoused individuals and not enough resources. Governor Healey says, “We are reaching capacity and therefore don’t expect to be able to house people the way we’ve been able to house people in the existing infrastructure.” This lie is understandable coming from someone who has taken $43,225 from real estate lobbyists. As she touts her “care and concern,” she enforces policies forcing families out of shelters while lining her subordinates’ pockets with money.
The truth is, the state government barely manages to distribute vacant housing we already have – as of March 1, 2024, over 2,219 state subsidized housing units remained unallocated. Mismanagement of housing units is only one part of the issue. The greatest economic and political force of America is businesses, and it is laughable to say that they pay their dues.
In Massachusetts, the corporate tax rate is by default 8%, merely 3% more than the 5% income tax. This is disgustingly inadequate, as corporate earnings reach a record high, and CEOs are paid as much as 344 dollars for every 1 dollar we make – perpetuating the reality that this wealth is hoarded by shareholders and executives. Were this not bad enough, corporations (and the super-rich) avoid taxes to the point of barely paying any. According to the IRS, at least $688 billion in taxes were avoided in 2021 across the U.S. (This is by all means a conservative estimate…)
We can start taxing corporations on a local level to solve our lack of housing. But Governor Healey’s decision to pad xenophobic rhetoric with the sentiment of caring for our homeless is no more than a continuation of a disturbing trend of our politicians. As their pockets become thicker from corporate lobbyists, politicians drag their feet in ensuring everyone has a home and a living wage because the solution to the problem involves provoking the higher echelons of our de-facto plutocracy.
Ending homelessness is on the table, or, it would be, if our politicians were not agents of stagnation. Realistically, this could be accomplished without even tackling the plain legality of tax evasion for the wealthy. We could shave some of our military’s hundreds of billions in budget– or find out why tens of trillions of dollars go missing due to administrative incompetence and allocate the additional funds towards making sure that everyone has a bed.
Unfortunately, none of this will happen as is; we live in the land of the status quo. But we don’t have to – organize in your community, protest, strike, send a letter to your congresspeople, whatever it is that you can do, please, do. Just don’t go about your day believing that anyone sleeping on a sidewalk is doing so out of necessity – it is out of our society’s greed and callousness.
