Now You See Them, Now You Don’t (But You Should)

from the series Peace House Community – A Place to Belong

By MARTI MALTBY

I think everyone is familiar with the magic trick where a coin disappears from the magician’s hand and then reappears out of someone’s ear. When we were little, we believed the coin really had disappeared. As we got older, we knew the magician had simply used a sleight of hand, and they were still holding the coin, but if the magician did the trick well, we were still willing to be fooled.

Unfortunately, I find many of the “solutions” to homelessness and similar problems are just variations of the coin trick. The solutions don’t really solve homelessness. Instead, they try to make the homeless “disappear”, and if the solution looks appealing enough, everyone is supposed to applaud. On some level, everyone knows the homeless still walk the streets, trying to find safe places to sleep and keep their belongings. The folks working their magic just hope no one points that out too loudly.

Mayor Frey’s approach to homeless encampments is one example of this approach. With the City dismembering encampments as quickly as they are set up, he can plausibly argue that he has ended encampment homelessness, and (less plausibly) that the homeless have accepted the housing that they were offered.… Read the rest “Now You See Them, Now You Don’t (But You Should)”