COVID-19 and the Impact on the Homeless

I've been dealing with my own health drama having nothing to do with the pandemic, so I kind of haven't really noticed how Coronavirus is impacting the world. I log into Reddit today and here is a sampling of some of the stuff on r/homeless: I honestly don't even know what to say other than a knee jerk "Glad I'm not on the street anymore!" I cannot imagine how hard this is going to be.

I did try to google up some articles concerning the homeless, Coronavirus and closures or quarantine. I didn't readily find anything that seemed especially good.

I don't have a solution. I just know that when you are homeless, you are highly dependent on public facilities like libraries, public bathrooms and so forth.

My gut reaction is "We better think about this or people are going to start dropping like flies, if only from lack of food, water, hygiene and bathroom access, even if they don't actually catch coronavirus."

Back to your panic buying and making lists of what to watch while self quarantining. I'm sure most people will pay no real attention to how much more serious a problem this is for the poorest and most disenfranchised Americans.

If we actually cared, we would just fucking build more housing that makes sense for one to three member households in walkable neighborhoods near transit so it is possible to have a life without a car. The fact that people literally think it is better to let people be on the street than rebuild the one million SROs -- "tenements" -- that we have torn down in recent decades tells you how little we value human life in this country.

I'm going to go play a game now and try to not notice the fire shooting out my ears about what a shitty world I live in full of amazingly shitty people. I'm going to sit here and try to tell myself that's just my fever and not my rage.