NIGHTMARE How readily we associate poverty and homelessness with Third or Fourth World countries. The developed, Western world is mostly free of this association. In reality tens of millions of citizens from some of the richest nations live in abject poverty, and millions live on the street. We see them daily: suffering on display. We try not to think about it, or we reach for explanations to ease our conscience: they are lazy, unwilling to work, alcoholics, drug addicts... The chasm: us, and them. I would like to believe that this suffering will stop, not somewhere in the distant future, but rather as soon as possible. I would like to believe this, but it’s difficult: the scale of this nightmare is overwhelming. Here are some numbers: United States: “One approximation of the annual number of homeless in America is from a study by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which estimates between 2.3 and 3.5 million people experience homelessness.” (…) “One out of 50 — or about 1.5 million — American children are homeless each year, according to a 2009 study by the National Center on Family Homelessness.” (source: pbs.org/now); European Union: 3.000.000 homeless (source: Wikipedia); Canada: 200.000-400.000 homeless (source: Wikipedia).
NIGHTMARE
How readily we associate poverty and homelessness with Third or Fourth World countries. The developed, Western world is mostly free of this association. In reality tens of millions of citizens from some of the richest nations live in abject poverty, and millions live on the street. We see them daily: suffering on display. We try not to think about it, or we reach for explanations to ease our conscience: they are lazy, unwilling to work, alcoholics, drug addicts... The chasm: us, and them. I would like to believe that this suffering will stop, not somewhere in the distant future, but rather as soon as possible. I would like to believe this, but it’s difficult: the scale of this nightmare is overwhelming.
Here are some numbers:
United States: “One approximation of the annual number of homeless in America is from a study by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which estimates between 2.3 and 3.5 million people experience homelessness.†(…) “One out of 50 — or about 1.5 million — American children are homeless each year, according to a 2009 study by the National Center on Family Homelessness.†(source: pbs.org/now);
European Union: 3.000.000 homeless (source: Wikipedia);
Canada: 200.000-400.000 homeless (source: Wikipedia).