In San Francisco’s South Beach, residents are organizing to halt a homeless shelter in their wealthy neighborhood, having crowdfunded tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of days to fight their legal battle with authorities.
According to the mindunleashed, a 2.3-acre available in the shadow of the Bay Bridge has been recognized as a major spot to add 200 beds to support alleviate the city’s crippling homelessness epidemic. But residents of South Beach where the median house price is $1.49 million are mounting stiff resistance to the construction of the temporary shelter. They cite probable increases in crime, anti-social behavior and a drop in sanitation as their objections. This is the latest battle between the haves and have-nots in a city, state and nation gripped by a housing crisis.
A national epidemic
It is evident that most of the Americans are struggling to afford the rent. According to a study, it has estimated that you need to make more than $100,000 per year to securely afford rent in California. Apart from that, San Francisco has the highest rents amounts in the U.S. It has identified that single bed apartment costs around $3,690 per month, The extortionate rents have led to an increasingly common phenomenon in the Bay Area, that of the working homeless. As per a survey, it has been identified that homeless people in San Francisco found that 13 percent were in full- or part-time employment, but not have enough money for accommodation. Some 240 homeless people died in the city last year.
According to the The National Low Income Housing, there is no state in the union can a full-time worker earning minimum wage afford to rent a modest two-bedroom apartment. In California, it is essential to make over $32 per hour to be able to do so. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it estimates that there are around 550,000 homeless Americans on any given night and many people are forced to live in their vehicles. A quarter of America’s homeless population is in California.
Denigrating the homeless
Causes of homelessness in the United States include lack of affordable housing, divorce, lawful eviction, negative cash flow, fire, natural disasters physical disability, having no family or supportive relatives, substance abuse, lack of needed services, elimination of pensions and unemployment entitlements, inadequate income sources ,stock dividends, or gambling, unemployment, and low-paying jobs. Homelessness in the United States affects many segments of the population, including families, children, domestic violence victims, ex-convicts, veterans, and the aged. Efforts to assist the homeless include federal legislation, non-profit efforts, increased access to healthcare services, supportive housing, and affordable housing.
Across the country, homeless people engaged in the acts of basic survival like eating, sleeping, etc., A recent story about a Chicago Good Samaritan who bought hotel rooms for dozens of homeless people during the polar vortex informally implied they would have died without her intervention, but did not pursue the matter further.
Recent years have seen a movement of people documenting and criticizing what they call hostile design, hostile architecture or design. This refers to design features implemented into city and town planning which were created specifically to deter homeless people from finding somewhere to sleep.
Does being rich make you mean?
According to Paul Piff’s research, Piff has come to the controversial conclusion that being wealthy, rather than transforming you into a benevolent benefactor, can actually be rather bad for your moral fiber.
“It makes you more attuned to your own interests, your own desires, your own welfare,” he says.
“It isolates you in certain ways from other people psychologically and materially. You prioritize your own needs and your own goals and become less attuned to those around you.
“If I put a pen in your hand and ask you to draw a circle to represent yourself, the wealthier you are, the larger that circle is relative to the size of the circles poorer people draw of themselves.”
As per his research findings, It is evident that poorer people were much more generous to strangers than the rich, and drivers of cheap cars were far more likely to obey California traffic regulations and stop for pedestrians than were Porsche owners.
Another example, where there is a lack of social empathy, “brazenness of the wealthy,” There is a luxurious restaurant serving rich guests in specially heated domes underneath a highway. During the harsh Canadian winter, Toronto authorities destroyed a homeless camp under the highway to make space for this new restaurant.
As identified by CBS, it is evident that the wealthy Silicon Valley employees trying to block a local homeless shelter. Homelessness is on the rise in the Bay Area in no small part owing to Silicon Valley itself. The massively profitable tech hub has triggered a huge surge in housing prices, leading to huge gentrification out of local residents, who, if incapable to continue paying the huge rents, are marginalized and demonized — a perfect metaphor for the economy as a whole.
I am a Business Management graduate from the University Of Staffordshire (UK) and a qualified personnel officer who completed the National Diploma of Training and Human Resource development at Institute of Personnel Management (Sri-Lanka).
Apart from my professional career in the field of HRM, I am also a freelance writer of web and business contents.
