Pt. II: What's..."homeless?"
On the meaning of "policy"...
The sculpture pictured is by Robt. Berks (1979) & installed next to the National Academy of Sciences near the mall in Washington DC
I present it to afford another perspective on “being homeless;” Einstein [1879-1976] was Jewish, born in Ulm Germany, and finished his education in Switzerland
Forbidden to join a university faculty, he worked in Zurich at the federal patent office; by 1933, when the Germans elected Adolf Hitler & the historical segregation of Jews was made law, Einstein had developed his theories, which transformed physics—and history
But he could no longer live in Europe: he’d been made “homeless,” even though no European country save Germany had yet enacted laws making Jews “stateless”
He emigrated to the U.S. with his family after accepting an appointment at the Princeton University “Institute of Advanced Studies”
The central point of the history I sketch is that widely accepted practices justifying the isolation or marginalization of citizens can have the same effect on people as policies officially discriminating against people
There is no U.S. law dictating where & how people can live, or work, just as, after the Civil War, there were no laws segregating people by skin color
But, until many were made illegal, there were widespread practices “redlining” where people could buy homes, for example
Similarly, “homebuilding” in the U.S. is left to private contracting, and “home financing” is provided by mortgage firms (though in the 1930s federal financing agencies were created)
You have probably read about “low income housing” plans & projects: these are created & managed by individual cities in the U.S.—and are by no means widespread, or uniformly administered
Instead, the widely accepted practice of treating “home value” as an unquestioned right constitutes a “national policy” to restrict home ownership and effectively limit housing
When employment and income are, again, connected by practice, the result is a noticeable proportion of our citizenry unable to live anywhere but outside
I suppose few of the “homeless” possess significant intellectual or even manual skills; problems compounded by infirmities, addiction, & ignorance certainly
But it’s clearly a widely accepted practice to blame these citizens for the neglect & marginalization that I’m suggesting effectively constitute a national policy
Are houseless and stateless the same thing? I doubt Einstein ever slept behind a dumpster. Home is a very broad concept. And who was it who said, “Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in?”