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  • PunnyName@lemmy.worldEnglish
    39·
    4 months ago

    Which means you don’t understand poverty.

    As a homeless person, it’s the most expensive time of my life. Time is expensive, because I don’t have a car. I use the bus for most things which means waiting, and delays, and more waiting, and walking 10+ minutes between the bus/train and the destination. And I live in LA.

    I’m solo, I don’t have kids who are constantly growing and regularly need new clothes. I’m not paying rent. I’m not paying utility bills. I don’t pay a car payment, or for gas. I’m getting unemployment, and saving what I can to try to afford something in life that doesn’t suck. No car maintenance. I’m lucky that I live in a homeless shelter, but the food is hit or miss, and they’re cracking down on what we can actually buy for ourselves. They won’t let us buy in bulk like ramen, or cookies, or protein shakes. They want us to only buy things that can be consumed “day of”. I got the stink eye for bulk buying multivitamins and fiber pills.

    Lots of other people have 1 or 2 jobs, but the jobs barely pay peanuts, plus a lack of benefits. I used to work at iHeartRadio, a multi billion dollar company, and I wasn’t permitted to get benefits because I was mandated to a max of 29 hours a week. And often poor paying jobs are further from housing than better paying jobs, which means longer commutes, meaning less meal prep time, less family time, less self care. So cheap food like McDonald’s – being extremely calorie efficient for the price – is the regular go to. Or spending a lunch break to get an expensive 7-11 snack.

    And even if someone isn’t buying McDonald’s or 7-11, and they’re actually being frugal, many Americans are 1-2 paychecks away from homelessness. Because we have virtually no worker protections, no work-life balance, minimum wages that are stuck 16 years in the past, while inflation and housing and education skyrocket. People are often stuck in their life conditions with little to no hope for their future.

    These very people are struggling to survive. They aren’t getting a chance to live.

    In America, it’s easier for a housed person to become homeless than it is for a homeless person to become housed.