If you answered “true” to the statement above, then you, like me, have a healthy distrust for groups who hold power and specific motivations because you know that from history class that the past tends to repeat itself, and one of the ways in which it does is in revealing that the people, companies, and organizations who hold the power to influence societies, and who have a special interest for one thing or another, tend to get their way.
Therefore, to you, as it is with me, the possibility of homelessness remaining in society because particular individuals, corporations, or organizations hold a special interest to keep homelessness in existence is plausible.
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After all, isn’t it odd that even with how advanced our species have come, having achieved astonishing results with AI, space exploration, etc., that homelessness still exists?
It’s not like we don’t know that homelessness burdens millions of people worldwide. Over 1.5 million people are homeless on any given night [6], and from homelessness, many of them die and suffer. Isn’t dying and suffering enough to motivate individuals of our species to eradicate its existence?
Homosapians are surely motivated to continue progressing with artificial intelligence and Mars exploration, and it’s not as if a solution to homelessness is mysterious like machine sentience, or difficult like subatomic analysis. To end homelessness, all we would have to do is give homeless people homes.
So if you said “true” to the statement “identifying who benefits from homelessness may ultimately reveal why homelessness still exists,” then we are alike in our suspicion that homelessness may still only be a problem because individuals or organizations have motivations to keep it in existence.
Therefore, like me, you are probably interested to discover who might hold specific motivations to keep homelessness in existence, and what, specifically, those motivations are.
Conversely, if you answered “false” to the statement above, then I must assume that you are a person in power with special interest, and therefore, I do warn you, this article is set to self-destruct in precisely 1 minute and 59 seconds. The clock starts…
Now.
WHO DOES HOMELESSNESS BENEFIT?
Individuals and organizations benefit from homelessness in one of two ways.
The first way is directly. Scammers, predatory loan sharks, and businesses in the camping industry all benefit directly from homelessness itself.
The second way is indirectly. Homeless people, taxpayers, and governments all benefit indirectly from homelessness remaining.
scammers
The first group that benefits from homelessness is scammers. Scammers benefit from homelessness directly in two ways.
The first way is by posing as homeless people.
One breed of scammers who do this are those who pose as unsheltered beggars in the public or on social media, in an attempt to solicit money for their non-homeless selves. Another breed pretends to be homeless on social media to receive money through manipulating donors. In my time working in the homeless community, I’ve come across both.
I spoke to a lady on Quora the other day who said that, in the city where she lives, she’s witnessed large groups of panhandlers getting dropped out of vans and begging for money at busy strip malls and grocery stores.
These van loads of panhandlers might have been employees of some low-ball club or corporation, or they might have just been a group of friends, but whoever it was they were, she was convinced, those panhandling men and women were not even homeless.
If she were not mistaken or misleading me, I am melted into a steaming puddle of ammonia by that repugnant level of civil indecency.
In terms of social media scams, having spent two of my nine years in college towards a computer information systems degree, I know these scams quite well, and in my years running the Facebook page “Information About Homelessness,” I myself have been targeted by catfishing. One scammer pretended to be my grandmother.
The scammer suggested that, to receive financial aid for helping the homeless, I apply for a grant from the government. About a week later, the scammer followed up to see if I was receiving the money, said that she was extremely pressed for cash due to overdue bills, and if I received a large Grant from the government, $800 would really help her out.
I also had a scammer try to get into my Facebook account, this time posing as my uncle.
The scammer texted me on messenger, said that a hacker locked him out of his email account, said he was also trying to get back into Facebook, and so needed me to give him the confirmation number that Facebook sent to my email.
(Scammers often request this in order to get authentication into your Facebook account, since, because a necessary step when you don’t know the password associated with your Facebook profile is to reset your password, Facebook sends an email to the email address associated with the account.)
Then, after having gained access, the scammer collects sensitive information about your organization, uses the trustworthiness of your Facebook profile to scam your unsuspecting friends and family into giving them money, or locks you out of your Facebook account, demanding from you to pay a ransom for access back into your profile.
Well aware of this, I declined to comply with his request, and afterwards, as I expected, my uncle imposter never messaged me back.
The second way that scammers use homelessness to benefit themselves is by posing as homelessness organizations.
While many of them are employees of organizations, the type of organizations to which they are employed are not homeless non-profits, but scam organizations. Many scam organizations exist worldwide, especially in third world countries.
These organizations employ numerous individuals, who work entire shifts targeting the hearts and goodwill of caring givers, givers who are willing to help the homeless but instead help scammers, who think that the scammers are homeless organizations who help homeless people, but instead the homeless organizations are people who are imposters.
These scams come in many forms. Just watch a few videos on YouTube by Scammer Payback to see what I mean. If you’ve never seen these sorts of scams in action, you’ll be horrified and outraged.
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One of the more popular scams going around lately is scammers asking for money. In these, scammers randomly dial phone numbers in wealthy countries, asking unsuspecting victims for donations for the homeless.
After tugging on the heart strings of the generous, the scammers ask for a donation. After getting the victim to agree to donate, the scammers obtain the victim’s credit card information. Then, before the victim even knows they were scammed, the con artists drain their unsuspecting victim’s bank account.
Another popular target of scammers is homeless organizations. These are often targeted for two main reasons.
The first reason is that, like other non-profit organizations, homeless organizations tend to have more money in bank accounts than single individuals.
The second reason is that homeless organizations are often more vulnerable to being scammed than profitable organizations. This is because homeless organizations possess less expendable income to invest in cyber security tools and professionals. As a result, homeless organizations’ computers, websites, etc are often more vulnerable to being compromised by hackers. As another result of being less able to invest in cybersecurity, the staff of homeless organizations also tend to be less trained in avoiding falling prey to social engineering attempts by scammers.
Of the two types of scams, perhaps the most common means is through the use of social engineering.
In social engineering scams, con artists mislead victims into giving sensitive information about their organizations. This information is then used by scammers to make the scammers richer.
One way this is done is by gaining access to the organization’s website servers. After gaining full access, the scammer obtains sensitive information like bank account info and important passwords belonging to the organization and its clients. Another way is by installing malware and then demanding a ransom to remove it.
In the ransomware scam, the scammer gets a victim to click on a link that puts malware on the organization’s computer. The malware then sends all the organization’s digital data remotely to the scammer.
Upon successful download of the organization’s entire database, the scammer then locks the target’s computers, preventing the organization’s members from accessing them. At which point, the scammer then demands money, either to unlock the computers and allow organizational members to go about normal operations, or to prevent the scammer from exposing sensitive information to the public.
What is noteworthy about each of these scams is that they target people or organizations in the domain of homelessness.
Though only a small percentage of scam attempts are successful, still hundreds of scam attempts, if not thousands, succeed each year. From them, scammers make away with the money of individuals and organizations who want nothing more than to improve the lives of homeless people, people who need help.
Therefore, the first group who benefits from homelessness is scammers.
predatory loan sharks
Predatory loan sharks are banks, businesses, and individuals that make a profit from lending money to the poor unethically.
They prosper by lending money to borrowers who have little to no choice but to get a loan but can’t afford to pay it back, borrowers like soon to be homeless people who need money to pay rent so to not be evicted, or already homeless people, who need cash to put down first and last month’s rent as a deposit on a new apartment pronto.
According to the Manchester news, two loan sharks in Britain were jailed for theft, fraud, and illegal money lending in the UK. The loan sharks targeted the unsheltered and mentally ill.
Two such victims lived in an assisted living community. The loan sharks offered a loan of 20 euros in repayment for 40 euros, (about $22 for $44 USD). When police finally caught up to the suspects, one asked police, “are you here because I have been lending money to the homeless?” [1].
In a separate incident, According to the NZ Herald, the chairman of a homeless organization told reporters about three moms who came to the organization after becoming bankrupt by predatory lenders.
The chairman of the homeless organization said that finance company lenders in Auckland, New Zealand, issued a total of about $144,000 among the three moms, charging ridiculously high interest rates and a “raft of default payment fees on goods, such as cars, fridges and clothes” [2].
I read another story about a mother of three named Michelle who, after her hours were cut at work, accepted a loan from a lady that turned out to be a nightmare. The lady, another mom of a child who went to the same school that Michelle’s child attended, offered Michelle a small loan with the condition that Michelle pay interest.
The lady said she’d be willing to help Michelle, said something to the effect that she knew what it was like to be down and out, and suggested that Michelle pay her back when Michelle got paid the following month.
As time went by, however, Michelle would realize that, in accepting money from the lady, she had made a grave mistake. Michelle was about to fall into a “dangerous trap with a ruthless, intimidating lender who would put her family through a horrific ordeal” [3].
The day that Michelle got paid, collectors appeared at her door. They intimidated Michelle, bullying her with mental and physical violence, sending threatening messages to her cellphone, smashing things into her home, and bashing out house windows while she and her family slept.
Michelle was terrified.
Some days, she didn’t know how to pay them back but knew that she must. She had seen what they had done to others who hadn’t paid them back and it scared her. This terrifying chain of events led Michelle to the brink of suicide, and ultimately, to her and her family becoming homeless on Christmas.
In short, predatory loan sharks profit unethically by lending to homeless or soon to be homeless borrowers, borrowers who have little ability to pay loans back but, out of desperation, are forced to take the loans.
So predatory loan sharks also benefit from homelessness directly.
camping industry
Businesses in the camping industry benefit from homelessness directly by profiting from the products that homeless people buy.
Businesses in this sector profit by supplying the items that the unsheltered need while homeless, items like tents, sleeping bags, survival knives, flash lights, power generators, foldable chairs, propane barbecues, and oversized backpacks (to name a few.)
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Businesses in the camping industry make a killing on items like these because, for many unsheltered individuals, these items are essential to surviving homelessness comfortably-with the emphasis on both “surviving” and “comfortably.”
Though the camping industry also generates revenue through supplying products to temporary camping urbanites and thrill seeking wildlife sightseers, a significant percentage of their revenue comes from people who camp outdoors as a way of life, who need things like sleeping bags and tents to endure without frostbite or hypothermia, who need flashlights and gas generators to illuminate what is written in lamp-absent twilights, people who are forced to endure sweaty armpits and face blistering summers and I-can’t keep-the-rain-out-of-my-tent winters; people who are homeless.
So another group that benefits from homelessness is the camping industry.
homeless people
Though, to many homeless people, homelessness is more of a misfortune than a godsend because, when homeless, one is usually either a melting flow of lava or a vibrating bag of ice, and so, as a result, they are often either moist and sweaty with dirty leaves clinging to their skins, or red and trembling with too little camping gear to keep from being wet and freezing, (very few moments are they comfortably in between,) homeless people, for ways which will soon be clear, also benefit from homelessness.
They benefit from it by being homeless.
Perhaps the most significant way that homeless people benefit from homelessness is by not needing to work.
When a person has no bills to pay, no angry landlord demanding that, this month, the rent be paid on time or else; no utility bills, no additional cost for water, for trash pickup, landscaping, or electricity, and when a person has no other home expenses like pool cleaning, wall repairing, etc, as compared to when living in a home, being homeless is easier.
It is easier because it is free, and when existence is free, a person need not even work.
Therefore, no backbreaking, low paying, soul trading, I-still-won’t-pay-your-rent-without-a-roommate-but-at-least-you’ll-get-to-eat type jobs are necessary.
From no manager must a person accept disrespect with a smile and I’ll make sure that it’ll never happen again attitude, to be somewhere precisely at the time they’re commanded, ensuring that they clock in no less than 5 minutes before or after the time they are summoned, to be made to do everything that they are told to do, swiftly, in exactly the way that they are ordered, and without error.
No need exists to put themselves after what is best for the company because, after all, it is the company that affords them the luxury of living in a home. No need exists for any of that because it’s free to sleep outside.
In short, need not be an exemplary employee. To eat they can apply for food assistance from the government, get food donations from churches, and panhandle for extra pocket change. Therefore, as compared to working for a living, being homeless is easier.
This can be refreshing.
Being homeless is also advantageous because it frees up more time. When one has 8 to 10 hours extra per day, he or she has more time to pursue goals and hobbies.
One could practice playing the guitar, focus on marketing their already published music, spend more time sending music demos to record companies, etc.
He or she could develop their skills as a writer, write about their journey of being homeless, a novel that may one day be a literary classic, or, as a final example, learn a new skill like computer programming, in order to get a new job that will pay them more than they earn currently, having never learned any valuable skills because of being always too pressed for time.
So homeless people also sometimes benefit from homelessness.
taxpayers and governments
The final groups who benefit from homelessness are taxpayers in governments. However, unlike scammers, loan sharks, businesses in the camping industry, and homeless people, taxpayers and governments do not benefit from homelessness directly.
On the contrary, taxpayers and governments are negatively impacted by homelessness financially. In the U.S. alone, governments pay over $30,000 per year, per homeless person [4].
Nonetheless, because homelessness is so expensive to end, taxpayers and governments benefit from letting homelessness remain because putting an end to homelessness would cost governments and taxpayers trillions of dollars initially, and trillions of dollars more annually to keep all of its citizens off the streets.
In the US alone, over a half a million people are homeless on any given night [5]. As you can imagine, providing shelter for so many people would be costly. So costly, it seems, that not even the wealthiest nations are willing to pay it.
Therefore, though taxpayers have the voting power to sway governments to end homelessness, and governments the financial propensity to end homelessness, because putting an end to homelessness is so expensive, it is in the best interest of taxpayers, and so governments, to not end homelessness. It would divert funds from already established ways of spending, ways that many people aren’t willing to give up.
In effect, since by not ending homelessness governments and taxpayers are richer, and because they are richer they are more empowered to spend money on building better roads, providing better education for children, etc, taxpayers and governments benefit from homelessness by leaving it in existence.
So why does homelessness remain?
CONNECTING THE DOTS
In this article, we sought to answer who benefits from homelessness in an attempt to understand why homelessness still remains. Our initial hypothesis was that the reason why homelessness still exists is because the people who have the power to end homelessness but don’t, don’t end homelessness because they have specific motivations to keep homelessness in existence.
We then learned that predatory loan sharks, businesses in the camping industry, scammers, homeless people, governments, and taxpayers all benefit from homelessness in some way.
However, out of all of them, because homelessness is expensive to end, governments are the only groups who have the power to end homelessness singlehandedly. If it were not for the cause of their homelessness being a product of an uncontrollable financial misfortune, a mental illness, a physical disability, etc, for themselves, homeless people would have the power to end homelessness.
But for many homeless people, homelessness is not a choice. Being homeless can be miserable. But governments and taxpayers do have the propensity to end homelessness. In democratic societies, taxpayers have the voting power to sway governments to end homelessness, and in wealthy societies, governments have the financial means necessary to provide each and every homeless person a warm and safe bed in which to sleep.
conclusion
Therefore, the reason why homelessness still exists is because governments and taxpayers benefit from not eradicating it. They benefit financially, from not ending homelessness for good.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHO
