Issues like homelessness and "world hunger" exist for no reasons other than pure apathy and selfishness. The fact that they exist at all is proof society has failed in it's most basic function.
There is enough money in the world to easily feed and house every single person on Earth. With all of the wealth currently being hoarded, the haves could very easily provide for the have-nots.
So why don't they? The most common answer I see is something along the lines of "handouts will make people lazy and the no one will want to work." I wholeheartedly believe that anyone who says this has never experienced poverty a day in their life. To believe that the majority of poor people would be content to scrape by on the bare minimum for the rest of their lives is absurd. The underlying message to this argument is essentially saying that the answer to poverty is for poor people to just "stop being poor."
It's as if some people think being poor is a choice. They absolve themselves of guilt by saying that poor people can stop being poor whenever they want if they just stop being lazy. Yes, they can just manifest mental health, a support system of friends and family, clean clothes, access to proper hygiene, a balanced diet, and reliable transportation--they just have to want it bad enough! Absolutely asinine.
The truth is we HAVE the money. We just collectively choose not to help because most of us have decided that it's not our problem.
"It doesn't affect me personally so who cares."
"Those people made their choice."
"They're probably criminals/addicts anyway."
Sentiments like this go against the very point of society: to collectively benefit from co-existence. Ten people living together in a community will thrive exponentially better than if they lived individually. This is because each person has something they can contribute to the overall good of the collective. So it is worth it for the other 9 to occasionally help out the 1 who is facing temporary adversity. The problem is that, at some point, we all decided that homeless people were worthless and that it wasn't worth it to help them. We decided that society would go on just fine without the poorest among us, so why bother wasting resources on helping them?
We've dehumanized poor people to the point that we are no more concerned about their well-being than we are about wild animals. In fact, I'd say most people are more likely to care about abandoned cats & dogs than they are about the homeless. Because those people "chose" to be homeless, but stray animals are merely innocent victims.
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