It's nearly the 10th anniversary of that show we love to hate, #GameofThrones. This winter I did a deep dive into what went wrong and pondered how it might have gone differently at @ordinarytimemag
a few thoughts on poverty from an Actual Poor Person:
getting some responses along the lines of "if you really considered property life you wouldn't ALLOW people to be poor or homeless" the underlying idea is that these are helpless victims not in charge of their own destiny
The word "allow" implies a strong component of force. By not "allowing" people to stay poor or homeless you are basically calling for a person's life choices to be policed by others. Forced to work, forced to live in a house, forced to be sober, forced to make "better choices"
I am not, to a factor of a million, saying that poor/homeless people choose and therefore deserve their destiny or that we shouldn't extend charity to them. I am pointing out that there is some measure of force involved in preventing poverty and homelessness that is glossed over