Thread by @aaronhoyland

Every time I read a story about police breaking up an encampment of people experiencing homelessness, I think about when I got laid off 12 years ago. 🧵

I’d moved out to Ontario after getting a job there, and nine months later they laid a bunch of us off. When they did so, they gave us full salary and benefits continuance for three months. They didn’t have to. I was lucky.

Once that ran out and I still couldn’t find work, my partner and I moved into her parents’ rural cabin nearby. We lived there for four months, for free. What if her family hadn’t lived out there? I was lucky.

There was no internet, so I had to drive a half hour to the public library every few days to job search and apply. What if I didn’t have a car, or my license? I was lucky.

Eventually, I realized I wasn’t going to have any luck there, and I moved back home to Alberta. My dad flew out to drive my car back, and I drove a U-haul with all my possessions in it. What if he hadn’t been able or willing to do that? I was lucky.

And once I arrived back home, I moved in with my mom and stayed there until I found a job and was able to afford my own place. What if I didn’t have family here? Not everyone does. I was lucky.

Privilege is many things. One of them is a safety net for when things go wrong. I have spent my life safe and warm and full. Not because I’m smarter or more responsible than those who haven’t, but because I was born lucky.

And then there are people who weren’t so lucky. People who didn’t have the safety net that I did, struggling to get by. And I turn on the news, and I watch decision-makers who have never faced this struggle say that these communities are a “nuisance”.

This could have been me. With slightly different circumstances, it would have been me. Don’t tell me about the great job we’re doing in getting people off the street. Tell me about what we’re doing so they don’t end up there in the first place.