The Elephant in the American Dream's Room
What It Means to Be Poor and Homeless in the United States
Imagine something weird—you’re hungry maybe about to lose your housing. There nowhere for you to turn to. There are social service agencies, but they have years-long waitlists and they’re closed 128 hours of 168 hours of every week. That makes these agencies functionally absent for 76% of the human lived experience. For emergencies.
Catastrophes so rarely come during business hours, and yet this is how we’ve decided things ought to work. We will help those who are suffering, but only insofar as it doesn’t upset our own comfort very much. We will be so sad that we can’t help someone and hang up on them, unsure whether they’ll survive the weekend. And then we sleep at night, as if we’d done good.
For the homeless—who are often told that “beggars can’t be choosers”—this is a pathetic form of un-help that wastes what little time they have to do anything productive. Offering to help someone that has legitimate survival needs and then failing them is worse than telling them “no.” You’ve wasted their time and their resources to fuel your communal narcissistic supply. You are not a good person for only trying, not by any measure that means anything to anyone but you and other privileged people like you, who clap each other on the back for giving an infinitesimal fragment of their money to pay non-profits’ overheads and pad their tax credits while helping no one that actually needs it.
So what do you do? Well, the only thing you can do as someone living in abject poverty in the United States: you wait. You put a pause on everything—your hunger, your growth, your passions, your dreams, your life, your need for sleep or shelter—and you wait for the privileged to feel guilty enough that they eventually feel motivated enough to help you.
Right? You can just pause your hunger, right? That’s a thing? One imagines social services folks must think so, given how quickly the phone stop being answered as the clock approaches four in the afternoon. Sometimes two-thirty, as non-profit agencies are also some of the organization with the most wildly variable schedules. Because no one considers the poor or the homeless in this country a priority.
They are a nuisance. Pitable, at best. And while people think it’s “good” to try to help them, most of us accept that there is very little we can personally do. Every problem is too great for any one person to handle, and there is no organization in all of Pittsburgh that appears to care enough to look for a solution to the problem. It’s more like we’re just trying to survive it. We measure the extent of our kindness by the number of cold corpses we don’t have to pick up off the streets every day. And that number is not zero as always as it ought to be.
We often think of the system as broken. This is because we are often naive. The system works precisely as designed. To benefit people doing well by wasting the time and energy of people who are doing very badly. To act like you’re helping to improve voting rolls while doing absolutely nothing that might actually change something for the better.
Learning to Turn Away From Suffering
Positive psychology—often targeting the upper and middle classes—talk about the power of belief. If you dream something hard enough, you can manifest it! You just have to believe in yourself, pull yourself up by your bootstraps—which now has you hovering several feet off the floor in defiance of reality itself—and persevere. Perseverence is always the key. It is what “successful” people have that “unsuccessful” people don’t. The philosophy is laughable in its absurdity.
There is no one more persevering than a single Black mother working three jobs to care for her children. There is no one more persevering a Hispanic family trying to make it in a country that is actively hunting them like the Nazis once hunted the Jews—during which time we have proven that, like the Germans in the 1930s, we Americans are entirely cool with partisan militias kidnapping people from the streets, their places of work, and their homes—as long as they’re brown enough.
Gratefully, the struggle of Hispanic people is starting to get a little more attention now that some European-Americans that look “white” have been killed, surprising no one yet disappointing everyone with healthy moral reasoning.
The Jews during the Holocaust and after persevered. Black people persevere despite systemic racism that is only getting worse because some “white folks” have decided that the solution to feeling guilty about enslaving an entire population is to dehumanize them while gaslighting American children of every ethnicity into believing kidnapped Africans were “happy” to be slaves. That delusion—that some folks are “made to suffer”—is a common one among racist European-Americans: Hispanic people are only good for farm jobs, Black people are only good for service jobs, Asian people are only good at math and science, Indian people make great taxi drivers and convenience store clerks, except for the occasional BIPOC who decides to abandon their culture and adopt “whiteness” to fit in with them and benefit in the same ways. The acceptance from those who hate us is meager, but for someone who is hungry, crumbs are a banquet.
Ask any person who thinks this is all just “how things are” if they’d mind being turned Hispanic, Black, or Indian. Most will hesitate (unless they’ve prepared the “of course!” answer to this challenge ahead of time) because the ignorance of racists is a lie. They know exactly what it means “to be made for” all those kinds of jobs, and they know they would personally hate to have so little agency as we do—we poor BIPOC who remain savages bound to our animal natures, just delighted as puppies to have leashes placed around our necks.
If they’re happy about it, but it would make us unhappy, then we must turn away from it when it happens. In the same way that so many people see a child being beaten publicly by their parent and do or say nothing. In the same way that so many people see a U.S. citizen being dragged away by ICE and do and say nothing. In the same way that we see a veteran with a sign saying they’ll work for food, and we continue to do and to say and do nothing.
Because that would be hard. And problems that aren’t yours always go away if you ignore them. If the person having the problems won’t shut up about them, you can just cut that person out your life. Sure, that leaves them way worse off than they were before they reached out to you, but who cares? Your comfort is more important than their lives, right?
It has to be. It’s the only way our behavior as a society makes any sense.
The Life of a Homeless Person
Most of us have seen Hollywood portray people getting up due to loud alarm clocks from comfortable, if somewhat messy, beds. We all know what that life is like. Sometimes exercise, shower, self-grooming if needed, make and eat breakfast, and on and on. The only stress ahead is “something weird might happen.” Maybe a few others go along with it: “What if my coworkers hate my presentation?” “Is my partner ready to make a commitment?” “Do I live in a good neighborhood now or will I have to move somewhere nicer before having children?” So many stressors, but truthfully, this person knows what lies ahead of them. Their day is set, and only the occasional “weird thing” can upset it.
For a poor or a homeless person, “weird things” can sometimes be hourly occurrences. You wake up uncomfortable and having slept very poorly on the ground or a shitty mattress. Still tired, you wander your way to a food bank and wait for three hours in the cold for it to open. You eat breakfast finally. It’s now nine A.M., and the food bank is closing soon. You go to your caseworker. They don’t have any news for you, but they did turn in your application for Section 8 Housing. There should be something for you in about…three to four years. That visit took three hours too, counting the time you had to wait for transportation. Now, it’s gonna be time for lunch soon, so you head to a corner you’re unlikely to be shooed away from and beg for money. It’s never much you get, but it’s enough to get you lunch. Maybe a snack for dinner if you’re lucky. Now it’s three in the afternoon already, and you have to go to the shelter. If you arrive after than half-past-four, you won’t have a bed tonight, and you’ll be sleeping outside. And it’s gonna take you about an hour and a half to get back, thanks to the stochastically dependable bus system.
Going to bed hungry is normal for you. After all, hunger while you’re asleep is hunger you don’t have to suffer directly, and sometimes the best you can do for yourself is to choose to be unconscious or drug-addled for the worst of things. The “worse of things” could be waking up to being kicked repeatedly in the ribs, getting stabbed and having your twenty dollar bill someone gave you yesterday taken from you, not waking up at all (a very real possibility when it’s 15 degrees Fahrenheit during a snow storm).
Now, take a look through that day above. Tell me where you find time to do something productive for yourself. I can’t find it. Maybe the homeless person could have done something other than visit their case worker, except most homeless people don’t necessarily have a working phone or an email, so they can’t be contacted when things happen for them. In fact, even if they can be contacted, you are often told to “check again” the next day. And the next, and the next.
Because perseverance is being told no everyday and still continuing to try, right? Nah. That’s just motherfucking “stupidity.” In 1981, a quote originated in Al-Anon and Narcotics Anonymous communities that would later be attributed to Albert Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Einstein never would have said something like this because this quote is really more of a aphorism—a pithy phrase that contains an element of truth in it: if something doesn’t give you the result you want, try something else next. Conventional wisdom, therefore, flies in the face of every expectation we have of the poor. We demand that they do the same thing over and over again because it would be work for us to take that pressure off them, and we don’t want to “enable” someone that’s suffering into potentially suffering less.
Cuz enabling is bad, right? We’re all meant to hover using our magical Neoliberal bootstrap rockets! “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day,” folks rationalize, “but teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” They forget the man still needs a rod and tackle to get started.
We measure the extent of our kindness by the number of cold corpses we don’t have to pick up off the streets every day. And that number is not zero as always as it ought to be.
What Really Happens When You Enable the Poor
Once an abusive ex-partner told me that it was “wrong” for me to have a relationship. You see, they argued, I have Borderline Personality Disorder. And because of the context of that disorder, I will invariably hurt every partner I am with, therefore I must avoid having any partners at all until I am fully healed.
We’ll ignore the covert narcissism of my abusive ex-partner and focus instead on the rationality of their statement: that when one is struggling, it is wrong to bring others into that suffering with you—that it is wrong to be a “burden” to others.
Suffering People Must Put Their Lives on Pause
It’s not an uncommon belief. Most of us tend to think that, if we’re struggling, we are not in a place to seek out relationships or connections or to experience happy things. We are taught that to suffer is our fault; a consequence of a moral failing. When you are poor, people don’t just see you as someone who is suffering; they see you as someone who deserves to suffer. The Just World Theory1 that Americans love so much demands that we ask ourselves, “What did we do to deserve this?” It asks this of rape victims, and it asks it of the poor. It asks if of folks with HIV or diabetes. What did you do that made you worthy of suffering in the eyes of Providence?
The belief in “Providence” itself is irrelevant. As with homophobia and transphobia, religion is only an excuse for bigotry and violence, never its cause—that cause remains people. The concept of Jesus of Nazareth never hurt me; so-called Christians have. Bigotry can be just as effective in the secular arena, and Just World Theory does not require one or more gods for us to use the theory as a way of hurting people who are suffering so they don’t get any closer to us and disturb our happy delusion that everyone always gets what they deserve.
If poverty were only gifted to those who deserve it, then one imagines that—sure—poor people should do everything in their powers to get out of that horrible situation as quickly as possible, for which it is often necessary to tie one’s belt. And all of this is paternalistic bullshit to a poor or homeless person.
Hey! It turns out we already know how to tighten our belts! It’s how we’ve managed to survive this long without case worker Daddy or Mommy pretending to help us. It turns out we’re already persevering. It turns out we’re already doing everything we have to in order to escape our situations. Most of us do put our lives on pause—for generations. So why isn’t it working? Why aren’t we getting out of this?
Enabling the Poor…with Cash!
GiveDirectly is a non-profit organization that has been one of GiveWell’s top ten charities for 2012 through 2020. GiveDirectly became famous for its “no strings attached” cash transfer model. People would give money to African families living in Kenya, Rwanda, and other impoverished African nations.2 This method was highly criticized in the beginning, as it was expected to lead to African families becoming more dependent on donations from the industrialized nations.
Instead, the opposite occurred. Giving money directly to the poor allowed the poor to become empowered to solve their own issues. In various pilot studies, recipients of these funds used them to replace thatch roofs with metal ones, to invest in livestock, and to start small businesses. GiveDirectly turned some impoverished towns into thriving ones.3
We say “beggars can’t be choosers,” but every single time we try it out, we find that beggars make the best choices for themselves. It turns out that no one knows how to get out of poverty more than poor people—after all, many of them have been at this for generations, trying the same things and getting nowhere. If we trust the poor to heal themselves, and we give them the real purchasing power to do it, then they will.
And if they don’t, why would you think that is? Could there be a reason other than laziness? After all, as we ended the last subsection with the question, we’ll end this one the same way: why, after working so hard to get out of poverty, are we failing to get out of poverty?
Poverty Was Never Meant to Be Escaped
Most people—especially conservatives and neoliberals—believe that “getting your act together” is how you get out of poverty. That all you need is gumption and know-how to make it in the world.
You’ll still meet plenty of people with gumption and know-how who are out of work or on disability. Not because they have to be but because our society has made it impossible for it not to be. Try to get a professional job while homeless and observe how difficult that is. Maybe your socks clash with your outfit. Maybe your shoes are older than average. Maybe you only have one work appropriate set of clothes. These things are noticed, and no employer ever thinks, “I should help this person who has a great resume and good attitude despite what they’re going through.” They think, “Oh, this person must have terrible judgment.”
As if we chose to only have one pair of socks and one work-appropriate set of clothes. As if we chose to suffer what we’re suffering.
If you are poor, the only jobs truly available to you are service jobs. And every single one of these jobs will kill your time and energy while giving you only half of what you need to survive. You’ll need a second job. Or to get with someone so you can share a room and rent—because under capitalism, the choice of an intimate partner is often moderated by desperation and survival need.
Something many American men think was so good for us, they’ve made it practically impossible for poor people to get out of a shitty marriage without literally emptying their savings.
Using GoFundMe, I have been able to collect enough money to make it day-by-day, but I’ve never collected enough money to be able to pay a single first-month’s rent. Consequently, after four months of having a GoFundMe up, I’m still homeless.
Funny story. If I weren’t homeless anymore, I would have spent much less money surviving day-by-day. Transportation would be cheaper if I didn’t have to figure out the bus system again every other week or trying to figure out what my new daily routine is going to be like in this new place I’m staying where I have no power at all to keep myself safe if someone should wish to make me feel unsafe. And nowhere to go after that happens. More importantly, I’d be able to consistently get my meds on time if I had a working, consistent mailing address.
If all the money I’ve received from GoFundMe had come in at once, I would be OK today. Because it comes in piecemeal, I can never make it out of the hole before water starts to fill it again. This is no individual person’s fault, but it is all of our fault. We’ve dehumanized the poor and the homeless to such an extent that we feel it’s “good enough” even if it doesn’t actually improve anything for someone. And the recipient of those funds must always be unabashedly and perfectly grateful for the gift they’ve been given.
And that’s the point. For me to never escape homelessness is the plan. For me to give up on this all and seek SSI at the expense of any dream I have is the plan. It’s been this way for every poor person forever, and I am not surprised it is no different with me.
I’m just disappointed. You’d think someone who writes like this would deserve a chance. But society has neither chances nor fucks to give.
Until that changes, here we’ll remain. Suffering endlessly until we stop doing it society’s way and become uncooperative and non-compliant. Suffering endlessly until those with privilege realize that people dying on their watch makes them suck as people, and they ought to do better. Because maybe, when a society has homeless people, it’s wealthiest should tighten their belts and pull up their own rocket bootstraps to ensure no homeless or poor people exist in what some folks delusionally claim is the “greatest country on Earth.”
Cherry, K. (2026, January 21). What is the just-world phenomenon? Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-just-world-phenomenon-2795304
Find out more about what GiveDirectly thinks about subjects like Universal Basic Income, which they believe should be a human right, and they’re correct to think so.
Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. (2018). Giving directly to support poor households. J-PAL Evidence to Policy Case Study. https://www.povertyactionlab.org/case-study/giving-directly-support-poor-households