Homelessness is the Ghost of Christmas Future for millions of under waged workers.

It's the season, I guess. But I brush past, every day, a homeless person on one of my walks through the city and think- there goes the ghost of Christmas future. It's not prophesised, but there is a probability, that my tomorrow will be to live in a circle of hell Dante missed, the realm of the unhoused.

Getting older in the 21st century is as precarious as growing old before 1945 if you don't belong to the asset class. Much of what made society civilised, was jettisoned because neoliberalism decided to monetise all aspects of existence. Most human beings have become just inventory owned by the 1%. We are data to be bought and sold or units of labour that make, sell and consume nonessential goods that earn profit for those who live in the better parts of our cities and towns. We are livestock that the entitled can extort high-yield rent from until we can't pay for our lodgings and then are pushed into the barren pastures of homelessness.

It's no wonder in a time when affordable housing is a thing of the past, seniors on the skids are a growing demographic of pavement dwellers. According to statistics comprised by NPR in the USA, the growing cohort of homeless seniors are childless younger baby boomers who experienced the recessions of the 1970s, the 1980s, and the Great Recession of 2008 and because of those events never got onto the property ladder or lost their footing due to poor health which diminished their employment opportunities. 

They became as it were waste on capitalism’s factory floors after they no longer had any utility for the profits of the entitled. And, so were flushed onto the streets like the contents of chamber pots from the windows of the well-to-do inhabitants of the 16th century.

Despite having no place to call home many of those marooned by an unhinged capitalism still work. The problem is their wages are not enough to maintain a roof over their heads.

It's always important to remember so many workers in the USA, Canada and the UK are under waged and working two or three jobs in an attempt to keep ahead of the rising cost of living crisis flood waters. It's something  gated community liberals conveniently forget when they bang on about how good the economy is  doing and how they don't understand why voters have a fixation with populist politicians. .

Today's homeless are like steerage passengers on the Titanic because they aren't lifeboat-worthy for neoliberal society.

Any politician who claims, "We will build affordable housing for all who need it” is bullshitting you. They have no intention to radically reset capitalism. None of them, who are within reach of the levers of power, want to alter the wealth of the 1%.

I am terrified by all of this because the thinnest of ice separates me from living on the street, and no neoliberal government is going to change that. I made my rent this month, but it was a struggle. And, I will most likely make my rent next month. But what happens after that? Like millions of others across G7 nations who knows what awaits us in these dark and precarious waters of unhousing uncertainty.

Although, I have a sinking feeling that what is coming will be far worse than what we have encountered up until now. Most likely considering how millions of COVID deaths were normalised by the news media at the behest of the 1% and the politicians who serve them. Corporate journalism will prepare us to accept as normal a perpetually increasing homeless underclass. "Ever thus," the well heeled shall say. Let's hope- for the next generation to come there will be a hew economic philosopher to compose a Communist Manifesto for the 21st century to shake the world from the shackles the entitled have chained us to. 

Photo by Tom Parsons on Unsplash

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