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This cartoon has four panels. All the panels show a gritty commercial doorway – the kind that’s recessed a few feet into the building – on a city sidewalk. There’s litter and graffiti here.
There are two characters in the comic strip. The first character is a homeless man sleeping in the doorway, wearing a zip-up sweatshirt over a t-shirt and a dull red knit cap, and with a full beard. The other character is a muscular-looking cop dressed in a police uniform and carrying a baton. In defiance of tradition, he is cleanshaven. I’ll call these two characters KNITCAP and COP.
PANEL 1
Knitcap, covered by a brown blanket and with his head pillowed on some rolled-up clothes, is lying in a doorway, apparently asleep. The cop is using his baton to poke knitcap in the side. The cop has a somewhat sadistic grin.
COP: Hey, you! Get up! We’ve outlawed sleeping in public! You’re not allowed anymore!
PANEL 2
Knitcap is sitting up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with one hand. He speaks calmly. The cop watches, smirking, arms akimbo.
KNITCAP: In that case, I guess I’ll sleep in a hotel tonight.
PANEL 3
A close-up of Knitcap. He’s stroking his chin with a hand, as if thinking through his options.
KNITCAP: Or should I sleep in my townhouse instead? Or my Hamptons place? I’ll call my butler and ask what he thinks!
PANEL 4
Knitcap, grinning, is now holding a hand next to his face, thumb and pinky finger extended, pretending it’s a phone as he talks. The cop is glaring and slapping his baton against his palm.
KNITCAP: Smithers? Smithers old boy! My super fun street sleeping holiday is done. Which of my mansions shall I sleep in tonight.
COP (thought): Next step: Outlaw sarcasm.
There's some real societal stigma against living and working out of a vehicle and I think thats hurting lots of people right now.
I think that we should promote living in vehicles and the nomadic lifestyle as a legitimate alternative to the conventional housing and renting system, while getting the government dollars to flow into charities like the homes on wheels alliance to help buy and convert used vehicles into minimal living spaces for those in need.
The current housing market is fucked, the current renting market is fucked, more and more people are forced to choose between paying rent and not dying of starvation, inevitably choosing the latter and getting evicted. Its going to take either a complete breakdown of the system or decades of gradual correction to fix these problems at all. In the meantime, let's swallow our pride and accept that living in a pod on wheels is better than living on the street.
Also, I think the big issue with homelessness from the perspective of most people is visibility. Its not an issue as long as you can't see it and it doesnt affect property values. Putting people in cars helps take away some visibility of that reality for the yuppies and homeowners who can't stand seeing such things. One of the comments here complained about seeing a homeless person shamelessly popping under a bridge. If that homeless person had a blacked-out van with a sleeping cot and had pooped in a bucket out of view you would never know what's going on in that random van.
Of course some homeless people are just nasty pricks who dont give a fuck and would shit in public anyways hard on that Diogenes philosophy, but thats human nature for you.
I'm not sure "out of sight, out of mind" is a good solution to the unaffordability of housing in our late stage capitalism society.
Certainly a modest proposal.