In Germany, we got two terms that translate to homelessness in English: Obdachlosigkeit (literally “shelterlessness”), defined as living on the street, and Wohnungslosigkeit (literally “appartmentlessness”), defined as lacking a living space rented or owned. “Wohnungslose” people live mostly in communal owned homes or with friends/acquaintances.
So, for me, understanding “homelessness” as “Obdachlosigkeit”, this cartoon was hard to grasp.
People think of the top left as homeless, and ignore the other three. Homeless people can have jobs and go to school, but can’t afford a home or might be homeless due to other circumstances like being kicked out of their home.
But people only think of the top left when someone says homeless.
People think of the top left as homeless, and ignore the other three
That’s because for most people, the question of “what to do about homelessness” is a question of what to do about people who are asking them for money on the street.
Homelessness doesn’t just mean looking like a bum on the streets. Shocked a European wouldn’t be aware that all homelessness is not having a steady place to live, that includes people in hostels that are addicts or victims of various abuse. That includes 18 year olds told to leave the nest and stand on their own two feet when they’ve nothing actually lined up. That includes people who are couch surfing because they have an unsafe family home.
Homelessness is incredibly easy to fall into when situations spiral out of control. I’m long term unemployed (looking for employment though) with no savings but I live with my dad and if my dad kicked the bucket today then I would lose the home I grew up in and would have to get in touch with relevant authorities to be put on a waiting list that lasts years for somewhere to live.
Thank you for your explanation. It is legal to tell 18 year olds to leave home without providing for them? Wow. We have to provide for our relatives for life (parents for kids, but kids for parents as well. Well, at least legally – does not work in all cases.)
I’m aware that homelessness is not restricted to people like the man in the first panel. I’m working in a psychiatric hospital, and finding a place to live for our patients who are no longer capable of looking after themselves is not easy, but usually possible. I wasn’t aware people are forced to live in hostels.
I wish you good luck finding a job, long lasting health for your father and a way to keep your home on your own.
How does the “kids support parents” thing work? As someone who doesn’t make a lot of money, and who has a shitty relationship with my dad, that sounds like a nightmare. It’s not my fault those bastards made me.
AFAIK this only applies for the cost for nursing homes, not alimony. It is possible to reject paying for nursing homes if you can proove that the parents did not fulfill their obligations in raising you, like mistreated you or told you to leave when you were 18. I’m no expert on this matter. Of course, the income of people is taken into regard, so nobody has to pay more than they are able to. In theory at least.
If you enjoy podcasts, check out a limited-run show by 99% Invisible, called According to Need. It’s investigation takes place in my backyard (Bay Area, California) and interviews a number of people who are unhoused and attempting to scrape by as the system fails them.
People who are unhoused / homeless show up to work or school and then go sleep in cars or in shelters (if they can get a bed). You might know someone who is in a similar situation but hides it well.
A telling moment: my brother said he’d never give money to a panhandler because they can get a job at McDonalds. I put to him that McD’s wouldn’t hire someone who was so dirty. That the first check wouldn’t come for at least two weeks. That at the end of the day, he’d be absent the change that allowed him to buy a meal. I pretty much said, how would that help him right now? My brother seemed to understand because he just thought about it and didn’t respond.
One more! I tried to found a website with a friend, it failed. I fucked around learning new technologies while living off of savings. I was unemployed for several years. When I tried to rejoin the market, no one would talk to me. I had too much of a gap. I struggled to get a job. I was picking fruit from trees to augment my survival. I was spending a dollar a day on food. I tried dumpster diving at grocery stores and restaurants to no avail. I applied to work at grocery stores and veterinary clinics and the like for any job they’d give me. My background is in tech and they knew I’d drop them the minute I had an offer, so they wouldn’t hire me. Getting a temp job in my field opened the door to other jobs and I cracked the nut. I’m gainfully employed today, but I was nearly out on my ass. Loans from family members helped me avoid eviction. I’m lucky that I had no dependents.
There is no social safety net in the USA. There should be one. There should be multiple nets in the most prosperous nation in history.
Paying alimony till the first vocational qualification/college degree and contribute to the cost of nursing.
Contribute to the cost of nursing.
Kids – or Youth Welfare on their behalve may sue the parents. Nursing insurance will sue the kids.
Law suits and seizure? attachement? (Pfändung – I’m lost in translation) of the money owned. Kids can be released from their obligation to support their parents if they proove that their parents did not fulfill their parental obligations, e.g if they were abused or the parents did not pay due alimony.
Income is taken into account, so technically nobody should be unable to fulfill these financial obligations. In practice you might get into trouble, especially when the nursing insurance surprises you with a notification of your financial contribution to your parents nursing home.
Homelessness looks different depending on your country. In Japan for instance it’s not hostels but internet cafes that host the majority of the homeless population. Basically those cafes were designed to give young people places to play games, surf the web and so on outside of the family home but because a lot of them had complimentary drinks, showers and whatnot they basically became nightly accommodation where a single night cost about the same as a decent meal you ended up with a place for a transient population of casual under employed workers to stay.
A lot of people in that situation face massive precarity. They live day to day keeping with very few personal possessions and tend to work jobs that are exploitative or dangerous because employers basically know they are in trouble and use that as leverage. An injury or illness can quickly cause you to fall into sleeping rough and become quickly life threatening because safety nets are few and far in between and if you can’t look clean your ability to self support becomes less likely.
That particular death spiral exists all over just in different forms. In the US it’s more likely to involve living out of a car. In Europe hostels intended on paper for backpackers but the basics are that once you start legitimately looking shabby and unclean to other people the empathy dries up so you need to do whatever you can to keep your head above that water because recovery past that point gets very very hard.
That includes 18 year olds told to leave the nest and stand on their own
I’m sorry to inform you that’s a very American thing. Especially for South Europeans and their ex-colonies, it’s not uncommon to stay with your parents to your late 20s or even early 30s.
The message is that it’s not only the unwashed pan handlers that are homeless. There are a lot of people that are or have been productive members of society that still become homeless. In the US a lot of the obvious homeless have major mental health conditions so many just assume that’s the main issue behind the majority of homless. When in reality it’s low wages that don’t keep up with inflation let alone inceases in cost of living
I’ve been all those kinds of homeless and let me tell you the ones sleeping on the street are also experiencing a totally different category of hardship than those who are homeless but sheltered.
Seems like the message is just anyone can be homeless, which is pretty obvious. I guess if people’s awareness is that low then it’s good for these sorts of messages to get out but also suggests that many people are just morons.
You don’t have homeless people in Europe? The message is that not all homeless look like the guy in the first panel. There are all of these “invisible” homeless that go unseen because they don’t fit the stereotype.
Thank you for your explanation. My problems understanding these panels were
The kids in the panels. TIL, it is possible for kids to be homeless in the US. It’s hard for me to imagine that a society would let there kids be homeless. We got kids who fled from home and do not accept any help, thus being homeless in Germany as well, but these kids are on the run, not in schools or in cars with their mother.
The idea that a woman having a car and a kid might be homeless is totally alien to me, as well. The only possibility I can think of how this could happen is if she just ran away spontaneously neglecting all help she could get – that does happen, of course, and probably I’m just too naive.
Technically there are plenty enough resources to help, we just don’t adequately distribute them. Jeff bezos has like 4 condos in NYC alone iirc, (or maybe that’s musk) but he definitely also has a mansion with 24 fucking bathrooms.
For the woman having a car, the issue stems from the US not having stellar public transport, so she had to have a car so that she can work and send her kids to school, even at the expense of not having enough money to afford a home.
I never said homelessness is not a problem in Europe. On the contrary – working in a psychiatric hospital I am pretty aware of homelessness in our area. I just didn’t get the message of this cartoon, and I am shocked about what I learned today.
Wish I was able to get out more, though, your analysis is spot on.
I can’t imagine seeing this and immediately turning it into a international dick measuring contest. Maybe have some compassion instead of just making a “Sucks to be you” comment.
Being “too European” is clearly meant to be a slight (ie “My life is too good to understand this”), and honestly a naive one since it’s not like European countries have no homeless people.
Or maybe they thought it was referring to something more specific in American politics that they weren’t knowledgeable about and didn’t realize it was a more general message?
I’m too European to get it. What is the message?
Edit: I do get it now. I was lost in translation.
In Germany, we got two terms that translate to homelessness in English: Obdachlosigkeit (literally “shelterlessness”), defined as living on the street, and Wohnungslosigkeit (literally “appartmentlessness”), defined as lacking a living space rented or owned. “Wohnungslose” people live mostly in communal owned homes or with friends/acquaintances.
So, for me, understanding “homelessness” as “Obdachlosigkeit”, this cartoon was hard to grasp.
People think of the top left as homeless, and ignore the other three. Homeless people can have jobs and go to school, but can’t afford a home or might be homeless due to other circumstances like being kicked out of their home.
But people only think of the top left when someone says homeless.
To be clear, it’s the landlord’s that are kicking the most people out in 2024. Fuck all landlords.
Kicking more people out than other groups, or than other years?
That’s because for most people, the question of “what to do about homelessness” is a question of what to do about people who are asking them for money on the street.
Homelessness doesn’t just mean looking like a bum on the streets. Shocked a European wouldn’t be aware that all homelessness is not having a steady place to live, that includes people in hostels that are addicts or victims of various abuse. That includes 18 year olds told to leave the nest and stand on their own two feet when they’ve nothing actually lined up. That includes people who are couch surfing because they have an unsafe family home.
Homelessness is incredibly easy to fall into when situations spiral out of control. I’m long term unemployed (looking for employment though) with no savings but I live with my dad and if my dad kicked the bucket today then I would lose the home I grew up in and would have to get in touch with relevant authorities to be put on a waiting list that lasts years for somewhere to live.
Thank you for your explanation. It is legal to tell 18 year olds to leave home without providing for them? Wow. We have to provide for our relatives for life (parents for kids, but kids for parents as well. Well, at least legally – does not work in all cases.)
I’m aware that homelessness is not restricted to people like the man in the first panel. I’m working in a psychiatric hospital, and finding a place to live for our patients who are no longer capable of looking after themselves is not easy, but usually possible. I wasn’t aware people are forced to live in hostels.
I wish you good luck finding a job, long lasting health for your father and a way to keep your home on your own.
How does the “kids support parents” thing work? As someone who doesn’t make a lot of money, and who has a shitty relationship with my dad, that sounds like a nightmare. It’s not my fault those bastards made me.
AFAIK this only applies for the cost for nursing homes, not alimony. It is possible to reject paying for nursing homes if you can proove that the parents did not fulfill their obligations in raising you, like mistreated you or told you to leave when you were 18. I’m no expert on this matter. Of course, the income of people is taken into regard, so nobody has to pay more than they are able to. In theory at least.
If you enjoy podcasts, check out a limited-run show by 99% Invisible, called According to Need. It’s investigation takes place in my backyard (Bay Area, California) and interviews a number of people who are unhoused and attempting to scrape by as the system fails them.
People who are unhoused / homeless show up to work or school and then go sleep in cars or in shelters (if they can get a bed). You might know someone who is in a similar situation but hides it well.
A telling moment: my brother said he’d never give money to a panhandler because they can get a job at McDonalds. I put to him that McD’s wouldn’t hire someone who was so dirty. That the first check wouldn’t come for at least two weeks. That at the end of the day, he’d be absent the change that allowed him to buy a meal. I pretty much said, how would that help him right now? My brother seemed to understand because he just thought about it and didn’t respond.
One more! I tried to found a website with a friend, it failed. I fucked around learning new technologies while living off of savings. I was unemployed for several years. When I tried to rejoin the market, no one would talk to me. I had too much of a gap. I struggled to get a job. I was picking fruit from trees to augment my survival. I was spending a dollar a day on food. I tried dumpster diving at grocery stores and restaurants to no avail. I applied to work at grocery stores and veterinary clinics and the like for any job they’d give me. My background is in tech and they knew I’d drop them the minute I had an offer, so they wouldn’t hire me. Getting a temp job in my field opened the door to other jobs and I cracked the nut. I’m gainfully employed today, but I was nearly out on my ass. Loans from family members helped me avoid eviction. I’m lucky that I had no dependents.
There is no social safety net in the USA. There should be one. There should be multiple nets in the most prosperous nation in history.
This sounds terrible! I’m glad you survived.
I’m curious about a bunch of things here.
Homelessness looks different depending on your country. In Japan for instance it’s not hostels but internet cafes that host the majority of the homeless population. Basically those cafes were designed to give young people places to play games, surf the web and so on outside of the family home but because a lot of them had complimentary drinks, showers and whatnot they basically became nightly accommodation where a single night cost about the same as a decent meal you ended up with a place for a transient population of casual under employed workers to stay.
A lot of people in that situation face massive precarity. They live day to day keeping with very few personal possessions and tend to work jobs that are exploitative or dangerous because employers basically know they are in trouble and use that as leverage. An injury or illness can quickly cause you to fall into sleeping rough and become quickly life threatening because safety nets are few and far in between and if you can’t look clean your ability to self support becomes less likely.
That particular death spiral exists all over just in different forms. In the US it’s more likely to involve living out of a car. In Europe hostels intended on paper for backpackers but the basics are that once you start legitimately looking shabby and unclean to other people the empathy dries up so you need to do whatever you can to keep your head above that water because recovery past that point gets very very hard.
This is my current situation. He passed a month ago and I am scrambling.
I’m sorry to inform you that’s a very American thing. Especially for South Europeans and their ex-colonies, it’s not uncommon to stay with your parents to your late 20s or even early 30s.
The message is that it’s not only the unwashed pan handlers that are homeless. There are a lot of people that are or have been productive members of society that still become homeless. In the US a lot of the obvious homeless have major mental health conditions so many just assume that’s the main issue behind the majority of homless. When in reality it’s low wages that don’t keep up with inflation let alone inceases in cost of living
I’ve been all those kinds of homeless and let me tell you the ones sleeping on the street are also experiencing a totally different category of hardship than those who are homeless but sheltered.
Basically that the cost of living here in the US is out of control.
While this is true, it’s missing the point. See @VaultBoyNewVegas’s answer.
I didn’t understand it either.
Seems like the message is just anyone can be homeless, which is pretty obvious. I guess if people’s awareness is that low then it’s good for these sorts of messages to get out but also suggests that many people are just morons.
This is also a problem in the EU. Maybe not as big.
There’s a pretty interesting movie called Rosie that illustrates this.
You don’t have homeless people in Europe? The message is that not all homeless look like the guy in the first panel. There are all of these “invisible” homeless that go unseen because they don’t fit the stereotype.
We do have homeless people in Europe/Germany.
Thank you for your explanation. My problems understanding these panels were
My guess is that your society has the same problem to a much smaller degree and you just don’t know about it.
The kids are homeless because their parent is homeless. In Europe, are you guaranteed a home as long as you have children?
It’s actually more likely if you have a car. Cars are a money sink.
The US does not guarantee you a home if you have a child. If countries in Europe do that, that’s awesome, but the US definitely does not.
Sure, there are charities, but there aren’t enough resources to help everybody.
Technically there are plenty enough resources to help, we just don’t adequately distribute them. Jeff bezos has like 4 condos in NYC alone iirc, (or maybe that’s musk) but he definitely also has a mansion with 24 fucking bathrooms.
There are way more resources than necessary. Capitalists fabricate scarcity to hoard wealth
For the woman having a car, the issue stems from the US not having stellar public transport, so she had to have a car so that she can work and send her kids to school, even at the expense of not having enough money to afford a home.
That you should get out more (or stop ignoring homeless people when you are out). The idea that homelessness isn’t a problem in Europe is absurd.
I never said homelessness is not a problem in Europe. On the contrary – working in a psychiatric hospital I am pretty aware of homelessness in our area. I just didn’t get the message of this cartoon, and I am shocked about what I learned today.
Wish I was able to get out more, though, your analysis is spot on.
Here in Denver, people just ask whether a person “is outside”. That refers to sleeping unsheltered.
I can’t imagine seeing this and immediately turning it into a international dick measuring contest. Maybe have some compassion instead of just making a “Sucks to be you” comment.
I think this reply makes clear it was an honest question.
Being “too European” is clearly meant to be a slight (ie “My life is too good to understand this”), and honestly a naive one since it’s not like European countries have no homeless people.
Or maybe they thought it was referring to something more specific in American politics that they weren’t knowledgeable about and didn’t realize it was a more general message?
Sorry.