1/ The most frequent comment on my abandoned building photos is "Why can't these be made into houses for the homeless?" A lot of times I roll my eyes a bit when it's a collapsing, asbestos filled factory, but with the events below, it merits some probing. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/child-dragged-from-house-as-california-highway-patrol-evicts-families-from-vacant-homes/ar-BB1bnG5V

2/ My feeling is that to talk about it, you have to start with the concept of private property, which I'm sure will piss everyone off.

Private property has always been a bizarre concept to me in some ways. How can someone own a stream or section of beach? Isn't that everyone's?

3/ It's worth thinking about, because private ownership of land hasn't been a thing in every time or place. But it sure is now! Even public spaces incorporate what's called hostile architecture, usually to discourage homeless people from staying there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture

4/ My guess is that private property became a thing in part because people are jerks. If you dig a well or plant a crop, what is to keep someone from just taking it? Why can't people just move into your home and kick you out because they're tougher? You need rules to prevent that

5/ You also need some sort of state or governance to enforce those rules to maintain peace. Who gets to make those rules? Here, it was wealthy white landowning guys. They got to make rules because having control of stuff gives you power. So far I'm sure you're aware of all this.

6/ I could probably write a book on all of this (and Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler goes into the concept in a lot more depth) but essentially that ownership of private property creates a labyrinth of laws and enforcement methods. Ownership is pretty much the basis

7/ So let's pivot: what makes a place "abandoned"? As the abandoned places guy I see it debated a lot. Is it if someone doesn't own it? Hate to tell you, but somebody owns pretty much everything.

8/ So, what then? Is it abandoned if the power has been cut? Nope, someone still owns it, and lots of places that are falling apart still have power. Is it being out of use? That's what I go by, but how long until it's 'abandoned' then? Is a house for sale abandoned?

9/ It's a really, really gray area. Let's say you have a mall that closes. It could be divided up into homes, but the owner is hoping it will either reopen or sell. He doesn't have the money to keep up repairs though and time is unkind to uninhabited places. It starts to rot.

10/ Should he just give this over to random homeless people? To him, of course not. It's an investment. But over time, it's degrading. At a certain point it's damaged enough that without major repairs it's uninhabitable. Who pays to make those? Should it be seized? By who?

11/ The very idea of using property for the public good to help right inequality and level the playing field goes against the idea of private property unless that is what the owner wants. That is a huge threat to people with money and power.

12/ Side note, the people saying "That should go to homeless people" - are they helping them? Do they donate to shelters? Maybe, but probably not. They want someone else to do it. Someone else should fix that problem for them. But not with their taxes in their neighborhood.

13/ And then there's "public land" owned by the city, state, etc. Taxpayers pay for it, but we sure don't own it. Try taking a police car for a ride if you don't believe me. Part of that is because someone would destroy it, part is because it's there to further state power

14/ Which is, as I mentioned, there to protect the existing structure of ownership that has been already established and make sure that those who have continue to have, and those who don't can't take things.

15/ So, if you have a bunch of homeless people that move into state-owned abandoned homes like the first link I posted, it may be for the best overall - they need homes, and maybe they'll even repair them and maintain them!

16/ But if people can just TAKE things because they're abandoned? That's a real issue for the Powers That Be because someone owns that stuff even if they're going to let it fall apart. What's to say someone's 7th vacation home they visit 1 week a year isn't abandoned too?

17/ When you own things you feel entitled to them. That's what ownership is, yeah? You earned it*! Why should someone who didn't EARN a home get one? Why did you have to pay & they didn't? We'd rather let someone freeze on the street than have that.

*even if you didn't

18/ So we want to feel compassionate and say "that thing I don't own should be given by someone else to someone else to help them" but God forbid it's OUR stuff. Or that it's any better (or even comparable) to our stuff.

19/ And since the majority of those of us with stuff are REALLY INVESTED IN THIS even though we don't want to think we're that way, we inwardly resent things that remind us of this problem - for instance, homeless people.

20/ We resent them because they make us ask ourselves: do we REALLY deserve to have these things when they don't? Do we just have what we do because the game is rigged in our favor and has been for centuries? Are we really as kind and generous as we want to pretend we are?

21/ So the cops come, because they enforce the rules of that rigged game, and drag kids out of otherwise unused homes so they can be homeless again because in the end that's what our whole system is about. It's about "screw those kids, better luck next life. I got mine."

22/ Why can't that abandoned (whatever) be used to house homeless people? Because we don't want it to bad enough to make it happen and if those who need homes try to occupy the places on their own, we'll drag them out into the street and put even their kids in cuffs. That's why.

23/ But the wealth gap has grown insurmountable. We're losing our jobs and homes. More of us are winding up out on the street. Will we deserve that, or did people deserve better all along? It's a thing we need to reckon with, and it's a bedrock part of everything around us.

24/ Almost all of us are living on a trap door now. It could open at any time and freezing to death on the street, begging for money from people who hate what you represent to them, a lot of us are going to find out about it.

25/ And my guess is nobody is going to give us an abandoned home or mall or whatever to live in when that time comes either. God forbid we disrupt the status quo.