All right

Austin did a thing, and as you might predict, while some people are saying "right on!" others are pearl clutching over how housing poor people creates a crime inferno (and a hearty fuck you to those people) and then there's the sneering "it's not enough" brigade

https://twitter.com/matthewferner/status/1354582128353189890

is living in a converted hotel--so, essentially living in a single room with limited cooking resources but with your own bathroom as good as having a full home of your very own?

no.

but have you ever once in your life slept rough?

I promise you that the hotel room is better.

and this is the no-brainer first step-find an unhoused person, and get a fucking roof over their head.

you know what the next step is? take a minute to guess.

the next step is to create a truly safe environment where the unhoused person doesn't have to do anything but heal.

I'm going to generalize, and i'm gonna say it with my chest: every single unhoused person has PTSD. some of them might be struggling with addiction. some of them might have other mental illnesses. some of them have major physical health problems, but PTSD is guaranteed.

and a big feature of that PTSD, I'm going to safely assume, is around feeling like nowhere is safe, because nowhere *was* safe. it's going to take a long time to build trust in their current situation and believe in that safety?

how long? not sure. it took me about three years.

yeah, plot twist. I'm talking about me. I'm talking about my experience. I didn't sleep rough. but I have lived in homeless shelters, which is one short step from there. i've couch surfed. i've been taken in by friends. I have traded sex for shelter.

I'm talking about me.

and when I got into a housing program designed to keep me from living on the streets, they had to tell me, over and over again: this is yours. you are safe here. no one is going to kick you out. there is no exit date. we are here for you as long as you need us.

it took three years for me to believe it, and I have never once spent the night outside because I had nowhere else to go.

but they took that time. they asked me what i needed help with--and when I finally realized that it was safe to say what I needed, i got help. every time.

so I got consistent treatment for my mental illness. I got food from the food bank. I got furniture from charity shops. I got group therapy and craft circles and yoga classes and group cooking nights and potluck dinners. I got subsidized rent and disability income and no deadline

and this, according to some people, is an unthinkable waste of time and money and compassion and nothing good will come of it and these places are cesspits of crime and these people are a drain and can't be helped by just giving them somewhere to live with no strings

well.

I will tell you that I feel safe around my neighbors who slept rough. they mind their business, they know who belongs in the building and who doesn't, they don't bring trouble, and they will whup you at cribbage so

so i should probably point out that this ineffective socialist policy the pearl clutchers hate is the reason why i was able to become a novelist with a debut title on Time Magazine's 100 best fantasy novels of all time and a book in Canada Reads

I could not have done that if I were unhoused and being criminalized by cops and forced to endure evangelical christian charity that they will snatch away if I don't convert. I promise you I could not.

I also promise that I could not have done that if somebody just handed me a house and walked away congratulating themselves

I needed this housing and all the supports that came with it. I needed years to recover, years to work on mental illness, and a dozen integration programs

And even if I hadn't become an astonishing story of blossoming success or whatever, if I simply lived here and had never written a word, but just lived in my safe home and minded my business, never worked another day in my life

it would still be worth it

because I deserve this.