Nearly a year ago I wrote a story based on an interview Michael Shellenberger did with a homeless man in San Francisco. “If we’re going to be realistic, they pay you to be homeless here,” said James a heavily tattooed homeless man. “Why would I want to pay rent? I’m not doing sh*t,” he added.
People say lack of housing forces local residents into the streets, but James says he came from Texas to San Francisco for the drugs, the non-enforcement of anti-camping laws, and the $820/month in welfare & food stamps. James says he sold fentanyl, 2 weeks ago, to a 15-year-old. pic.twitter.com/5qMr6tmlWs
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 9, 2022
As Shellenberger noted at the time, people aren’t used to hearing these sorts of direct answers to basic, obvious questions because so many in the media have bought into a certain view of homelessness that the questions don’t get asked.
I say all of that because today there is another blunt interview circulating on Twitter with a homeless woman named Wendy who lives on the street in Portland. Her comments sound a lot like what James said last year. “It’s a piece of cake, really,” Wendy said. She continued, “I mean that’s why you probably got so many out here because they feed you three meals a day, you don’t have to do shit but stay in your tent or party. If you smoke a lot of dope you can do that.
“Yeah that’s really it, it’s like you wake up you go eat at Blanche, get high. Go eat at Blanche for lunch, get high. Go eat dinner, get high and that’s all you do all day long every day.”
“It’s a piece of cake…you get three meals a day and don’t have to do shit…wake up, eat get high, wake up eat get high” repeat. A homeless woman shared with me why it’s so easy to be homeless. She was brutally honest because she hates the enablement “They are loving us to death” pic.twitter.com/HxRUoSFFFu
— Kevin Dahlgren (@kevinvdahlgren) December 31, 2022
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There’s more to the interview which makes it clear that it isn’t always easy to be out on the street.
stop and say hi. When I’m in charge I will have bring outreach back. It will be daily and we will come with actual resources, not just peanut butter sandwiches. We need to work together to end this very fixable humanitarian crisis @choeshow @ShellenbergerMD @weheartseattle pic.twitter.com/sKz0wnpjv0
— Kevin Dahlgren (@kevinvdahlgren) December 31, 2022
Living on the street would be terrible for most people and in fact it’s objectively terrible for Wendy and for James. They aren’t doing anything with their lives at this point. They aren’t going anywhere and they’ve lost touch with everyone in their lives who cared about them.
Nevertheless, for some the lure of doing drugs all day every day has become the focus of their lives. For some of them, it’s better and easier than trying to make the long climb back to sobriety and some kind of stable situation in a home they work for with money they earned. To put it bluntly, the addicts have gone all in on the one thing they care about. All their time and money is spoken for, including the money needed to buy new dentures. And that’s why you end up with so many chronically homeless addicts who turn down offers to go to shelters or other supervised help.
There is a semi-happy ending to this story. The man who interviewed Wendy started a fundraiser to get her new dentures. She’s grateful but for now she’s still living on the street (2nd clip below).
Checked on Wendy today and told her the good news that there is now a fundraiser to get her new dentures because the last ones were stolen from her. pic.twitter.com/EJZbdk4Im3
— Kevin Dahlgren (@kevinvdahlgren) January 2, 2023
