the first priority of houselessness advocacy should not be housing (although this is an important option for those who want it) but the right to free movement and the right to camp. every culture in every period of human history has had itinerant individuals, and in many places those individuals made up the bulk of human beings. in our society houselessness is incredibly difficult, but it doesnt have to be. as a houseless individual my biggest concern at all times was police harassment (being told to move along or having my shit tossed for being too conspicuous), and without that i would have been able to aquire a lot more agency and self subsistence with things like a semi-permanent camp, and growing and catching my own food (meaning: existence outside of wage slavery and property ownership. this is what scares them!). the fact is that privatization of property and vagrancy laws have been making the lives of houseless individuals infinitely more difficult over the past few hundred years. and until housing is wrestled from concepts of property ownership and rental fuedalism, “housing” the homeless is effectively a matter of bringing “free elements” out of the wild and into capitalist control. besides, there will always be people who slip through the cracks bureaucratic initiatives, and these people are left out in the cold because a man in an office did not dain to imagine them when he wrote his legislation. if you actually care about quality of life for the houseless and not just unsightliness, deprivatize unused property, create more robust welfare systems that dont require documentation to access, give people the right to roam and plant and gather, and who knows- maybe in ten years the tent cities will be places of color and joy and life lived in connection with nature. and because people dont have to struggle to find a place to lay their head, instead of desperation our streets will be full of artisans and musicians and laughing people.
And personally? To be in the tickets booth, and see young girls, teenagers, adult women, coming in to see Barbie,
the most highlighter pink outfits, some of them coming in with the dolls they’re dressed as, laughing to each other, cheering for each other,
to see the men they’re coming to see it with, dressed in pink, cheering them on, taking their pictures with smiles and cheers in the lobby at the photo op
touches something so deep in me
I can’t say any nuances of the movie that haven’t already been said, but like, fuck man, love is so deep and so kind and to be able to see glimpses of it from behind my little ticket desk makes me a little less nihilistic.
