 For those of you unaware, Jordan Charidan of Status Queue is doing phenomenal on-the-ground reporting, and I want to look at one of these videos that he posted. So, a fiercely anti-homeless Philadelphia protestor stormed away from our interview when Jordan Charidan challenged him on his attacks on drug addicts. I don't like your intimidating tactics. Anti-homeless Philadelphia protestor. Imagine being anti-homeless. I mean, holy shit. It's not bad enough to folks like, I'm assuming, this individual, that the folks are homeless. Like, you want to be anti-homeless. You want to further demonize them. And it's just, people are so, so cruel in this world. And it's really depressing. Let me, there we go, change the frame there. Alright, let's take a look here. Let me make sure I have that unmuted. Okay. Has been sleeping in a park for over... You know, I just spoke with a homeless person who was a construction worker. Got laid off during the pandemic. Has been sleeping in a park for over a year. Has been sleeping in a park for over a year. Can't get another construction job because he doesn't have a residence to put on his and the shelters have not allowed him back in. So, it seems that you're making generalizations without... Yeah, that's a great point by Seabass. If you're anti-homeless, then alright, you should be an advocate for public housing. Exactly, exactly. The best anti-homeless is giving people homes, healthcare, a living wage. Yeah, if you are unhoused and you think that those people are bad, then you better be absolutely screaming at the top of your lungs for public housing. So, people who are unhoused, get homes. Let me go back a little bit. Oh, it seems that you're making generalizations without... You're making generalizations based on anecdotal data of your own. First of all, what a smug person. Second of all, the mask goes above your nose and your mouth. If you're gonna have it down here, there's no point in wearing it. Like, it goes above your nose. And thankfully, Jordan Charidan is vaccinated, I'm assuming. So, it's like, why... We can still hear you with the mask over your nose. This is like one of my pet peeves. Yeah, the chin strap. It's not a fashion accessory. Put the mask over your nose. And I'm surprised that this person would be against unhoused people if he's wearing a mask. Like, this mask leads me to believe that he's a liberal. I mean, liberals can be cruel, too. Let's be real about that. Okay, I'll shut up and we'll watch the video. I do know the difference between homeless and drug addiction. What's the difference? If people are here just for the drugs and don't want to leave, that's the difference. And you're not being a fair... If you're being a journalist... I should stand like a robot? No, but you should be fair and neutral to borrow a fox friend, which I don't listen to, but... Neutral? Neutral is bullshit. None of them are neutral. They're all biased. But putting that aside, putting that aside, you know what I find interesting here? And, you know, I'm sure you're a good guy. I'm sure you've gone through struggle in your life. Whether it was maybe not drugs, maybe mental health, maybe poverty, whatever. But I think the thing that maybe you're missing is these people don't have air conditioning during the summer. You do. We're going to the community. We're the victims here. Most people in my community are what they call deep poverty, under 12,000 a year. So you just made my point, though. People here with housing are struggling very badly. You can't survive from your neighbors. These drug addicts still. And I think I've had enough. All due respect to you. You don't like your viewpoint being challenged? I don't like your intimidating tactics, quite frankly. I'm intimidating? Never mind. Wow. Wow. This is my first time seeing this. Yeah, snowflake. Look, if you're going to be against people without homes, you better own that shit, right? And it's just the lack of empathy here. If you're suffering, if you're impoverished and, you know, you don't have an AC and it's hot, imagine how much worse it must be for people who have to sleep on the streets. Imagine just for a second what it's like to be in their shoes. I just, I don't get why people are so cruel. When I was really young, like a teenager, I had this really biased view against people who would be like holding signs. And I think, oh, well, you know, they're just going to, if I give them a dollar, they're just going to use that to buy beer, so why would I do that? And one of my professors, she was like doing the lecture and she made such a great point about that, that really like it stuck with me till this day. It was, and if they buy a beer with a dollar or two dollars that you give them, why is that a bad thing? Why should they not be allowed to engage in vices? Why should they not have any enjoyment whatsoever? Why should people who are sleeping on the streets be completely miserable? And that was a point that like there's no good answer to. These are human beings and I'm sorry, if I'm sleeping on the streets, I don't want to be sober. I'm going to want to do drugs. Being sober would probably, you know, remind me of all of the pain that I'm experiencing. So the issue isn't that people who are sleeping on the streets are the problem. The problem is a failure by the government. Every single person who's against homeless, like this individual here, I'm assuming that they think that homeless people are homeless because of their own wrongdoing. That's not actually true. Every single person who sleeps on the streets, that's a policy failure. That's not an individual failure. That is a policy failure, right? And that's not saying that I 100% discount individual responsibility because we do have our own autonomy, right? I can make decisions that are harmful to myself. But this isn't just like some issue that's occurring in a vacuum in this city. The issue of people not having homes is a nationwide issue that's getting really, really bad. It's getting really bad in particular in very big cities, but now, even in rural areas, you'll see homeless folks, people who are unhoused. They're not nuisances who are pestering folks. They see homeless folks and they really dehumanize them. They think, oh, the peasants are coming. And we're not talking about petite bourgeoisie folks. We're talking about just normal people who aren't sleeping on the streets. We're talking about folks who like see them and look at them as pests. And they see that and they're uninformed, so they think, I'm going to blame them for that. But that's not the way to actually look at this situation. You have to look at it from their perspective. Nobody chooses to be homeless. Nobody wants to be homeless. There's a series of things that happen that lead to someone sleeping on the streets, being unhoused, and that is an issue. That's an issue that can be addressed. There is absolutely no reason why in the richest country on the planet, anyone is sleeping on the streets. The fact that there's a single person sleeping outside unless they're camping, it's unacceptable. It's a policy failure. And that's the problem with conservatism in general. They don't seem like a conservative. They seem like a liberal, right? I mean, they have a mask on. So I assume that they're liberal just because they have a mask on. But I mean, this doesn't necessarily seem like a conservative person. So perhaps this person isn't always going to have this negative view towards people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged and less fortunate than they are. But because unhoused folks, I don't know where this is, is an issue because drug addiction is an issue. This individual is going to draw a link between heroin drug use and someone who's sleeping on the streets. This is going to be the causal mechanism, the key causal mechanism here. And if they stopped doing heroin, then they would no longer not have a home. They would be able to get their act together and get a job. That's not the way that this works, though. Also, this issue is a public health issue. It's not an individual issue. If you are addicted to heroin, then if the state, if the city that you're in doesn't actually provide services to help you get off of this, again, another public policy failure. All of the problems here, there are solutions to them. That's the thing. There are solutions to them. And it's not just like really crossing your fingers and hope that folks make better decisions. That's not going to solve these types of issues. What's going to solve these issues are policy changes. And that's what this individual doesn't understand. And I feel bad that they were talking about how they live in probably inadequate housing with no AC. I mean, I've been there. That's miserable, right? When it's super hot and there's no AC, you're sleeping like shit. It's miserable. But this person is trying to blame their miserable state on folks who are less fortunate than him, less fortunate than them rather than looking at the failure of government. And as Tara puts it, some get addicted heroin because of drug companies. Exactly. Some folks maybe have more addictive personalities. Maybe folks try it and they get addicted. But it's not always their fault. And so we're so quick in this country to demonize folks if they do something bad. Oh, that's your own fault. But things are bad right now. People are suffering. Income and wealth inequality is just, it's so huge, you know, of an issue. The disparity between the rich and the poor is so large. And we've basically privatized all of the public services that did exist. So now it's kind of like you're on your own, right? That's the philosophy. The acronym is Yo-Yo. You're on your own. But what we really need to embrace rather than that like Milton mindset is we need to embrace WIT. W-I-T-T. We're in this together because we are. I mean, what's the point of living in a society if we're not going to help each other out? We pull resources and then make sure nobody has to sleep on the streets.