Homelessness, then, is a social relationship produced by an archipelago of vacant property and those who keep it so. This system of properties and their managers manifests itself in laws, vouchers, rent, in the police officer, the code enforcer, the fence, and the plywood-covered door, reserving places for some, excluding others.
- page 29, IMPASSES
The Tent City essay from IMPASSES is potent. I probably will have a multi-part response to this essay because there’s a lot going on. At a first read I dismissed it mostly because I have yet to fully support the Occupy movement and the essay, while not 100% aligned with Occupy, had enough coincidence to turn me off a bit.
But then I thought more deeply about one of the main points presented in the essay: the concept of homelessness. Sadly, I’ve never really thought too deeply about homelessness other than thinking about ways to eliminate it in the traditional ways society thinks about it – get people into homes. When I threw that notion out and asked, “why should we force people into homes?” I didn’t come up with any satisfying answers. This then lead to an even more fundamental question, “What is property?”.
Which, obviously, I’m not the first person to think about this and ask these questions. In fact a French thinker, Proudhon, wrote a book with this title in 1840. I have not finish this book but am quickly working my way through it. He calls for the abolition of property as a concept calling it robbery. I have yet to find anything particularly wrong with the IMPASSES essay nor Proudhon’s basically argument. I mean how can any of us claim rights over anything on the earth? over ideas? over information? the idea of property simply makes no sense.
If property as a concept doesn’t make sense the idea of forcing people into homes seems rather unfounded. Eh?
I will discuss the specifics of Tent City, Occupy and the essay itself in a follow up post.
