I’ve had the thought experiment of homelessness many times, pre dating attending life.
How does one end up homeless?
What would I do if I lost my job? I’d look for a different job.
What would I do if I couldn’t find one? Time for my husband to work FT, cut back on lifestyle, etc
What if he dies, I still can’t find a job? Then we’d (myself and four kids) move in with my mom
If she threw us out, we could go to my in laws, we could probably shuffle between relatives for a few years, if we got thrown out of everywhere we’d get a small apartment and go on public aid
To end up actually on the street homeless with no access to bathing, not just couch-surfing, you have to have no resources, be unable to find or hold down a job that pays enough to maintain a household, run out of relatives and friends who will help you. I think most of the time that does not happen without a significant mental health or substance abuse component.
I’m not saying everyone who is homeless uses drugs , or is mentally ill , but in my experience in 3 poor urban area hospitals almost all homeless people are homeless because of some combination of bad luck, substance abuse , and mental illness - I can’t remember a homeless person who was just unlucky although I’m sure it can happen. I think it is disingenuous to suggest that people start using drugs because they are homeless. Because most people who use drugs are not homeless.
I do think that once someone is homeless it’s harder than it should be to recover and regain housing - and if you don’t have stable housing how can you get clean off drugs or take your psych meds reliably. Maybe California will figure it out for the rest of us 🤷🏻♀️
Please don't take what I am about to say as an attack, because the thinking you outline is pretty common, but it shows a misunderstanding of basic realities of how poverty works and how its a multigenerational trap.
It doesn't make sense to start thinking from your point of view in life now. While I am sure you experienced your fair share of challenges, so many things had to line up ok for you to end up where you are in life. Even assuming you didn't have any of the privileges that are typical for people who end up in medicine, odds are that you weren't exposed to high levels of led in gestation and early childhood. Or experienced personal and communal violence growing up. Or grew up in a shelter because your parents were homeless.
To address some specifics:
-I'd look for a different job: you're qualified to do a lot of things, most people aren't
-My husband would work more: many people don't have a partner to fall back on, full time minimum wage is barely survivable for one person
-Move in with my mom: your network is part of your safety net, for most people in poverty their network is equally poor
-Go to in laws: again, many people don't have in laws, and/or their network is too poor to help
-Public aid: I've spent some time volunteering to help people apply for various forms of aid. As a proficient English speaker with a fairly good understanding of the system and the time to try to figure it out (because I wasn't working a minimum wage job to support myself), I had so much difficulty getting food stamps for people who clearly needed them, and that was in a relatively easy state from that perspective.
Now for some broader context:
My partner is a community school administrator for a community based organization that runs several schools, mostly in the Bronx. 25% of her kids live in shelters. Their schools have a trauma counselor because so many kids are traumatized by violence (abused, seen their parents murdered, etc). The majority of her students suffer food insecurity. Their school meals are the only warm food many of them ever eat. What do you think one's chances of academic success are in that kind of situation? Now consider that a third grading reading level is so highly predictive of not just being able to graduate from high school but of
going to jail that it has long been suggested as a way of predicting future jail bed needs. The general concept is referred to as a school to prison pipeline. Also this kind of situation is not extreme or exotic in any way. About 16% of children in the US live in poverty, though the rates are much higher in some communities.
Do you have some familiarity of how easy it is to go to jail? Too large of a separate topic to tackle, but let's just say that between all the things that count as a violent crime (more than you'd think), laughably underfunded public defenders, and >90% conviction rates, it is extremely likely that a relatively minor mistake early in life absolutely destroys the rest of it. About 3% of the population have been to jail. While some have been successfully rehabilitated, given how hard it is to get a job or housing with that hanging over you, a lot of people just don't stand a chance.
With all that being said, do you still think if you were born to different circumstances that it couldn't happen to you?
"There but for the grace of God, go I."
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