Essay #3:
In “Let them eat Code”, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian examines attitudes towards the homeless in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her thesis involves rich and entitled Internet technology workers, or “techies”, and their “obsession” with the spectacle of the mentally ill, disheveled and intoxicated homeless roaming the streets of “their” posh San Francsico. She frames her argument by examining a recent Facebook post by a tech CEO who believes that instead of polluting the streets with their abject poverty, the homeless and working class should “realize it’s a privilege to be in the civilized part of town and view themselves as guests” (Abrahamian). The title of her essay cleverly uses an analogy to the famous quote attributed to an out of touch Marie Antoinette, who advised the starving French citizens to eat cake. She is implying the privileged rich of San Francisco think the homeless should somehow survive on computer code. “Let them eat Code” clearly illuminates a growing divide in the U.S., between the tech/creative class, who can afford to live in places like San Francisco, and everyone else, who are forced out of housing markets because of income inequality. This divide is caused by a fundamental ideological inability for tech workers to understand the socioeconomic causes of this stratification and income inequality.
Income inequality has been an issue in San Francisco for a number of years as internet technology workers have forced long term residents out of the city (Oremus). The recent Google Bus protests have highlighted the tensions this economic trend has created. The private buses used to shuttle “techies” to their jobs in Silicon Valley have become a symbol of the growing divide between the rich and everyone else. The tech workers are accused of “ruining the city's freewheeling culture, driving up local rents, gentrifying diverse neighborhoods, undermining public infrastructure, and generally being lame” (Oremus). Meanwhile, the tech workers look down on everyone else as being “crazy, homeless, drug dealers, dropouts, and trash” (Oremus). One company decided to literally turn the homeless into mobile wireless hotspots by physically attaching small internet routers to them.
The homeless, in San Francisco and around the world, navigate a difficult social landscape. The homeless population is ostracized from the rest of urban life. They represent the opposite of traditionally defined success, threaten societal norms and emphasize the extreme social inequality in the U.S. , particularly in socially stratified cities like San Francisco (O'Mahony & Sweeney). Recent studies have explored how the homeless psychologically exists in cities, using material objects like shopping carts, boxes, books and radios to “maintain a sense of place in the city” (O'Mahony & Sweeney 286). Homeless people use their material objects to give them a sense of self and belonging in substitution of a home. As “mobile hermits”, they exist in a social space but there is little interaction between the homeless and other residents of the city (Hodgetts, Ottilie. et. al). This may explain the way tech workers view the homeless as physical features of city, like a sign or trash can, and not as humans. Why not transform them into something useful, like a wireless hotspot? This dehumanization of the homeless is an extreme version of socioeconomic stratification. As the middle class is forced out of the cities, all that is left is an exaggerated urban environment populated only by the very rich and absolutely destitute.
According to Abrahamian, the rich are often unable to feel much compassion for the homeless:
Successful businesspeople believe they secured their
venture capital or their hot wives because of merit
and not luck, privilege, or circumstance. The homeless,
therefore, make easy targets. If they can’t even get their
acts together to house and bathe themselves, let alone
build apps, why should they be allowed into parts of town
where the nice people go? (Abrahamian)
They do not feel any social responsibility to the homeless, because they have the things they have – housing in San Francisco, a high paying job, free transportation – because they earn it; they are being rewarded for their intelligence, hard work and merit. They believe that the homeless are living on the streets because they are stupid, lazy and do not deserve the rewards associated with productivity. The tech workers have “a worldview that cannot acknowledge that polite society may have played a large part in contributing to the homeless person’s plight“ (Abrahamian).
Moreover, along with despising the homeless, Abrahamian also describes a strange schizophrenic idealization of homelessness by techies. They pay $2,000 for a “a crash tour of the homeless life style,” which can be pursued as a minimalist business model. This “homelessness obsession” involves experimentation with homelessness, living in cars and embracing a minimalistic lifestyle (Abrahamian). However, this “less is more” approach to living really just reinforces how out of touch the affluent are with the reality of homelessness. The homeless are not trying to save money on rent by showering at the gym, they have profound problems that interfere with their ability to function. Being homeless is much more than just not having a house:
Being without housing, which is commonly described
as homelessness is experienced not only as an absence
of shelter but is also regarded as philosophical sense
of an ontological homelessness, as well as, alienation
Sweeney 289).
Being homeless is a complex dynamic that can involve many factors, such as mental illness, substance abuse, lack of education, health problems andjust plain bad luck.
However, the philosophy adopted by many rich and affluent people is that the homeless have made bad life choices, are addicted to drugs and simply did not work hard enough. However, this ignores a largely ignore segment of the homeless population – children (Walsh 438). Research shows the most at-risk and vulnerable people in society - such as children and the mentally ill - often are forced to exist on the margins of society, dragging their belongings around with them, while the Google employees are shuttled to work in air conditioned Wi-FI equipped buses. Where there “are no beds and there are no streets, outreach programs, and services, are the places where most of the homeless children are hidden” (Hodgetts et al. 286). This quote really hits home when thinking about the homeless population, as many people view homeless people as primarily adults. Children comprise a larger part of the homeless population than previously thought, which suggest that not all homeless people are in their situation because of their own faults (Walsh 440). Abrahamian would suggest that children are typically powerless to the living circumstances of their lives and, therefore, are worthy of help.
Research indicates that housing law and policy are incredibly important in giving the homeless the necessary resources they need to solve the specific reasons they are homeless (Hodgetts et. Al 287). The current wave of homelessness can be diverted when policies are put in place to provide the kind of support system a homeless person needs to improve their lives. Many of us take the support we receive in life for granted. The Google employees get a free ride to work everyday. Abrahamian briefly discusses how other cities solved their homeless problems by simply putting them in free housing. She mentions a Los Angeles study that found free housing costs about $600 a month per homeless person, compared to $2,900 a month spent on them if they stayed out on the streets (Abrahamian).
There is hope that, with early and consistent intervention, the homeless can learn to overcome their problems, both societal and personal. Therefore, one set of effective strategies is to ensure that there is priority access for homeless families to have services that can be used to reduce the effects of homelessness. This would include education, vocational training, employment opportunities and affordable housing. The inability for the affluent to relate to homeless people, to view them as spectacles, nuisances or entertaining aliens, is related to their inability to understand the societal causes of homelessness. Before we can deal with this problem as a society, we need to understand the nature of homelessness. This starts with recognizing that the homeless are not urban traffic obstacles, potential wi-fi hots pots or street furniture; they are human and deserve dignity and respect.
Works Cited
Atossa, Abrahamian. “Let Them Eat Code.” Dissent, 61.2 (2014): 69-72. Print.
Hodgetts, Darrin, Ottilie Stolte, Kerry Cambelain, Alan Radley, and Linda Nikora. "The Mobile Hermit and the City: Considering Links between Places, Objects, and Identities by Psychological Research on Homelessness." British Journal of Social Psychology 49.2 (2010): 285-303. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.
O'Mahony, Lorna and James Sweeney. “The Exclusion of (Failed) Asylum Seekers from Housing and Home: Towards an Oppositional Discourse.” Journal of Law & Society 37.2 (2010): 285-314. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.
Oremus, Will. "This Anti-Google Protest Didn't Go Quite as Planned." Slate Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Walsh, Sarah. “Invited Commentary: National Safe Place: Meeting the Immediate Needs of Runway and Homeless Youth.” Journal of Youth & Adolescence. 39.5 (2010): 437-449. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.
