Thursday, February 16, 2012

Were Slaves Better off than many Homeless Today?

Sadly, the answer might be "Yes". For example, slaves usually had a place to stay and food to eat. Often, if you are homeless neither of these things are true. Though if you were a slave you might not have clothes but rather rags, usually you had food and shelter. The word "Homeless" implies no place to live, even though some "Homeless people have vehicles or tents to live in all over the U.S."

As the divide grows ever wider this year as gasoline and food prices increase exponentially, it might be important to consider just how bad off many homeless in the U.S. have it now here in the U.S. and that their plight without homes, clothes, food, transportation or medical care is actually Worse than slaves had it before the Civil War. You might answer back to me that slaves were beaten, raped, drugged, abused, etc.  I think what is happening to children and young adults and older adults who have no place to go in and lock the doors now in many places might be much worse than that today as you read this.

For example, the most you can expect if your unemployment insurance runs out as an adult or child here in the U.S. is around 200 dollars in food stamps for food every month if you can prove that you are a U.S. citizen. That's it! So, if you are a single person and not a mother with children that's all that you can expect until you die which might be soon without medical care, clothes, or shelter.

I can remember at one point, for example, when I was raising 3 teenagers and a baby with my wife and though we were okay financially and had a great place to live with 4 or 5 cars, we still couldn't afford health insurance because of how expensive teenagers and a baby are. I knew something was wrong with my heart because I had had a panic attack that mimicked a heart attack. So, I sought out heart specialists to try to diagnose what was wrong with me. No one would take me as a patient because I had no insurance. I finally gave up realizing no one was going to help me and that I might die. About ten years later I was doing financially very well and had medical insurance and almost died from a heart virus which I would have died from without medical insurance. It isn't just a possibility I would be dead now for 13 years. Because of almost dying for 7 months when I got better I had two colonoscopies because the first one found precancerous polyps. So, I did another one to be sure. Undiagnosed colon cancer is almost always fatal if it isn't treated in time even though it develops very slowly over 10 or more years. So, just because I was well off enough to be able to afford good medical insurance I am alive now at 63.
However, other people who had any of my conditions would have died by 50 or 55 without good medical insurance and good care. This is a given.

So, were slaves better off than many homeless today? I think the answer sadly is "YES".

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