I'm used to it. I see the same poor reception in every online discussion I've seen on the homeless, where user comments are allowed. It's the culture. People were taught to blame and hate the homeless. And boy, do they love piling on the hate on the homeless.

They never stopped to think that maybe homeless people are a symptom of the problem, not the cause.

Consider the game Monopoly. If you've ever played it, you know the outcome is always the same. One person owns everything and wins. Everyone else goes bankrupt. Why does this happen? What fascinates me about this is no one ever questions this.

Well, one argument is, the winner was just a better player than the others. The others made bad decisions. Well, maybe.

I say the real answer lies deeper. Forced bankruptcy is built into the game. It comes from how the rules were designed and work. Change the rules a certain way, and you change the outcome of the game. Nobody then need ever go bankrupt at all, ever. No matter how "bad" their decisions are. But then that would be boring, wouldn't it? People want winners and losers.

Monopoly was originally a teaching game, to teach how monopolies form, and why they're bad. Makes for a great game, but makes for a terrible reality. Masses of destitute with a handful of extremely rich people. Sound familiar? Not as bad now. Why? Because we changed the rules of society.

Once upon a time right here on this continent of North America, there used to be a society where homelessness didn't exist at all.

Native American society. There was no such thing as a homeless person. Need a home? Just find some vacant land somewhere and build one. No one would stop you. Having a home was an inalienable right, and housing was extremely cheap. You weren't required to work the bulk of your adult adult life just to pay for a place to live.

When the European colonists came, they brought homelessness with them. Because that was built into the rules of their society.

Different rules, different outcomes.