BRATTLEBORO — The anti-homeless sentiment in this town is repulsive.
People describe our town and our state as progressive, but then you walk by a business that serves $18 salads which puts out a class-ist sandwich board (“Will make kebabs for $ - anything helps. God bless.” and “Trying to make a living by working hard. Anything helps. God bless.”) as a marketing gimmick, right across from where the “Hate Does Not Grow Well in the Rocky Soil of Vermont” banner once was.
Hate does, in fact, grow here, and we fertilize the soil when we either ignore or encourage this type of behavior.
It makes me ashamed to live here and ashamed of the overly vocal bigots I frequently encounter who drown out the messages of peace and inclusivity that so many of us are striving for. I will not patronize this business ever again.
This sign was a slap in the face to every person who is incapable of working due to physical and/or mental disability. Every person who doesn't have a solid support system of friends and family to fall back on when they lose a job and struggle to find a new one. Every person who had a dangerous/abusive home life they needed to escape and no savings to help them secure a home of their own.
There are so many reasons for homelessness, and poverty is a vicious cycle passed down generationally, but so many people fortunate enough to know nothing about that want to make assumptions about the circumstances that lead so many to this place because it makes them feel superior.
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While this sign was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, it was just one of many experiences I've had where people were disrespecting the homeless population in this town.
People in this community want to demonize homeless people and use their behavior as an excuse. They're too loud/vulgar/aggressive in the streets. They use some of the money they collect for beer/drugs. They sit/stand on the sidewalk and make rich tourists uncomfortable when they have to think for three seconds of someone less fortunate than themselves.
But the same people making these accusations are guilty of the same behaviors - the only difference is that they are lucky enough to have a home.
These same people will defend their sexually predatory, aggressive, abusive, con-artist friends, family, and colleagues, if they aren't those things themselves. But suddenly they're outraged by those behaviors if the person is holding a sign asking for change?
I walk around downtown Brattleboro quite a bit, and I have never been harassed by anyone with a sign. I walk by, I might smile, I might say hello, I might give them change, I might say, “Sorry, I don't have any,” I might not say or do anything, and nobody bothers me, probably because I'm not scowling and yelling, “Get a job!”
I see and hear much more disturbing behavior coming from employed/housed locals who are hanging out at or coming home from the bars.
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And I, for one, don't care about placating tourists whatsoever.
Our community is much too focused on tourists and not nearly focused enough on our own residents and becoming more self-sustaining, affordable, and accessible to the people who live here.
We have dozens of overpriced shops and restaurants that our own working class residents can't afford and can't sustain themselves working at. We don't have places to shop for basic necessities at reasonable prices.
We're angry that we have homeless people in the streets, but not angry at the predatory landlords and real estate investors who price working folks out of homes.
We're angry that homeless people don't have a job to go to like we do, but not angry that the available jobs pay poverty wages, offer no benefits or job security, and actively work against our rights as employees.
We're angry that homeless people don't get treatment for their physical and/or mental disabilities that prevent them from working, but not angry at the woefully inadequate health-care/disability system in our country that makes treatment unaffordable and inaccessible.
And part of me feels bad for those who have gone beyond just buying into the just-world/bootstraps fallacies, who are not just content to sell their labor for significantly less than it's worth so that the actual leeches of our society can make bank, but who defend the system that abuses them at the expense of people whose circumstances they couldn't dream of facing.
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You hate seeing homeless people downtown?
Go do something about the circumstances that put them there.
Circumstances like the fact that there are six homes for every homeless person. The fact that we waste 40 percent of the food we produce. The fact that the minimum wage is less than half of what it should be if it had increased with inflation.
There are a million things you could choose to address that are wrong with our town, wrong with our country, but you choose to kick those who are already down instead.
Absolutely disgusting.