By Zipolita
It’s happening every day in this city. People silently suffering, humiliated, forgotten. Living in the margins while the rest of the world scrolls past vacation pics, engagement rings, and brunches that cost more than someone’s food budget for a week.
We talk about affordability like it’s just about numbers. But it’s not. It’s about dignity. About people being told they don’t deserve a home—just a room. A place to sleep, not a place to live. And somehow that’s supposed to be “enough.”
Imagine a person—someone’s parent, someone’s child—once independent, working, contributing. They hit a crisis. A health breakdown. A divorce. A trauma. And suddenly the system doesn’t offer them support—it offers them humiliation.
“You can stay with family,” they’re told.
“You’ll get your pension soon.”
“You don’t need a whole place—just a room.”
But what if family isn’t safe? What if that “room” is a shared space with strangers, no privacy, no peace, no rest? Why do we accept that basic stability is a luxury reserved only for those with deep pockets?
There’s no fairness in this. And maybe that’s the hardest pill to swallow.
Rich people don’t think about it—until something happens. A random stranger lashes out. A mental health crisis explodes into the headlines. Then suddenly they’re asking: “Where was the system?”
We’ve been asking that for decades.
We’ve been screaming.
The system fails people with mental illness. It fails the working class. It fails the elders who worked their whole lives only to retire into poverty. And it fails the families who are forced to become caregivers without support, watching someone they love spiral because there is nowhere else to turn.
We don’t want pity. We want change.
Stop treating housing like a prize to be won.
Stop normalizing the idea that a $2400 apartment is “just how it is.”
Stop expecting people to be grateful for being offered a bed in a corner when what they need is a place to heal, to belong, to live.
This isn’t just about poverty. It’s about justice.
And we won't be silent.
Not anymore.
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