Systemic Cruelty Dressed Up as Policy
Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. — Nelson Mandela (earth.org)
Criminalization of Survival
Across the United States, cities are treating the act of survival—sleeping, sitting, asking for help—as criminal behavior. These punitive “sit-lie” laws, camping bans, sweeps, and aggressive policing do not solve homelessness—they entrench it.
The National Homeless Law Center notes that criminalizing homelessness punishes life-sustaining activities and makes it “more difficult to escape” homelessness (homelesslaw.org). Human Rights Watch calls Los Angeles’s enforcement “cruel and ineffective,” targeting the visible poor rather than root causes (hrw.org).
And the National Alliance to End Homelessness found in a 2025 report that criminalization fails to enhance safety and instead deepens racial inequities (endhomelessness.org).
Welfare as Surveillance
What was once a safety net has become a web of surveillance and moral judgment. Welfare recipients often face drug testing, work mandates, and algorithmic gatekeeping. The state spends more money building systems to punish “fraud” than the fraud itself.
The broader trend is summed up in the concept of the criminalization of poverty—fines, anti-homeless laws, welfare policing—all disproportionately penalize people for behaviors tied to economic status (en.wikipedia.org).
Bipartisan Neglect
From Clinton’s “end of welfare as we know it,” to Republican austerity, to performative pandemic relief—both parties have abandoned structural solutions. Poverty remains a prop for campaigns, a scapegoat for policy failures.
The trajectory is clear: LBJ’s 1964 War on Poverty drastically reduced poverty, but the programs were retrenched in the decades that followed (en.wikipedia.org). As the New Yorker observed, “the retrenchment of the social-welfare state went hand in hand with the rise of the prison and policing state” (newyorker.com).
Policy as War
This isn’t side-effect cruelty—it’s intentional. Austerity is meticulously planned: sprawling military budgets and corporate bailouts while school lunches vanish, shelters shrink, and Medicaid is constantly threatened.
Anti-homeless laws that target sitting, sleeping, begging, and even sharing food are not about solving poverty—they’re about making the poor less visible (en.wikipedia.org).
Turning Cruelty into Care
Poverty isn’t inevitable—it’s policy. But if it’s made, it can be unmade.
Everyday Direct Care
- Support mutual aid groups, solidarity kitchens, street medicine teams, and eviction defense networks.
- Donate to or volunteer with organizations that protect civil rights for the unhoused, such as those advancing a Homeless Bill of Rights (en.wikipedia.org).
- Choose ways to help that don’t rely on surveillance or punishment, but on trust and dignity.
Local Policy Pressure
- Demand that local officials defund homeless sweeps and redirect funds to housing-first programs, mental health care, and tenant protections.
- Organize for the passage of Homeless Bills of Rights in your state or city.
- Pressure city councils and state legislatures to prioritize affordable housing budgets over police budgets.
State & National Strategy
- Advocate for restoring and expanding War on Poverty–era programs like Head Start, expanded tax credits, and affordable housing investments.
- Oppose laws that subject welfare recipients to invasive surveillance, drug testing, or punitive work requirements.
- Build alliances that prioritize social infrastructure over military expansion or corporate subsidies.
This is the real choice: treat poverty as crime, or treat it as solvable. The first path guarantees endless war on the poor. The second path builds a society worth living in.
Truth Over Tribalism
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