The hardest lesson people learn when they first become unhoused is that the world no longer runs on the same rules they were living by the day before. It hits fast, and it hits in the gut. Everything else grows out of that one realization.
They learn that much of what they had control over in their life is now gone. People go from:
• choosing when to sleep
• choosing what to eat
• choosing who is around them
to: Having almost no choice – at all. This loss of agency can be devastating!
One’s identity doesn’t matter to most people now.
Someone who was a parent, a worker, a neighbor, a friend… now gets treated like a problem, a stereotype, or a threat.
• People avoid eye contact
• Their name isn’t asked any more
• Their story doesn’t matter
• They’re spoken to like they’re dangerous or incompetent
There’s this kind of social erasure that takes place.
You no longer matter to society.