Unhoused but not homeless

Here's another story of well-organized living by unhoused people who carry their homes with them and sleep in the streets. At dusk today I passed these four carts and a small bicycle, tied together outside a park where some unhoused people sleep.

Last night President Obama delivered his annual State of the Union speech. He talked about things I care about: climate change, immigration, income inequality (a phrase he adopted from the Occupy movement), his desire to close Guantanamo, and his desire to see that women earn equal pay for equal work (first time I've heard a politician say that in years). He says he wants every child to have access to a good education, and he wants to help those who are in deep debt for their college educations. He says he wants to end the endless wars, bring the troops home, employ diplomacy rather than bombs, and be sure that veterans get the health care and mental health care they need.

I was glad to hear a President of the USA say all this. In my long life, the only US President before him who has said much the same was Jimmy Carter, and that was a long time ago and it did not go well for him. But will  Obama actually do what he talks about? Can he?

As soon as he stopped talking, right-wing nut jobs immediately called him a "socialistic dictator." But Progressives complain that he's a running-dog lackey of the capitalists whose money put him in office. A Seattle Socialist issued her own speech right after Obama's speech, and it's hard for me to argue with much of what she says, although I don't blame Obama for the ills of our time but rather a stalled and moribund system in which his moderate right-wing policies are systematically negated by those who are extremely right-wing.  

The reality on the ground--literally--is that far too many people are sleeping on the ground. Far too many people who once had houses to live in are now pushing and parking grocery carts with their "home" in them. Who will fix that?