During the Covid-19 pandemic, I’ve developed a theory. I call it Dave’s Law, although I don’t expect it will ever make me famous. It goes like this: there is a direct relationship between infection rates and the presence of homeless people on city streets.
There may be any number of reasons for this:
For instance, when infection rates go up, more people work from home. While this doesn’t mean the number of homeless people goes up, it does mean that homeless people account for proportionately more of the people moving through public spaces, and so they are more visible.
Another reason may have to do with the possibility that the number of homeless people really is going up. With each spike in infection rates, the precariously employed and the precariously housed become increasingly vulnerable. The government can offer all the assistance it likes, this is only a band-aid approach to more fundamental issues. As many have observed, the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed fundamental flaws in the way we organize ourselves as social beings.
Every morning, as I walk through our city streets, I smell the consequences of our flawed approach.
