On Friday, June 28, 2024 the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 vote that cities have the authority to punish people for sleeping in public spaces when they have nowhere else to go.

In response to the Supreme Court ruling homelessness illegal, I want to say that it feels
like they are just further “legitimizing” the true grounds of colonialism that this country is founded
on. Land commodification, the very framework of the appropriation of (stolen) land is not only
the reason that corporate profits continue to skyrocket it is the reason for all of its casualties
including poverty and homelessness, environment decays, displacement of species, illness and
death in all living things, endangerment and extinction of animals and the peoples who live most
in tune with the land and other species. People judge unsheltered folks so harshly, judge their
stuff so harshly because it’s not contained neatly but, if everything you own fits into a shopping
cart or tent you are using very little resources, they just aren’t hidden. Their existence isn’t
hidden and it isn’t compartmentalized into nuclear families or stoic, self-sufficiency. It’s
communal because that is how people who have very little survive but it’s also how a strong
community thrives. A tent, though ideally temporary, is a home to protect from the elements and,
in Albuquerque, there are no more places to go, there are no hotel vouchers and all the shelters
are full.
I’d much rather my tax dollars go towards housing unsheltered folks, which will help build
healthier people who can build healthier communities than go to prisons which will be far more
costly and benefit only the few wealthy by providing (slave) prison labor.

-Harley Kirschner