madmonq’s joint

After taking a job as an instructor at Outward Bound, Ms. Rubin, along with some of her co-workers, settled into the top floor of the organization’s Long Island City headquarters. She camped out in a bunk bed; others converted nearby office cubicles into sleeping spaces, or pitched tents on the building’s roof. To create some privacy, they hung towels and sheets around their bunks.

While Outward Bound officials stress that they view these cubicles and tents as temporary housing solutions, Ms. Rubin, who has since moved to Vermont for a short while, was grateful for a free place.

While young people in New York have always sought roommates to make life more affordable, they are now crowding so tightly into doorman buildings in prime neighborhoods like the Upper East Side that they may violate city codes.

They don’t have to live in Manhattan to work there. And given this groups background, education, and career choices it looks like they don’t have to live in cramped quarters. So it’s not that they can’t find affordable housing. It’s that they can’t find affordable housing in Manhattan that they want. That’s sort of thinking can only be attributed to a lifetime of privilege and little responsibility. The kind that makes you think you’re entitled to be a fire hazard.

With a little effort they could probably afford a place of their own, with roommates, maybe even in Manhattan. What they can’t do is live in a less-than-halfway decent apartment (read: neighborhood) without it shattering their little lives. Without earning it, they still think they deserve a nice apartment in a swanky neighborhood.

Do you think they looked in Harlem? Do you think the above company would allow the janitor to sleep on premises between homes or is he/she just shit out of luck?

Homelessness is usually reserved for the truly mentally, physically and finacially disabled. Otherwise, people who squat in commercial spaces, mooch off of their friends and/or cause a fire hazard aren’t usually praised for their ingenuity. They’re usually called bums. They’re not allowed a respectable title like hobos, but bums. When the bum eats out of dumpster, is it called innovative take-out? They can buy street art (read: graffiti) as long as they don’t have to live in the artist’s old neighborhood. Beside, they wouldn’t have anywhere to put it. I’m sure their scrappy ingenuity will allow them to come up with something that’ll impose upon their friends and the others’ safety.

It doesn’t seem the article’s author or the subjects of the article had any question of their ethics. Their behavior is acceptable because they’ve been accepted their entire life. Meanwhile the building’s janitor is living in a box. Circus carney have more integrity. Like a lot of people sometimes I think the homeless are just plain lazy. Surely with a little effort they can find a place to live. But until now I’ve never had reason to think they were shallow as well. Maybe this groups mental health issues just hadn’t caught up with them and somehow they’re planning ahead.

Acute narcissism is listed in the DSM as a mental health issue. That about covers it. As of now they’re just giving the homeless a bad name.