It’s Not My Problem

1/6/2025

3/19/24
[chorus]
it is not my problem
I don’t have a problem
Telling any body that
Its not my problem

had to narrow subject matter from all the worlds problems down to just homelessness. Then, from that topic, pick the 3 most visible truths to us housed people.

3 sentence story:

• It’s not my problem YOU begging at the stop light
• It’s not my problem YOU have a tent on the sidewalk
• It’s not my problem YOU pushing a shopping cart down street

free write a story. pick 5 keywords that rhyme. Focus only on homelessness to have a more narrow subject.

you are homeless, politicians corrupt, pharma is running big media, media lies/filters truth (threats to journalism), global warming/climate change, healthcare, unemployment, violence, gun control???, education, student debt!! (debt bondage), food security (WTF is USA’s problem), drug/substance abuse, increased migration,

could be neighbor asking you for assistance when it’s not your problem, but a house fire causes you to now ask for assistance to have your neighbor say ‘it’s not my problem’.

why does your homelessness have to be my problem? your choices put you there. why is it my problem if it was your choices? I could have also made bad choices, but I didn’t make easy choices or take the easy way. I executed hard choices my entire life in avoidance of being homeless. Getting up and going to work at a job I hate every single morning was a decision. I didn’t want to spend my life in a cubicle. Why did I do it? So I wouldn’t be homeless. This is your own problem.

what: Sickness, lack of education, lack of job training, trapped in a cycle of poverty (children), drug addiction, house fire,

who: veterans, LGBTQ, survivors of domestic violence

Choice, avoid, noise, moist, poise, toys,

cubicle, lickable, fickle, clickable, nickel, pickle, sick, tickle, pick, stick,

each verse hints at causes of homelessness and embraces stereotypes about homeless. Lazy, mental illness, criminal, drug addicts, homeless by choice.

1/7/2025

plausible story line finally figured out that the neighbor and politicians are the ones singing the chorus, not the storyteller. YOU is now the homeless, which I tried to help. Every time I help, I’m the one in trouble with the law. the 3 most visible:

• begging at the stop light – I gave you food that lead to litter, BUT the law says I can’t do that.
• a tent on the sidewalk – I built you a housing pod but homeowners complained about aesthetics and property values, BUT the law says I can’t do that.
• pushing a shopping cart down street – I tried to find you job skills but red tape made it too difficult “no address, no ID, no place to shower, lack of transportation”, BUT you went back to the street.
• sleeping in the park – I gave you blankets BUT the law now prohibits sleeping outside.

we ignore homeless people because we don’t know how to help. no quick fix, takes a 5 year plan. also, how can being homeless be against the law in 48 states? The criminalization of poverty and homelessness has ALWAYS existed to ease racist fears and protect (predominantly White people’s) property and profits. SERVICES NOT SWEEPS. anti-camping ordinances are today’s version of controlling public spaces.

When a group of people threatens the very root of the system that keeps the powerful empowered, governments move to legislate against them. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required that slaves be returned to their owners even if they were in a free state. These days, substantial profits come via real estate, retail, and tourism. When the presence of unhoused people threatens profits, elected officials call the police. Police cite, fine, arrest, jail, harass, and displace people who are surviving unhoused. Instead of providing public housing, tenant protections, and other supports, officials banish those who cannot afford housing.

The actions of local governments imply that homelessness is only a problem if you can see it. These centuries-old efforts to make us disappear can be collectively described as “invisible laws”: if you can’t see homeless people in your community, then you have eliminated the issue of homelessness in society. We know this is not true.

1. Outside the courthouse the sidewalks are lined with tents downtown. A cold spell is coming. My work organizes a coat drive every year, and this year we added blankets. Me and some coworkers drove the blankets downtown and handed them out to the tent people. Police did not like that. They prohibited us from helping them citing it is not safe to hand out blankets and that it would lead to gathering crowds, which always leads to conflict. We were ordered to leave. (police is the chorus)
2. I see the same homeless person in my town, time after time. He keeps on the move, as required by law. Seemingly not hurting anyone. He just needs a break in life. I need some help at work, some manual labor type work, so on my way driving to work I stopped at his bus stop bench and asked if he would help me for the day. He got in the car and I brought him to work with me. When we got to the job site the foreman had him fill out some simple paperwork because it’s the only way we could pay him, it had to go through the payroll. The homeless guy couldn’t fill it out, couldn’t get past line 2, which after line 1 being your name, line 2 is address. My homeless guy has no address and could not fill out the form. No form, no money, it’s the only way. (the foreman is the chorus)
3. I’m in my car on the way to the restaurant meeting my friends for dinner. I stop at the same stop light on Jimmy Carter Boulevard, you know the one next to that park? I hate that red light because the vagrants come by the cars waiving their tin cans. I gave them food. Every Saturday night on my way out to hit the town, I would stop at a drive through and always buy extra… to go. I would hand out fast food bags when they shook the tin cans at me. Over time, the intersection attracted more vagrants, and fast food wrappers were on the ground, and blowing in the wind through the park. (story teller gives up and is the chorus)

blanket, man but/what, transit, maggot, faggot, granite, bank it, banker, bankrupt, hand cut, ankle, tanker, thank her, anchor/unanchor, habit, embankment
tent city, identity, density, necessity, complexity, insecurity, scarcity, intense pity, fenced city, prevented me,
stop it, economics, alcoholics and narcotics, not fix, solve this, logic

they were invisible in the over pass under downtown
sleeping under over passes downtown

Jake moves as required and on his park bench today
I was passing by, picked him up on the way
to work I thought I’d give him a big break
foreman would not pay him, Jake could not fill out the form
Jake can read and write, but couldn’t get past line 2
where it asked him for an address

…I disclaim under duress:

address, have less, can rest, half dressed

if last line of each verse: THEY SAID, they led, may read, lay dead, jake said, they fed, they sped, trail led,
SAID, spend, extend, beds, recommend, condemned, bend, scared, cared, intend, pretend, yelled, blend, dared, threads, begged,
SAY, betray, away, disobey, replay, in play, plague, (way, lay, stay)
TOLD ME, coldly, homey, unholy, Jody,

My hopeful heart returned downtown with blankets
handed out personally in the tarp encampment
a riot incited inside of the tent city
police slapped me a ticket and then removed me

AABB

Summoned to civic duty I rode downtown
tent cities now visible outside the courthouse
unhoused people threaten profits
problems society doesn’t know how to fix

My bleeding heart handed out blankets
a riot incited in the tarp encampment
armed police said it’s not that simple
they slapped ME a ticket and an earful

[chorus]
it’s not my problem
I don’t have a problem
Telling any body that
Its not my problem

Homeless Jake on his park bench waiting for his big break
he needs a job, I extended a hand, took him to my work place
Foreman said fill out this form for the IRS
but Jake can’t fill out line number 2, what’s your address?
YEAH but how does this come back to bite in the ass? rewrite

[chorus]

panhandlers work a red light and motorists avoid
eye contact because misfortune is a choice
I order fast food and give it away
forced to drive through litter, and now I say

[chorus]

C A E A C E E A

C Am Em Am

1/8/2025

Called to jury duty I drove downtown
tent cities are visible from inside the courthouse
unhoused people threaten profits
problems society doesn’t know how to fix

My bleeding heart handed out blankets
a riot started inside the t encampment
armed policeman said it’s not that simple
he wrote me a ticket and gave me an earful
He said…

[chorus]
it is not my problem
I don’t have a problem
Telling any body that
Its not my problem

vagrants at the red light motorists avoid
no eye contact because misfortune is a choice
hating your commute to a cubicle
Meanwhile they happily beg for your nickel

when I drive I get fast food every day
always buying extra so I can give it away
now sandwich wrappers blowing in the wind
my good deed is just my own opinion
Now I say…

[chorus]

C A E A C E E A

C Am Em Am

garbage, knowledge, scavenge,
wind, opinion, bend, send, descend, hint, kin, lend, lint, mint, depend,
we’re not fixing this problem with enough knowledge
as I drive through a mountain of garbage

1/11/25 no. the melody doesn’t match the syllable bounce.