• JustSo [she/her, any]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    3 months ago

    The news in Australia is full of “tent city” headlines lately. This country has some pretty dastardly deeds in its past but I really fear what’s to come if certain areas reach a critical mass and “solutions” need to be applied.

    It’s so fucked. The last city I lived in bussed tons of people out of the city in preparation for an Olympic Games, to a much smaller locality far less equipped to deal with the population and its needs. If you didn’t know the “how” of it, it just looks like they were disappeared, maximum sinister-style.

    Same city had another tent city pop up that was left alone for ages. The park was SAFER while they were there. It felt nice. The tents stuck to the perimeter and despite how backwards this country can be I don’t remember any horror stories related to it.

    Now I’m watching puff pieces on international students forced to live in tents because rent and commute makes work impossible. Just presented in the news like “Huh, how about that hey! Be tough if you had a family!”

    Another tent “city” starting up a couple hundred km north of my current city and that’s just the one big enough to get attention. Which no doubt means it will be destroyed.

    I haven’t seen this level of overt precarious living since I visited London and a couple of cities in America in 2019.