Unlike some here, I came away with a deep sense of empathy, and today’s HN snark and frustration bounced off me pretty hard. The public order issues - homelessness in parks, the challenges of shared spaces—have certainly impacted me. But more than that, I struggle with how to translate the state of the world to my boys. I always remind them: every unhoused person was once a little boy or girl. We might be older now, but we’re still kids inside, and nobody dreams of growing up in these circumstances.
What struck me most was the balance of compassion and pragmatism that Amanda brings to her work. It’s easy to be frustrated with the policies and bureaucratic inefficiencies that slow down real solutions - but they are, in some ways, understandable.
The biggest frustration for me is the gap between the mental state of many unhoused individuals and the requirements needed to secure housing. The city surely understands the long-term costs of its policies, and it’s run by highly pragmatic people with limited budgets. But rules are rules, and at some point, top-down accommodations (including medical interventions...) are necessary to bridge this gap.
Met a guy whose elderly wife isn't strong enough to lift him when he falls out of bed, so once a week they call EMS or the fire department to get him back in bed. So many things that you used to call on your neighbors for help with, but life for many Americans in 2025 is isolating and lonely.
Anything I read about middle ages or later was even worse. At best, they put such people into poorhouses.
A big family under one roof helped the best I guess? But in any less ideal situations I doubt even the children would have gone out of their way to devote their lives to the care of the elderly or the disabled. Examples from primitive societies: https://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/article/113384
Maybe I don't understand your comment, but I think our societies were/are tighter in many places and epochs. Maybe it's not so in cities and suburbs in the modern West, but, I think it used to be different in Medieval Europe and before, in villages at least. Neighbors were your support community. I know there are parts of the world where it's still the case.
I'm not that old and I was raised by my neighbors, because both of my parents were working. When my dad was dying last year, I couldn't be there because I was their only economic support, working abroad, and I don't have any wealth to be so if I'm not working. There was more family, but the neighbors were the ones day to day helping my mom with shores and the care of my dad.
>> But in any less ideal situations I doubt even the children would have gone out of their way to devote their lives to the care of the elderly or the disabled.
It was the children, in most sane cases. Not that I argue it's a good thing to bring children to the world to take care of you when you are dying.