This is Billy Bob and the Consortium
Let’s Have a Conversation Today
If people are homeless, it must be because they chose it. After all, everyone has the same opportunities, the same safety nets, the same luck in life—don’t they? If they’re on the street, surely it’s laziness, or addiction, or bad decisions catching up with them. Certainly, it couldn’t be a rent increase they couldn’t outrun, a medical bill that emptied their savings, a job that disappeared overnight, or a life that unraveled faster than anyone could recover. No, it must be simpler than that. It must be their fault—because believing that keeps the rest of us comfortable.
News Flash:
Hey, it is assumptions, guys, nothing but dumb headed assumptions, and with those assumptions go all that we could possibly use to get off these darn streets, but with those assumptions come the emotional handcuffs that trap us, right? Because they assume, we are without hope, a chance, a way to move off the streets, no one wants truth anymore, right?
What do you have to say about that tidbit:
Johnny Boy, can I say something, or is it not my time? Jaxson, sure, go ahead, keep it short and on point, though. I have had to live a life filled with family assumptions because of the ‘trouble’ visited on my family, and assumptions are deadly. They make people think a kind of way that many times ain’t true.
Thanks, Jaxson, I am sorry. Mike, you take the new flash this time. Assumptions are just that handcuffs and snares, nobody will help because, and they refuse to say on a way, they just will not. You can almost imagine them looking side-eyed at you, down the nose, thinking that they are saying, they can fix it themselves, they made this mess, it is their fault, and so on, it is just so darn hard, and it makes one want to give up. It is like trying to build an ice cream cone in front of a roaring fire!
Reaction from the Moderator of the Day: Johnny Boy
Well, you already know that when you start off life with one hand tied behind your back, you get used to assumptions walking with you, but they still sting and are wrong. The teachers, pastors, friends, and adults seem to know you ain’t got no family, and they assume you ain’t going to be nothing either. I saw so much when I was in all those homes, no connections, no family to have stand with you, no chance of applause, or help in the hard times, and they expect us to make as adults, how?
This is the one thing that foster care always gets right: not helping the kids succeed when they leave foster care, except for the rare few that are adopted. Assumptions and the failed foster system are two peas in a pod, and they can set you up for a lifetime of problems. But the government does not care, just as they don’t care about the homeless, unless they are illegal. Think about it, guys, we count for nothing, we have nothing, and the chances of getting is so low that it cannot be counted, and insult to injury, the housed folks waste their time making assumptions for us and pass laws and ordinances against us, tossing dirt in the grave before we are in it.
Round Table Discussion
Greetings, it is me Bill, I have been in the military and then came back home, and assumptions are real. People do not understand the military, its role and duties when we are deployed, and the effort required to always keep this nation at peace and free, but their assumptions are dangerous. Not all come back whole, even though the body is intact. I am one. Homelessness among veterans and the suffering we go through is wrong; we fought, struggled, and went through things no one will know to protect and serve and to die on the streets, wrong. But assumptions keep people from seeing reality and they like it that way; it protects them, and they want it that way.
Hey, it’s me, Pete, I have been ticketed and fined more times than not based solely on assumptions. What do I mean, you dare to ask, it is this, all related to that set of laws called Quality of Life Crimes and how the police use them to get rid of us. With those laws on the books, we do not have to be actually breaking the law to be pulled aside by the police; they assume we are and thus pull us aside. What do I mean you ask? This is what I mean: if I sit at a bus bench for too long, the police will show up. They assume I am up to something and I will be ticketed. I have done nothing but sit at a bus bench, but due to Quality of Life Crimes, I am assumed to have committed a crime. Those are the assumptions I have to live with.
It’s me, Sally, assumptions nearly took my life! Having to leave everything and leave life behind and come to the streets to hide to stay alive has been the only way to save my life. Too many would not believe me when I tried to report ‘him’ for hurting, harming, and threatening me. The assumptions that I face because of his job, reputation and family were life-threatening and I could not get help anywhere. Even with police reports, emergency rooms, and the like, no one would help; the attorneys were not much help. I never truly realized the power, sway and hold of assumptions over a person, or group of people, until I went through what I did in the past few months before I walked into the darkness to simply stay alive. But I know you guys understand, you sadly just lost Barb to this problem of violence in the home, and no one was able to help her.
What Can We Do as Mere Humans IN the System:
Okay, this went far more serious than we were expecting this morning, but that is okay. But right now, let’s breathe, drink coffee, and just stop for a moment and settle. We are all stirred up. Assumptions are weapons; you folks just do not realize the power you wield when you walk, live, and work with assumptions towards us. The question is this, and I, Billy Bob, have little hope of answering it, I am trapped IN the system. The best answer is this: unless you have walked a mile in another man’s shoes, how can you assume what they are going through, have been through or are suffering with or struggling through? If we lived that way, assumptions would die away.
Let’s Close with This: Mike
We don’t just choose the rules—
we choose who they protect, who they restrain, and who they quietly abandon.
Now the world is trying to call assumptions rules, that is fresh. But I guess that is what works for them, a buffer zone, a safety net, a zone of protection, so that they do not have to face the reality of possibilities. The world has changed, shifted and turned around since the pandemic, and all know the nearness of losing everything, but assumptions buffer the truth. So, if they proceed with assumptions being rules, nothing will make sense, oh, wait, nothing does make sense now! The homeless are at fault, are to fix the problem, they are the problem, they are to be jailed, but not housed, ignored, but ticketed, assumptions are a lethal, dangerous weapon.
Hello, it is my, Bill, this whole mess this morning, assumptions, those are enough to get people killed, to lose jobs, friends, housing, and even good and you think we want to waste time talking about them this morning, why? I have been on the wrong side of assumptions since I came out of the military and often wish I had never said a word about my time in the service. These harsh assumptions are better called handcuffs and manacles, because all they do is chain us more firmly to the streets, to death.
Alright, our dear housed folks, you can see we are stirred up this morning, so we need to end this and go back to coffee and quiet for now. We will see y’all in the morning, please pick a topic that is not wired to explode, thank you. I will close with as I grab my coffee and bid y’all farewell, assumptions are bad for many reason, but think on this, they build barriers and walls that drive beliefs that destroy lives. Here is a challenge I can pass on to you housed folks, what assumptions have you been living with and comfortable with?
What Will Their Outcome Be?
You Have a Part to Play…
