Though the International Monetary Fund has the ability to infuse life into weak economies, too often it has trapped nations in a cycle of debt and made life miserable on the streets. — Walk through Buenos Aires’ center, and you’re likely to see one message repeated over and over: “Fuera FMI,” International Monetary Fund, get out. It’s tagged on walls, posted on signs and for the last couple weeks, it has been echoed in a massive protests marching through the heart of the…

When it comes to addressing homelessness, rather than pouring more resources into the same old solutions, we should meet unhoused communities where they are and listen to their ideas. — For all of the divergent opinions about homelessness in the United States, there is one thing most everyone can agree on: it is growing. All across America, big cities and small towns alike are seeking solutions, trying new things, soliciting billions of dollars in tax revenue and seizing emergency funds.

Not every encampment fits into surface-level stereotypes of extreme mental illness and low levels of function — but we should still empathize and see the value in their existence. — Recently, I got some online criticism about the Bay Area unhoused community where I’ve lived for three and a half months — suggesting, essentially, that this group wasn’t compelling of empathy, and that stories about them aren’t impactful because it seemed, to this commenter, that the folks here were “choosing…

In a city where homelessness has reached epidemic levels, your idea of a solution is to ensure you can’t see it. — Hello sir who informed me yesterday I was not welcome in the neighborhood where you pay a lot to live. This may come as a surprise to you, but I do not want to live in your neighborhood. I do not even want to BE in your neighborhood, as I…

In the center of San Jose, California, the Guadalupe River splits from Los Gatos creek and continues northward, a walking trail winding in pursuit. Just below its steep embankments, a sprawl of communities nearly hidden from passing view — but not quite — form a separate world. “Would you like…

My work leads me to stay in this complicated unhoused community quite often; that would be impossible without the alliances that keep me safe. — RePete looked at me. It was late, rounding past midnight, and I’d stepped away from our Skid Row grill operation to talk to him. Knowing that I would later retreat into my cargo van parked just across the street, he gestured to the giant sledgehammer affixed to the top of…

As many in the U.S. protest the influx of Central American migrants, they fail to recognize that this moment is in part a boomerang —flung into motion by American military intervention decades ago. — Most U.S. citizens have at least an elementary memory of our country’s participation in the Vietnam War; ditto the war in Afghanistan. But ask an average American about the U.S.’ most extensive and expensive counter-insurgency campaign between the two, and you’ll likely receive a whole bunch of blank stares and…

The changing fabric of America’s cities is stripping away culture and memories — as well as control, again, from Black communities who have been historically devalued. — “C’mon in, hun,” a man relaxing in a folding chair out front called as I rolled up. Inside the small auto shop office, three or four people hovered over the desk — covered not with tools and parts, but with plastic bags of napkins, styrofoam plates, tubs of potato salad…

Often, the formerly unhoused aren’t getting a home, but a vacant space, with no resources to set it up or stay there. — As the homelessness epidemic intensifies amidst the Coronavirus era, discussions about developing more public housing are reaching the forefront of political discussion. But what happens after the often years-long process of getting a key? …