Avan was a teenager with a kind soul who was alone and houseless. He lived in a tent in San Francisco and struggled greatly trying to navigate the winding road called life. According to his close friends he barely had any family support nor guidance, so he had to learn how to take care of himself, which was a difficult task because after all, he was just a kid. It was said that earlier this month he was near his tent and allegedly fell off a cliff, suffered a severe head injury and drowned in the freezing bay water. Avan’s friends were having a hard time accepting the alleged “freak accident” calling the fall “suspicious” and “not taken seriously.”
A candlelight vigil was held for the teen by the water and many of his peers and family members attended to honor Avan. Although there were mixed feelings about how he was casted out and forced to fend for himself, his friends remained respectful to the elders and other folks who had allegedly forgotten about him.
Unfortunately, It is difficult to obtain stability in an unstable nation and it doesn’t matter if you are a man, woman, child or elder. What is the real slap in the face is that the “powers that be” deliberately cut budgets and push the need for basic human rights on the back burner with a blazing flame. Many people have lost their jobs, homes, dignity and even their lives relying on a “Sssystem” that has shown us time and time again that we are nothing but “expendable assets”
But what happens to the kids that have no one to support them? What about the youth who have been shuffled around from foster home to foster home only to be given the boot at the age of 18, under the “maxed out, ass out” protocol? Many of these youngsters wind up in the streets engaging in any activity that encourages self-medication and self-criminalization thus further desensitizing any part of the being that is human only to be blamed by those who have contributed in one way or another to the hell we are all catching.
It is the hell of seeing young folks give up on life completely after trying to hold down a job while living in a car because the rent is unaffordable, only to end up dying in a doorway from a drug overdose. Or the young female who is easily misguided by a “wolf in sheep's clothing” because she never had anyone in her whole life teach her about her worthiness so she bends to the will of those who exploit her just to have a meal and a roof over her head.
These scenarios mentioned are all too common nowadays with not only the youth but full-grown adults as well. When you throw in the pandemic and the hopes of politicians passing a vote that won’t allow the people to starve to death that is enough nail-biting stress within itself.
Insead of it being against the law for folks to be poor and houseless, it should be illegal to have legislation put in place that allows for children to become houseless in the first place- and in some states removed from their families because of poverty. It also should be illegal to incarcerate kids just because their elders want to come to a “great country” to make a so-called “better life” for the generations that are to come- after all, Angelina Jolie cannot adopt all of the children.
“I’m starting to think that the rich in the world is safe, while the po’ babies resting in a early grave”- Tupac Shakur
CR- Queennandi Xsheba PNN KEXU