Finding out what it's like to sleep on the street doesn't take a long series of deliberate self destructive choices, it's as easy as tripping on a shoelace or even breathing depending which bones break in the fall or if the breath you take is too close to someone who thinks the pandemic is a hoax or the air is contaminated by things out of your control like smoke from wildfires, mold, asbestos, etc. Or doing nothing at all and having an aneurysm. Medical debt is after all the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US even without permanent debilitation impacting the ability to work.
Or coming in to work only to be told the company is downsizing and your experience is no advantage due to non-competition contracts, a niche field the company that cut you loose has a monopoly on, or quite simply a lack of openings within a reasonable timeframe while your rent still needs to be paid and you don't have the luxury of knowing a guy somewhere.
Or good old fashioned natural disasters, identity theft, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time and losing the literal gamble of insurance policies when your provider stalls the claim.
Find yourself in that situation, wondering what you did to deserve everything you ever worked for getting ripped from your fingers and everyone you see suddenly hating you on sight thoroughly convinced you're every failing a human being could fall to and little more than an animal wearing clothes, a modern day Job topping God's shit list and getting no answers why no matter how you pray or plead with the doors slammed shut and locked tight on anything resembling salvation, removed with physical violence if you dare approach a respectable place of business to apply for the job you're barked at to get.
When you're wandering the street at night afraid of every shadow, knowing half the cops you see would cheerfully beat you until you puked blood just as soon as run you out of town, trying find an area sheltered enough to keep the rain off you when you collapse, unsure if half the moisture in your rotted clothes is from the weather or passers-by spitting on you, half-starved, hoping you can sleep through the pain and not knowing whether you should pray to wake up safe and sound or mercifully pass unaware...
End up there and tell me honestly you expect to remain sane, that you wouldn't throw yourself into whatever numbs the absolute hopelessness of your existence no matter how briefly.
Know what avoids that living hell? That waste of human potential that can take the most prudent completely by surprise with no defense or recourse? A social safety net and the hope it brings to get life back on your own terms. Guaranteed medical care, emergency shelter, tools to retrain or find modified work or if you've been so robbed of capability the means to live out your days with some semblance of dignity, having paid your dues every day to the best of your ability to that point already. To never let anyone be left so doomed in the first place.
Not getting thrown to a pack of wolves wearing civilization's sloppily stitched together scraps of decaying skin guffawing that you're getting what you deserve as they cut off your escape. To say otherwise is running a stream of shit from your stupid mouth.
