My Own Personal Homeless Jesus

Last month, a study came out from Stanford University with a conclusion that shocked its own researchers: Low-income people live longer and healthier lives when they live in affluent areas like New York or San Francisco. This is shocking because it’s counterintuitive. If you live in an affluent place like New York or San Francisco, there is a perceivable disdain for the down and out

The fact that the study names San Francisco as one of the best places for poor people didn’t even register with its mayor, Ed Lee. The same week that this study came out, a 30-second-long incident that left a homeless man in San Francisco shot dead by police prompted the mayor to declare that the city wasn’t a safe place for the homeless.

Tangible disdain for the have-nots goes back millennia. Enslaving them and watching them eaten by lions come to mind. Over time, this disdain for the down and out became less overt and further off the radar. Some contemporary examples:

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