“Man says alleged homeless person attacked him outside of Downtown Austin building” “Austin Businesses Express Safety Concerns, Consider Changing Operating Hours in Wake of City’s New Homeless Ordinance,” “What do residents want to see in Mayor Bruce Harrell's Seattle homelessness plan?,” “Op-Ed: Listen to the neighbors of homeless encampments. We aren’t just grousing.”
What do these headlines all have in common? While they all
discuss the issue of homelessness, not a single one represents the voices,
experiences, and challenges local unhoused individuals are going through. These
are just a few recent headlines taken from local news sites in Austin, TX, Los Angeles, CA and
Seattle, WA, but their sentiment is echoed in the news publications of every major
city in the United States and it is something we need to be paying attention to. As the cost of living rises, more and more working families
living in the nation’s major metropolitan areas are getting displaced. In cities like Oakland, CA, neighborhoods that were once considered “ghetto” and “undesirable”
are experiencing the emergence of multi-billion dollar housing markets in
response to housing demands for tech workers and developers. Developers pounce
on foreclosed homes from families that could not keep up with the increased
cost of living and employ the help of the police to secure their properties. The
inevitable consequences of these displacements has been a surge in poverty and
homelessness throughout every major metropolitan area of the US, and yet these stories remain largely invisible in mainstream and local news media.
Now, look back at these headlines. If they’re not representing the voices of the displaced and unhoused members of the community, who are they representing? They represent the local businessmen who fear the unhoused will scare away customers, affluent people moving into newly unoccupied spaces, and real estate developers seeking public support for the use of police violence to evict, sweep, and protect their newly acquired properties. The housing status of individuals involved in stories relating to petty theft, assaults, drug deals, and orgies is only ever mentioned when those individuals are homeless, at which point it becomes the central focus of the story. For story after story, these patterns repeat until homelessness becomes synonymous with crime and danger. This unequal representation of perspectives works to create a climate of fear and dehumanization between unhoused people and their neighbors.
It is important to note that this is by design. The majority
of all news media is owned by just 5 companies, with almost every single local
station in the United States being a subsidiary to major players like Sinclair
Broadcast Group. Sinclair owns a number of private equity firms and investment
groups throughout the country, holding equity in real estate developments in
several major cities – and they are far from the only media group this can be
said for. Media companies that don’t hold equity in real estate are no less beholden
to their interest, as advertising funds and lobbying efforts from real estate
investors allow them to nonetheless use local news media as a platform. To better understand this practice, take a look at this article, written by the director of the Center for Housing Economics - a Seattle based lobbying group comprised of the city's biggest real estate groups.
This has real world consequences, as studies have found that violent policing of homeless populations is largely at the behest of these same groups. With such powerful groups dominating access to information and framing issues in ways that only serve their interest, we need local people now more than ever, especially those with a platform and the means to spread messages, to step up and lend their privilege and power to amplify the voices of our homeless neighbors. Their voices deserve to be heard, and their interests deserve to be represented as much as any of ours.
- Brian Reynoso Espinosa
