Kyle Swenson (@kyletalking) / X

Kyle Swenson

8,922 posts

Kyle Swenson

@kyletalking

fmr staff writer @washingtonpost covering inequality // author GOOD KIDS, BAD CITY, from @PicadorUSA// [email protected]

Washington, DC via Cleveland

washingtonpost.com/people/kyle-sw…

Joined July 2010

Pinned
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Mar 10, 2019
NYTimes book review. Surreal. By 25, I had been laid off twice. Rejected from every job/internship/j school. Lesson here: keep grinding away
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Don’t usually do *this* but, thread: Monday, SCOTUS debates the criminalization of homelessness. That means many folks are sounding off on the topic. I’ve spent 4 yrs covering this for @washingtonpost, and need to reality-check assumptions getting thrown around this week (1/x)
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
"My homelessness is not b/c of my drug use, my drug use is because of my homelessness," guy told me in downtown DC last month. In 2023, I was in Missouri. The state had passed a law criminalizing outdoor camping, same kind of law being debated Monday at SCOTUS (10/x)
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Jan 2, 2024
On today's @washingtonpost A1, you'll find my latest story: an inside look at a well-funded effort on the political right to target, vilify, and defund a key piece of the social safety net, the "housing first" approach to homelessness 1/x
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
No one wants to be homeless. Full stop. It's terrible. Never really sleeping. Always on guard against attack and rape and harassment. The huge loneliness of having nowhere to go all day. The shame of asking for change and seeing most people walk by without looking at you (8/x).
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
Claiming "most" unsheltered people are mentally ill or have drug issues (no data cited) has to be unpacked. US official homeless pop is 650k. Casually claiming anything about more than 1/2 million people falls apart logically and rhetorically. Really? "Most"? (3/x)
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
I struggle to think of another public policy debate that so uniformly rests on broad assumptions and then refuses to see that the homeless are . . . complex people? Adults? Fully functioning human beings in a terrible situation? (5/x)
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
If anyone made a broad claim about any other group like that, we wouldn't take it seriously. But that's how we treat the homeless: dismissively, or at best like they are helpless children lacking a strong paternalist guiding hand (4/x)
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
So no, drug users don't choose to be homeless so they can keep using drugs and have a good time. Mental illness is often the result, not the reason, of homelessness. (12/x)
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
We're having this debate now in the highest court. But I just believe as a country, when we talk about homelessness, we're not really talking about what is happening, we're not seeing the whole picture. Okay, that's it from me (15/15).
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
Mental illness doesn't always drive people to the streets. Life on the streets tears down mental health very quickly. And drugs: all those empty hours, all those feelings about the situation-it could be seen as an easy and available fix for that. (9/x)
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
But when you assume it's all about drugs and mental health, many take the next step that the unsheltered have chosen this life so they can do drugs or let their mental health go untreated, that there is some personal irresponsibility at play. That's just not widely true. (7/x).
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
When the country debates homelessness, empathy and logic seem to get drowned out by easy stereotypes and assumptions. But I'm also not an expert, just sharing some thoughts that have come from listening to what people on the streets tell me. (14/x)
Kyle Swenson
@kyletalking
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to @kyletalking
Criminalization and forced encampment are grounded in the idea that you have force the unhoused to get treatment--as if it's easy for anyone to get a mental health treatment or a recovery bed even if they are housed and have a job (It's not). (13/x)