You don't read about homelessness on the Web very much, and certainly not from the standpoint of the homeless. They don't have standing because they don't have access. They're simply absent. In the millions.

As someone whom circumstances once came that-close to rendering homeless -- circumstances that could befall any of us -- I can tell you: it's a terrifying possibility. You realize that if you become homeless, not only will you not have a physical home, or any shelter at all, but you'll also completely lose your identity in the all-encompassing virtual world that is the Internet, a consequence devastating to those of us who've spent a good part of our lives online, in social networks and virtual communities. You'll become a non-person. [Please read the Comment below the fold by Johnny Allen Shaw for an antidote: Shaw, a homeless person, has filmed his experiences and posted them to Indie Flix and YouTube, and made the film available for purchase.]

Marx called the homeless and those without paying work “the reserve army of the unemployed,” a phenomenon socially manufactured to scare workers into compliant, silent wage slavery. One slip, one outburst, and you'll join its ranks -- a very disadvantageous position in modern capitalist society. In the US, homelessness received its most decisive recent impetus from Reagan's anti-social policies and now it's an endemic, also epidemic condition of American life. (Sorry, he's not one of America's great Presidents in my book.) Next on the list to go: millions of holders of sub-prime mortgages about to be foreclosed.

I was reminded of the absence of the homeless on the Internet by a couple of audio articles on today's broadcast of the Pacfica Radio News.

The first article described the recent anti-homeless legislation adopted by Las Vegas and Orlando, municipalities that criminally defy every law of sustainability, outlawing the distribution of food to the homeless. Can you imagine the gall of these environmental travesties and their political leaders preventing people from eating? Here, in the United States, where the Constitution begins reciting every individual's right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? While the Congress -- forget President Bush -- worries about the plight of Iraqis and the still-comfortable American middle-class, right here at home, people are being denied food (and shelter) simply because they're unable to afford a residence. What's wrong with this picture?

Indicative of Las Vegans' care-free -- or shall we say, uncaring? -- attitude, in April they overwhelmingly reelected as mayor Oscar Goodman whom the Guardian newspaper describes as “a former mob lawyer and self-proclaimed 'happiest mayor in the world,''' whose top priority is yet-more upscale, downtown development; and elected to the city council a barber over an advocate for the homeless. Welcome to America's Fastest-Growing City.

The second article, more hopeful, described an attempt by Oregonians to simulate poverty, ”The Food Stamp Challenge.“ The Food Stamp Challenge is intended to help Oregonians share the experience of starvation, partner of homelessness. The intended result is heightened consciousness about the plight of homeless Americans, resulting in action in their behalf. This week, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongski and his wife, among others, will live on a typical food-stamp allowance -- often all the homeless have to live on -- of $42 for the two of them, for the week: about $3 a day. (Two burgers at McDonald's, plus tax.) Of course, as researchers who've posed as the homeless have found out, it's just not the same when you know that your condemnation to society's lowest rung is artificial and that you can resume a more privileged station whenever you like. Still, Oregonians and their political leaders are to be commended for trying to share the experience, which is more than you can say for the 99.9% of Americans who prefer to look the other way.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) maintains a website for the homeless, but it's a pathetic non-effort that basically hands off responsibility for care to whomever the homeless -- presuming a homeless person can access the website -- to a variety of local agencies and charities, for whom the HUD generously provides links. A better source of information and assistance is the National Coalition for the Homeless, whose purpose is to do something about homelessness by raising public consciousness and working for policies that hopefully will one day elevate America to the status of Burundi, where the homeless are taken better care than they are here, in the world's self-proclaimed human-rights leader. For the homeless themselves, Homes for the Homeless provides more immediate assistance.

In my own hometown, Santa Monica -- one of the wealthiest communities in Los Angeles County, which comic Harry Shearer has labeled ”The Home of the Homeless“ -- the City is doing its best to mitigate homelessness with social services; but its more frequent response is simply to have them ”move on.“ Shades of Grapes of Wrath, which premiered 75 years ago.

Homelessness afflicts millions of Americans and most despicably, their children -- our children. It's one experience no one ever will claim to have designed, nor hope to encounter. But others will.

(Headline Image from Scholastic, ”Homeless in America“)