This issue marks the third anniversary of this column. To be frank, it started as my best attempt to make lemonade out of the lemons life started throwing at me in May 2022. I couldn’t have known then that I’d still be writing for the Observer three years later. And I would have laughed in your face if you’d made that claim.

One of the things I am most proud of is that during my tenure as your unhoused correspondent, I have only missed one deadline. For someone living hand to mouth, relying largely on the kindness of strangers and the availability of library computers, this is no small feat, and I’m genuinely chuffed about it.

So what have I learned? The first thing–as John Cleese put it in the famous “Dead Parrot Sketch” –is that, “In this country, you’ve got to complain until you’re blue in the mouth.” It would have been naive to assume otherwise. Do I get tired of repeating the same talking points ad nauseam? Naturellement, mes frères. No writer wants to be known as a one-note Johnny. But that’s part and parcel of what I signed up for when I proposed this column to Editors Saskia Kennedy and Jesse LaTour back in November 2022.

The second, and actually most important part, is that the best, most workable solution to homelessness is literally to give homes to the homeless. Those who object do so on the same basis as Paul of Tarsus when he wrote, “If you do not work, you do not eat.” I respond that Paul never said anything about housing. But I do understand the argument: housing must not be given, but earned; to do otherwise is to ruin people’s initiative and further enable their dependence on the state and charity. In contraposition, I point yet again to the US cities and European countries in which Housing First programs work, and work well. And yes, as I am constantly reminded, such programs are not for everyone. Some people are too sick to take advantage, and their health needs must be addressed first.

I’ve also spoken repeatedly of the pioneering work of Abraham Maslow, whose famous diagram of the hierarchy of needs is well-known to first-year psychology students and laypersons. It’s damn near impossible to rebuild your life in a room full of strangers; even a studio apartment can be a haven, a solid foundation from which to begin again. I will never back off on that point; the evidence is too clear.
And as long as we’re going Biblical, consider this statement from the Son of God: “Consider the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet are they not clothed in finer raiment than thee?” So we have Paul saying, “Work or starve,” and Christ saying that just as the lilies are provided for, so shall you be. Is it any wonder so many people find the Bible confusing and contradictory on so many points? With so many different authors, at different times, it was bound to be rife with repetition, contradiction and misinterpretation.

But this isn’t Bible study; that’s next year. In modern times, we have our own homegrown orange antichrist, our version of Robert Heinlein’s Nehemiah Scudder, dictator, prophet and grifter. How long, O Lord, how long until MAGA’s scales fall from their eyes and they behold the ugliness around them, which up to the present moment they have been able to blithely and blissfully ignore? Or is this the final generation, when the final trump (pun intended) will sound? How many millions or billions are praying that these are truly the End Times?

Even non-believers, looking at the vast parade of dysfunction around the globe–internecine wars galore, climate disasters, dictatorships flourishing, coral reef die-offs, humanitarian aid met with gunships–and so much more–can’t help wondering if technology and hard work can undo so much damage incurred over the past century.

And then we have our peculiar dystopia in the US–troops sent into peaceful cities, the homeless rounded up and jailed or simply disappeared, the rights of immigrants and citizens alike trampled by the new Gestapo, millions marching in cities around the globe demanding an end to these fascistic practices and the rounding up of those responsible. The world is roiling in turmoil, with its people weary from adrenaline and cortisol overload, and no easy solutions at hand. Even the old remedies for such challenges seem pathetically inadequate to heal the weeping wounds from the damage done. All I know is–if we’re going to save us–save humanity–it’s going to take everybody, including those who have masks over their faces and plugs in their ears.

This is the picture as Spaceship Earth prepares to turn the corner into 2026. I wish I knew what to tell you. I wish I knew what to tell myself. Anyone who thinks they hold all the answers is a fool or insane. All I have to give you are the words of Winston Churchill, a man who knew a great deal of Hell: “Never, never, never, never, never give up.” Oh, and goddamn Donald Trump to Hell.