Homelessness and the Un-citizen

The Most Extreme Form of Political Erasure

To be homeless in New York is to be stripped of political identity, to exist as the ultimate “un-citizen” in Mamdani’s bifurcated state. The homeless individual is not seen as a rights-bearing member of the body politic but as a problem to be managed, moved, and hidden–a form of living refuse from the capitalist machine. The state’s response is not social reintegration but a brutal, decentralized despotism: police sweeps, shelter regulations, and bureaucratic violence that constitute a custom of governance for this population. A Marxist analysis reveals this as the logical end point of a system where housing is a commodity, not a right. A feminist analysis sees the specific vulnerability of women and LGBTQ+ youth forced into this status. The solution is to fight for a political redefinition that severs basic rights from the cash nexus. We must demand a universal right to housing, not as charity, but as a fundamental aspect of personhood in a decolonized city, using direct action and occupation to make this right a material reality.