Written by Miles Whitener
The Rising Pool: A Reflection on Homelessness and Disaffiliation
Homelessness in America is not a single river but a convergence of three tributaries that feed a rising pool. Each flows from a different failure of care.
The first tributary carries those struggling with mental health, people left adrift by systems built to manage crises rather than heal lives.
The second tributary holds those displaced by economics – wages that cannot match rent, jobs that vanish, debts that devour stability.
The third tributary runs with those divided out by stigma: addiction, criminal record, or the simple mark of being unwanted. Each channels deepens when compassion is replaced by bureaucracy, and when survival becomes a contest instead of a right.
Together they form the pool of homelessness, a body that keeps rising. Shelters, aid, and outreach may drain the edges, but until these channels change their course – until care, fairness, and inclusion are restored – the waters will keep coming.
In recent years, a fourth current has begun to stir within that pool: disaffiliation. A growing number have stopped seeking a way back. They no longer measure themselves by the expectations of a world that abandoned them. They are building an identity outside the boundaries of belonging – neither pleading nor pretending.
It is not rebellion so much as exhaustion turned to resolve.
This disaffiliation is more than a social challenge; it is a mirror. When people no longer wish to return, it tells us less about them and more about the society they are turning from. If we cannot offer a way home that feels worth returning to, the pool will keep rising – and one day, it will not be “them” and “us,” only the water and what it covers.
