This Week on Thinking Is Cool

By luck or fate or some other reason, you’ve found yourself reading an email from Thinking Is Cool, *the* podcast to listen to if you want to have better conversations. If this email was forwarded to you, sign up for regular correspondence from me, Kinsey, right here:

Good morning, everyone! It is my distinct pleasure to welcome you to the very best season of the year here in New York City: bomber jacket szn. It’s that special time of year, that time that only lasts a handful of weeks, when the weather is perfect for bomber jackets, the most universally attractive outerwear. Happiest of holidays to all those celebrating.

Today, I published an episode I’m immensely proud of. I hope you’ll listen and reflect and spend some time thinking this week. Let’s take it anywhere.

This Week on Thinking Is Cool

I’m going to ask you to think about something in just a second. And I want you to really play along here. When you read the first word of the next paragraph, I want you to close your eyes and truly envision it. Don’t picture what you think you’re supposed to picture. Be honest. Ready?

Homelessness. What do you think of when you consider homelessness in America? What comes to mind? Where does your stream of consciousness flow?

For many of us, myself included up until I made this episode, the immediate response is the stereotypical image of homelessness in America—scruffy-haired man, cardboard sign, cup full of loose change. But the stereotypical image of homelessness in America is far from the reality of homelessness in America. We get a lot wrong about what it means to be homeless.

Among the biggest misconceptions to which we fall victim? How to solve homelessness.

Today on Thinking Is Cool, I’ve made it my mission to right the ship. Because in all honesty, we know how to solve homelessness—just give people homes (sometimes the most complicated problems require the simplest solutions).

But after years of misunderstanding the realities of homelessness—and persistently ignoring the problem hoping it’ll disappear—we’ve failed to migrate any theoretical solutions to the realm of practicality.

I’m asking you today to take the time to consider why that is. Why are we so quick to ignore our fellow man—our neighbors—because they live on the street? Why have we chosen to treat the symptoms of homelessness instead of the causes? When will we recognize that homelessness is a man-made problem with a man-made solution?

I hope the answers to those questions come soon, because for the roughly 600,000 Americans who will go to sleep without a stable home of their own tonight, there is no time to waste.

In today’s episode of Thinking Is Cool:

1. An honest account of homelessness by the numbers (gird yourself for this—whatever you think in terms of numbers, you’re probably wrong)

2. A brief recap of how homelessness became such a rampant problem in one of the world’s wealthiest countries

3. A nuanced proposal for solving homelessness in this lifetime

We know that homelessness is 100% solvable. It’s time to start solving. Listen to today’s episode to start—together.

Now for a quick word from our friends at Fundrise:

What can $10 get you? Here in Manhattan, it gets me one iced blue matcha, three subway rides, or five street vendor hotdogs.

It’s hard to imagine $10 getting you anything worthwhile these days, but believe it or not, one Alexander Hamilton is all it takes to start building an investment strategy for your future home. And you can thank Fundrise for that.

Fundrise is a first-of-its-kind investing platform that allows everyday investors to start building real estate into their portfolios. With account levels ranging from $10 to $100,000, the platform removes the cost of entry and makes real estate investments affordable for everyone.

Turns out, owning property in a city doesn’t have to be as expensive as living in one—thanks to Fundrise. Visit fundrise.com/think to start growing your real estate portfolio today.

I’ve wanted to make an episode about homelessness for as long as I’ve had my own show to make episodes for. My reasoning:

• To me, there is no issue as pressing as ensuring that everyone has the ability to access basic human necessities for survival—shelter being one of them.

• Living in New York, I see homelessness every day. But I don’t take the time to really see homelessness nearly enough.

• Homelessness is the kind of systemic problem that is both cause and effect of other systemic problems—racism, wealth inequality, education, etc. If we can solve homelessness, we can solve so much more.

I hope you’ll go into this episode with an open mind and an honest approach. And as always, I hope you’ll reach out to keep the conversation going.

Listen here: Apple // Spotify // everywhere else

-Kinsey

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