I haven’t purchased or (knowingly) consumed an animal product in about three years now and I only buy clothes and shoes that are made in the EU and produced fair. I actually contact companies and ask them where they make their products, if I can’t find that info on their website.
Regarding your statement about communities helping themselves. I am all for that, but how would that practically go down? Let us assume I own an apartment block and I want to rent out a flat to someone. What am I supposed to do if an omni applies? Say “No, you are not living vegan (enough)!”? Because that is what your proposal boils down to.
I will not deny basic human needs, just because someone doesn’t share my ethical views on animals or human labor. Especially if following these views costs money, time and energy. A single mom with two kids won’t have any of those three. They still deserve a home.
Edit: Something that would actually help every homeless person but especially vegan ones is a vegan soup kitchen. Serve everyone, but it is vegan food. That is something I could get behind.
Ok fair enough, I apologize for assuming you weren’t vegan. In my defense, you sounded quite a lot like what non-vegans often say & it seemed like you were echoing their talking points, but you probably didn’t mean it in the same ways, I’m probably just hyper alerted to it based on my experiences with non vegans. I’m also now assuming you are vegan, even though you didn’t explicitly say you are, and I’m interpreting that when you say you don’t purchase or consume animal products, that includes non-food items as well, and that by extension you don’t fund or participate in other forms of animal exploitation either (even if it’s “fair trade” or “ethical” - to humans, by typical speciesist human standards - which is obviously important, and I respect you for doing your due diligence to try to buy products that respect human rights, but imo it must consider non human sentients also). I also do my best to buy products that treat humans ethically, fairly etc. and buy second hand where possible and I’m all for that.
I wasn’t suggesting that we would put out a listing for accommodation and then deny/turn away everyone who wasn’t vegan (which would likely be the majority or entirety of responses, only because of how few vegans there are period in current society). That seems like a silly plan, and yes probably cruel/unethical or at least morally dubious. I didn’t actually propose any specific method of helping them, in fact one of my questions was asking people how they thought we should help them. Unfortunately I didn’t get an answer from anyone to either of my questions (why there is a substantial overlap between vegans [OR plant based eaters, I guess] and homelessness, and what we can do about it), but I guess I kind of answered myself when people challenged me to justify why I even said anything about it in the first place or questioned whether it was a real phenomenon. And regarding strategies of how to help them, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have to be like you said. For example, That Vegan Teacher, who now lives in Italy, proposed the idea of the “Pods” system, which other vegans such as Taryn4Animals were looking into organizing and developing and implementing in different locations in the US (but ideally it would be a global community effort). She has talked a lot about it and refined and evolved the idea over the years. After determining that it might be difficult to enact the full scope of her idea physically, she has more recently diverted to a digital version of “Pods” which is more of a general support network for vegans and animal rights activists to help & assist & support & uplift each other, promote each other’s content, motivate each other, etc. But the physical version of the concept would involve vegans who own or rent housing and have the ability to accommodate other roommates/housemates etc, promoting the offer specifically to vegans (in vegan/animal rights spaces, so it’s not advertised directly to carnists etc) for them to come and stay in the building(s) or complexes etc and create kind of a vegan safe house of sorts where vegans could provide each other, including homeless vegans, with a place to stay and maybe vegan food to eat, but also drive each other to keep doing activism (that part could easily be removed and the system would still provide a lot of benefit). Also, as much as it’s virtuous and even obligatory in some cases to help others (including both humans and non human sentient beings), I don’t think anyone should be forced to let others into their home especially who they don’t know. It’s almost like the 3rd amendment of the US constitution where no one can be forced to house soldiers in their home during war. And in some cases, vegans are much more likely to trust and be comfortable with someone else who is vegan (for one thing it demonstrates they’re probably a peaceful nonviolent nonthreatening and respectful person given the compassion they show for animals, ofc not always), and to also be willing to live with them, than to have to potentially violate their values (not saying these values are necessarily inherent to veganism, but can accompany it) of not wanting to be involved with or in close proximity to or even seen as potentially enabling in this case, people doing bad things to nonhuman animals (& the environment & humans etc etc) that they’re morally opposed to and repulsed by. They’re also much more easily and practically able to accommodate that person and live compatibly with them if they’re vegan. So can you really blame a vegan for having a spare flat, and wanting to provide it specifically to vegans? Btw, a vegan did this once during the Ukraine war, advertised a spare flat specifically to vegans on Reddit who were in need of sanctuary from the war, I’m not sure that was the best way to go about doing that or best situation to do it in but they did explain their reasoning and it made sense. They really wouldnt have been able to provide for anyone who wasnt vegan.
I haven’t purchased or (knowingly) consumed an animal product in about three years now and I only buy clothes and shoes that are made in the EU and produced fair. I actually contact companies and ask them where they make their products, if I can’t find that info on their website.
Regarding your statement about communities helping themselves. I am all for that, but how would that practically go down? Let us assume I own an apartment block and I want to rent out a flat to someone. What am I supposed to do if an omni applies? Say “No, you are not living vegan (enough)!”? Because that is what your proposal boils down to.
I will not deny basic human needs, just because someone doesn’t share my ethical views on animals or human labor. Especially if following these views costs money, time and energy. A single mom with two kids won’t have any of those three. They still deserve a home.
Edit: Something that would actually help every homeless person but especially vegan ones is a vegan soup kitchen. Serve everyone, but it is vegan food. That is something I could get behind.
Ok fair enough, I apologize for assuming you weren’t vegan. In my defense, you sounded quite a lot like what non-vegans often say & it seemed like you were echoing their talking points, but you probably didn’t mean it in the same ways, I’m probably just hyper alerted to it based on my experiences with non vegans. I’m also now assuming you are vegan, even though you didn’t explicitly say you are, and I’m interpreting that when you say you don’t purchase or consume animal products, that includes non-food items as well, and that by extension you don’t fund or participate in other forms of animal exploitation either (even if it’s “fair trade” or “ethical” - to humans, by typical speciesist human standards - which is obviously important, and I respect you for doing your due diligence to try to buy products that respect human rights, but imo it must consider non human sentients also). I also do my best to buy products that treat humans ethically, fairly etc. and buy second hand where possible and I’m all for that.
I wasn’t suggesting that we would put out a listing for accommodation and then deny/turn away everyone who wasn’t vegan (which would likely be the majority or entirety of responses, only because of how few vegans there are period in current society). That seems like a silly plan, and yes probably cruel/unethical or at least morally dubious. I didn’t actually propose any specific method of helping them, in fact one of my questions was asking people how they thought we should help them. Unfortunately I didn’t get an answer from anyone to either of my questions (why there is a substantial overlap between vegans [OR plant based eaters, I guess] and homelessness, and what we can do about it), but I guess I kind of answered myself when people challenged me to justify why I even said anything about it in the first place or questioned whether it was a real phenomenon. And regarding strategies of how to help them, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have to be like you said. For example, That Vegan Teacher, who now lives in Italy, proposed the idea of the “Pods” system, which other vegans such as Taryn4Animals were looking into organizing and developing and implementing in different locations in the US (but ideally it would be a global community effort). She has talked a lot about it and refined and evolved the idea over the years. After determining that it might be difficult to enact the full scope of her idea physically, she has more recently diverted to a digital version of “Pods” which is more of a general support network for vegans and animal rights activists to help & assist & support & uplift each other, promote each other’s content, motivate each other, etc. But the physical version of the concept would involve vegans who own or rent housing and have the ability to accommodate other roommates/housemates etc, promoting the offer specifically to vegans (in vegan/animal rights spaces, so it’s not advertised directly to carnists etc) for them to come and stay in the building(s) or complexes etc and create kind of a vegan safe house of sorts where vegans could provide each other, including homeless vegans, with a place to stay and maybe vegan food to eat, but also drive each other to keep doing activism (that part could easily be removed and the system would still provide a lot of benefit). Also, as much as it’s virtuous and even obligatory in some cases to help others (including both humans and non human sentient beings), I don’t think anyone should be forced to let others into their home especially who they don’t know. It’s almost like the 3rd amendment of the US constitution where no one can be forced to house soldiers in their home during war. And in some cases, vegans are much more likely to trust and be comfortable with someone else who is vegan (for one thing it demonstrates they’re probably a peaceful nonviolent nonthreatening and respectful person given the compassion they show for animals, ofc not always), and to also be willing to live with them, than to have to potentially violate their values (not saying these values are necessarily inherent to veganism, but can accompany it) of not wanting to be involved with or in close proximity to or even seen as potentially enabling in this case, people doing bad things to nonhuman animals (& the environment & humans etc etc) that they’re morally opposed to and repulsed by. They’re also much more easily and practically able to accommodate that person and live compatibly with them if they’re vegan. So can you really blame a vegan for having a spare flat, and wanting to provide it specifically to vegans? Btw, a vegan did this once during the Ukraine war, advertised a spare flat specifically to vegans on Reddit who were in need of sanctuary from the war, I’m not sure that was the best way to go about doing that or best situation to do it in but they did explain their reasoning and it made sense. They really wouldnt have been able to provide for anyone who wasnt vegan.