John Oliver Sounds Alarm on Nation’s Homeless Population, Calls for Bipartisan Awareness: ‘We Need to Stop Being D*cks’

John Oliver tackled the nation’s increasing population of homeless people on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, noting the misconceptions many have regarding the community.

Oliver opened his main segment by explaining that there are over 580,000 people experiencing homelessness in the United States — a community that has increased nationwide for the fourth consecutive year.

“With this rise in homelessness has come a corresponding rise in the rhetoric around it,” the host added, airing a clip from a Fox News segment on the homeless population in Austin, Texas.

He first hit at the network for fueling fear surrounding the homeless community, mocking them for using eerie music throughout the segment.

“I know it is easy to criticize Fox News for being alarmist — alarmism is their whole thing,” Oliver said after playing the video. “But the truth is, even some residents of Austin, famously a blue dot in a red state, have said it’s been a struggle to reconcile their feelings about their homeless neighbors.”

Oliver played local news clips of homeowners in Austin explaining how they view the homelessness issue in their state, one woman saying, “Every time I have to pick up human shit, my liberalness gets lowered.”

After noting that the topic of homelessness should not only be viewed through the lenses of homeowners, the host later went on to pinpoint why homelessness has continued to increase in the U.S.

“If you’re wondering why homelessness continues to get worse in this country, one reason is there are a lot of people, even liberals, who believe that homelessness is a personal failing, poverty can be avoided, and their own good fortune makes them not only better than the unhoused, but more worthy of comfort,” he said.

The host went after former President Ronald Reagan for saying that homeless people were homeless by choice during a 1984 Good Morning America interview.

“And that notion — that homelessness isn’t related to economic policies, but simply reflects the problems of the individuals experiencing it — still informs the way it’s discussed today,” Oliver said after the clip.

He then went on to air a clip of Dr. Drew Pinsky saying that it is “a hoax” to pin the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles on the housing crisis, suggesting that homelessness is exclusively a mental health or addiction issue.

“Yes, many who are homeless do struggle with both those things, and those people are often the most visible, but by no means all of them,” Oliver explained. “Also, in many cases, those struggles can be the result of being homeless and not the cause of it.”

“I do not want to over-simply the logistics involved here. It will take a massive commitment in infrastructure, funding and resources. But the very first step here is a collective change of perceptions,” he said. “Basically we need to stop being dicks, and assuming that the unhoused are a collection of drug addict criminals who’ve chosen this life for themselves, instead of people suffering the inevitable consequences of gutted social programs and a nationwide divestment from affordable housing.”

Watch above, via YouTube.

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