Close Enough to Feel, Far Enough to Forget

We pass by. We hesitate. We look down, look past, look away.This episode is about the taboo we have built around homelessness—how we have learned, collectively, to make people disappear from view, out of discomfort more than indifference. It is about those fleeting encounters on the street that we try to erase as quickly as they happen.Beneath that avoidance lies something more fragile: anger, not only at what we see, but at ourselves—at our helplessness, our discomfort, our quiet cowardice in the face of suffering that is too close to ignore.This episode is about that tension: between visibility and erasure, between encounter and avoidance, between what is there—and what we try not to see.---Statistics mentioned: - About one-third of homeless people report having been assaulted (INSEE)- About 40% of homeless people are women (French Senate Report 2024)- "After spending 1 year on the streets, 100% of the women declare having been raped" (declaration to Senate of Aurélie Tinland, psychiatrist at Public Assistance Hospital in Marseille) & French Senate Report mentioning that all NGO working with homeless women report that all of them have been victims of rape & sexual violence https://www.senat.fr/rap/r24-015-1/r24-015-1_mono.html#toc94- Life expectancy: ~45–50 years (consistent estimation from public health authorities and NGOs)