Ecclesiastes 12:3 says: In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened. This passage is referring to a future prophecy, and society as a whole is in the beginning stages of this prophecy.

The image of desolateness at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic is seared in my brain. I recall vividly walking a half-mile to my job from the Metra train station on the rare occasions that I needed to do a project or two at the office downtown instead of working remotely, which I’d done ninety-nine percent of the time for an entire year before a mandatory, three-day hybrid work schedule was implemented by my firm, and there weren’t masses of people scurrying to work before the clock struck nine or traffic in the streets like usual. There might’ve been a homeless person or two wandering aimlessly about, but I’d be one of the few people walking downtown during a time when it would’ve normally been the peak of rush hour in the Chicago Loop. I’d also wonder if Jacob’s Trouble was soon to follow because of the numerous high-rise buildings remaining unoccupied and restaurants and businesses failing. This was a scary and uncertain time, but I found solace in the Scriptures.

Fast forward three years later, and things have seemingly returned to normal somewhat here in Chicago. However, crime and poverty have increased significantly since the city has reopened, and personally, I know that things aren’t going to get better. I recently saw a video on how desolate downtown San Francisco is―a once thriving city and leader of the tech industry has turned into a city with a dying economy on life support. In this video, I saw nothing but homeless people in the heart of the business district on a typical workday, and numerous office buildings, businesses, and restaurants were closed. There was even a branch of Chase Bank that was closed. Hump-day Wednesday in the late morning or early afternoon resembled Sunday morning before anything opened up, as the streets of downtown San Francisco were virtually barren. The grinders cease because they are few pursuant to the Bible verse above means the collapse of business or commerce in the economy.

Several years before the COVID-19 pandemic, I read an article about independent contractors who worked for Google out of the San Francisco office but weren’t actual employees of Google, nor did they receive any of the standard employee benefits like medical, sick days, or vacation days from them. Google contracts out 54% of its workforce, and temps are usually given one-to-two-year assignments before going through their highly selective, conversion process of becoming full-time employees, which only ten percent of temps cross over. They made roughly $25 an hour at the time, which was decent money in most parts of the U.S., but the cost of living in the Bay Area was and still is one of the highest in the country. A temp worker who worked at Google was interviewed and gave his account of living in his car because the rent there was too expensive for him, and little did I know that San Francisco would ultimately become a place that priced out its workforce and killed its own economy.

This deadly virus has now reached the doorsteps of Chicago, and it’s only a matter of time before my city suffers the same fate as San Francisco. The median cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the Chicagoland area has presently skyrocketed to over $2,000 per month, but the average salary hasn’t kept up with the cost-of-living increases. More people are opting out of living in Chicago and are moving to the suburbs or out of state to neighboring townships in northwest Indiana in order to sustain a cheaper cost of living, and the only other options for the average working-class man and woman are to rent apartments in the crime-ridden southside and westside communities where a one-bedroom apartment typically costs about thousand bucks. Look for this trend to continue and sweep across the nation, as more people will become homeless in the months to come. All praise, honor, and glory go to Yahawah Bahasham Yahawashi.