Perhaps nothing captures the idea of “kinship” more than what I have seen beginning to take root in our town in the last few weeks with regard to the “homeless”. As you point out there are many reasons why people are homeless and the level of empathy towards the homeless is partially impacted by the reason impacting each individual person.

But there is another trend, I find very interesting, since I have heard it over and over again. That trend is best expressed as “we will take care of our homeless, but those that don’t “belong” here should leave. Most of our “long term” local homeless have “names” attached to them and people seem to look out for them.

But there is a “harsher” feeling towards “homeless” that have recently come to our town as part of a county wide homeless relocation program. While we are setting up more resources for all homeless, the sense of “kinship” is far less with these strangers and people would be happy if they simply left and went back to their homes. Also, as the numbers increase the demand on resources is increasing and forcing the city to divert funds from other city projects to address the needs of people “that are not from here”.

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-orange-county-increase-study-20190425-story.html

So “kinship” is a tricky thing. People tend to feel it “towards their own” and define “their own” in many ways. Even the “homeless” can be “adopted” by a community if they have been there awhile. And the willingness to share resources with “their own” is far greater than with strangers.