Is Being Homeless That Bad?
Pepe_Muffassa
Join Date: 2003-01-17 Member: 12401Members
Join Date: 2003-01-17 Member: 12401Members
in Discussions
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<b>Yes, it is</b>
Never think otherwise.
Be careful what you wish for.
Is this an excess? No doubt. But god, that does not, as your post silently implies, make the support of homeless people a lost cause or these investions obsolete. Homelessness means more than the lack of a roof above your head in most cases. It means the loss of all social nets you might've spun; the complete withdrawal out of society. If you want to help these people, you need to find ways of reintegrating them, and this is inevitably going to come with a price tag.
Be careful what you wish for.
Is this an excess? No doubt. But god, that does not, as your post silently implies, make the support of homeless people a lost cause or these investions obsolete. Homelessness means more than the lack of a roof above your head in most cases. It means the loss of all social nets you might've spun; the complete withdrawal out of society. If you want to help these people, you need to find ways of reintegrating them, and this is inevitably going to come with a price tag. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
why would they want to integrate?
- free movies
- free gym
- free food
- free place to sleep
- nice weather 90% of the time in L.A.
The only thing they have to pay for is their pot!
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for supporting the homeless... But the first step towards integration is a paper route. Heck, if Illegal Immegrants can get a minimum wage job... surely someone who doesn't fear being deported should be able to work!
Don't try to argue against points I didn't make, please.
As a rule of thumb, you don't become homeless if you are in a condition good enough to give you real chances for a workplace. From my first hand experiences, homelessness is frequently a consequence of severe mental or physical illnesses, rampant addictions, or a combination of the three. You can't earnestly expect a manic depressive to show up by 9am every day.
Ok, my main point was:
Movies and trips to the gym. Is that all you want out of life? I doubt it, why assume the same for them?
Have you ever given a homeless person money? Did you then watch him walk into a convenience store and buy booze and cigs? No? Then don't insinuate that drugs are more important to these people than food. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Everyone who thinks homeless people have it easy in this country needs to go work in a soup kitchen....
In San Fransisco, the homeless people are even worse though. Sometimes in major cities they actually work for their money, by cleaning windshields in traffic. In San Fran, they wander through stopped traffic asking for money, like their lazy **** are entitled to my hard earned dollar. No "will work for food," just "will take your change or spare bills."
Nem, don't be so naive. These people have not only given up, they don't even want to go back. They don't care. Why should I bother wasting my tax money on someone like that? Like government programs like that would even help most of them. They'd just exploit to support their habit, and go from there.
Do I sound bitter? I hope so.
Have you ever given a homeless person money? Did you then watch him walk into a convenience store and buy booze and cigs? No? Then don't insinuate that drugs are more important to these people than food. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Everyone who thinks homeless people have it easy in this country needs to go work in a soup kitchen.... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I have given a homeless person some money only to watch him then take it along with the rest of the money he has scrounged and go buy some rolling tobacco and some 3 litre bottle of cider. One even had the cheek to ask me last Friday if I had some money so he could go get himself a drink, then he gave a boring life story about how it was all Maggie Thatchers fault he was homeless blah blah.
I felt like saying to him "why don't you pull your finger out your arse and sort your flipping life out instead of sitting on your arse begging for booze money"
None says they have it easy but you have to want something better before you can actually get it, sitting around getting wasted on money you've begged isn't the way to do it.
I am much more of a Californian at heart I think. But one lesson I learned is to never live in California unless you have plenty of money to go around. (rampant frivilous lawsuits, higher cost of living, etc...)
<!--QuoteBegin-VMAN+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (VMAN)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Do I sound bitter? I hope so.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes you do. Stereotyped hatred is inexcuseable. Not all people who are homeless are addicts who can't keep a job. Many times it's hard working people who just have too many burdens to keep up with rent and get bogged down. Are you going to tell the mother struggling to raise her child that you don't believe in helping because you have automatically assumed she is an addict and think it's funny that she is suffering? I hope not. If you do believe altruism is an illusion and shouldn't be done, social security should be removed, and the only person important in this world is you and how you pleasure your self then you'll fit well with the Ayn Rand Institute. (one of my biggest complaints with the organization)
The primary way to reduce homelessness is to provide jobs with sufficent buying power. Most people I know who are not full time students typically hold two jobs. This makes it seem that the economy is healthy because unemployment is low, but in fact it is outlining how competitive the job market is for jobs that give enough buying power for the cost of living. If housing was really cheap or everyone made enough money to buy a house as well as pay all the other expenses like insurance, food, ultilites, maintainace, etc. then you'd find homelessness to be virtually non-existant.
Have you ever given a homeless person money? Did you then watch him walk into a convenience store and buy booze and cigs? No? Then don't insinuate that drugs are more important to these people than food. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Everyone who thinks homeless people have it easy in this country needs to go work in a soup kitchen.... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I have given a homeless person some money only to watch him then take it along with the rest of the money he has scrounged and go buy some rolling tobacco and some 3 litre bottle of cider. One even had the cheek to ask me last Friday if I had some money so he could go get himself a drink, then he gave a boring life story about how it was all Maggie Thatchers fault he was homeless blah blah.
I felt like saying to him "why don't you pull your finger out your arse and sort your flipping life out instead of sitting on your arse begging for booze money"
None says they have it easy but you have to want something better before you can actually get it, sitting around getting wasted on money you've begged isn't the way to do it. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes there are some people like that who don't like to work, avoid responsibility and can't or don't care about anything. The vast majority have jobs.
I have been homeless and I am educated, well mannered with no addictions (apart from the internet, I think I actually had withdrawel symptoms when I first went homeless). I have a strong work ethic, a very highly developed sense of right and wrong and good social skills. I tried my hardest to get somewhere to live and it took months and that was getting it easy, I know some that were homeless for years. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get somewhere when you have literally nothing? Do you know who will employ you if you don't have a place to live?
I promise you that for every person that is homeless because they want to be there are dozens that are forced there by situations they have absolutely no control over. I suggest before you start getting judgemental that you think about <i>how</i> they got like that and then, more importantly, <i>how</i> they would get back out of it again.
Tell me, how would you get the money to pay a deposit on a flat if you were homeless? Tell me how you expect to keep a proper job if you are living out of a bag or two, when you look and feel like a mess. Would you be confident? Feel capable of dealing with people when you are conscious of your state? Do you have any idea how attractive alcohol is when it keeps you warm, keeps you going and helps you forget? It's not a road I turned down myself but I know plenty who did and I was sorely tempted.
Tell <i>me</i> that I'm not trying as hard as possible to make it. Tell <i>me</i> that I haven't worked, that I'm lazy. I know exactly how easy it is to make blanket statements and generalisations but before you start condemning people for the categories you put them in first ask yourself exactly what you'd do in a similar situation.
The whole point is that I want to help people who need it, not feed leeches. And there are a lot of leeches. If you need a few bucks of my hard earned pay to get yourself a place and land a job, that's cool. I dig it. However, if you're a leech, tell me under what bridge you normally sleep so I can drown you during the best part of your heroin kick.
Generalizations can be bad, but don't fool yourselves. In too may cases, they're true enough to make them applicable. We can all cite a specific case of some homeless dude that worked hard to get back into the working world. But for every case, there are several others that could be cited to prove that they lost their money to stupid addictions.
I think the point of Pepe's article is, of course, that most of us here in the real world don't get easy access to the latest and greatest of digital entertainment, especially not through the use of state funding. I'd have to save up for months to be able to get a nice TV like those, but these guys get to hang out all day and watch TV. Great. Leeches. Cut 'em off before they bleed ya dry.
There are actually very few permanently/chronically homeless people, I forget the percentage...
PS: Wasn't Lex from Lex and Terry homeless for a period of time? I think I remember him saying that.
I carry canned food and buy coats from the Good Will in the winter to hand them instead of $, that way, I'm sure they will use it for what they say they will and not for drugs/alcohol/cigs.
I've also offered a guy work, to which he replyed "Go away, people give me money and rarley offer me work".
The whole point is that I want to help people who need it, not feed leeches. And there are a lot of leeches. If you need a few bucks of my hard earned pay to get yourself a place and land a job, that's cool. I dig it. However, if you're a leech, tell me under what bridge you normally sleep so I can drown you during the best part of your heroin kick.
Generalizations can be bad, but don't fool yourselves. In too may cases, they're true enough to make them applicable. We can all cite a specific case of some homeless dude that worked hard to get back into the working world. But for every case, there are several others that could be cited to prove that they lost their money to stupid addictions.
I think the point of Pepe's article is, of course, that most of us here in the real world don't get easy access to the latest and greatest of digital entertainment, especially not through the use of state funding. I'd have to save up for months to be able to get a nice TV like those, but these guys get to hang out all day and watch TV. Great. Leeches. Cut 'em off before they bleed ya dry. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course there are some people who 'deserve' it but can you tell just by looking at them, just by walking past them as to whether they are down on their luck or if they are 'leeches'. Plus you say I'm doing well for myself and to an extent that's true but it sometimes feels like I'm holding on to what I have got with my fingernails. There have been numerous times where, if it weren't for my friends, I may well have gone under again. Everyone needs a safety net and not everyone has a family or, in my case, true friends who will stick by your side whatever. Becoming homeless is more than just losing a home.
So I ask again, what makes you or anyone else qualified to judge whether someone is a 'leech'? I'm not telling you to give them money, not even I do that (if I have any spare it usually goes to cancer research) but when you judge (and not just you, there are pleny of others) just think what that shelter could give them, don't deprive them that. Do you really think they will all be sitting around watching cartoons or Jerry Springer? Do you think a gym won't help them recover from being homeless? Do you think a place like that might not offer them other opportunities?
I don't believe you should start handing out money to everyone you meet but you shouldn't look down upon them when you could find yourself in a similar position through not fault of your own.
There are actually very few permanently/chronically homeless people, I forget the percentage... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Truth; so many people hover around the poverty line that just a small crises can tip them into homelessness. Then they get a leg up somehow, sometimes through hard work, sometimes through luck.
All capitalist societies have some kind of unemployment, I think it's called the "transitional unemployment" or something. It's unfortunate but true. However, unemployment does not have to be as high as it is now, and the condition itself doesn't have to take as long on average to get out of as it does now.
This one incident still makes me sad: I was in NYC. I think I was around 10 years old. I don't remember why I was there, only that I was wearing nice clothes, including a leather jacket. It was too big for me, but it was nice to have, because it was rather cold. I saw a poor man on the street, and not having any money, I decided I should give him my jacket. Of course, my mom ran and grabbed me as soon as I went over to him, and refused to let me give him my jacket. In hindsight, of course, I can see why; the jacket must have cost at least $50, probably more. It used to be my grandpa's or something I think. But I'm just amazed that, at 10 years old, I would have thought nothing of giving a poor man my jacket, yet at 17 I refused to give money to a man who came up to me on the streets. Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if we were all a little more giving, like children, without fearing where the man is going to spend the money when you turn around....
Have you ever given a homeless person money? Did you then watch him walk into a convenience store and buy booze and cigs? No? Then don't insinuate that drugs are more important to these people than food. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Everyone who thinks homeless people have it easy in this country needs to go work in a soup kitchen.... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I have given a homeless person some money only to watch him then take it along with the rest of the money he has scrounged and go buy some rolling tobacco and some 3 litre bottle of cider. One even had the cheek to ask me last Friday if I had some money so he could go get himself a drink, then he gave a boring life story about how it was all Maggie Thatchers fault he was homeless blah blah.
I felt like saying to him "why don't you pull your finger out your arse and sort your flipping life out instead of sitting on your arse begging for booze money"
None says they have it easy but you have to want something better before you can actually get it, sitting around getting wasted on money you've begged isn't the way to do it. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes there are some people like that who don't like to work, avoid responsibility and can't or don't care about anything. The vast majority have jobs.
I have been homeless and I am educated, well mannered with no addictions (apart from the internet, I think I actually had withdrawel symptoms when I first went homeless). I have a strong work ethic, a very highly developed sense of right and wrong and good social skills. I tried my hardest to get somewhere to live and it took months and that was getting it easy, I know some that were homeless for years. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get somewhere when you have literally nothing? Do you know who will employ you if you don't have a place to live?
I promise you that for every person that is homeless because they want to be there are dozens that are forced there by situations they have absolutely no control over. I suggest before you start getting judgemental that you think about <i>how</i> they got like that and then, more importantly, <i>how</i> they would get back out of it again.
Tell me, how would you get the money to pay a deposit on a flat if you were homeless? Tell me how you expect to keep a proper job if you are living out of a bag or two, when you look and feel like a mess. Would you be confident? Feel capable of dealing with people when you are conscious of your state? Do you have any idea how attractive alcohol is when it keeps you warm, keeps you going and helps you forget? It's not a road I turned down myself but I know plenty who did and I was sorely tempted.
Tell <i>me</i> that I'm not trying as hard as possible to make it. Tell <i>me</i> that I haven't worked, that I'm lazy. I know exactly how easy it is to make blanket statements and generalisations but before you start condemning people for the categories you put them in first ask yourself exactly what you'd do in a similar situation. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The state has facilities for homeless people here in the UK.
Say I became homeless tomorrow lost everything, job the lot etc. I would go down to the local job center (they deal with benefit claims as well) sign on as homeless then they would sort me out with somewhere to stay most likely a B&B but at least it's a roof, also I would get a small cash allowance each week. That would take about a day to do as there would be a mountain of forms to fill in <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->.
Next day I would go down to the local recruitment agency to get a job. I've been to people like these before when I was jobless, they will give anyone a job most likely a crap one but I wouldn't be in a position to pick and choose. This I could do until I found something better and more permanant. Agency work tends to involve getting moved around a lot
Next I would save save save save save so that I could at least rent somewhere a little better than a B&B.
It's pretty much as simple as that, the point is there isn't really any need for people to be homeless here in the UK they either want to be homeless or simply don't know about the benefits or facilities that are available to them. So you'll have to excuse me if I continue to take a dim view of ratarsed beggers bumming for some change to go buy some more cider
btw, I had a place to live, and a vehicle to drive myself to a job.
btw, I had a place to live, and a vehicle to drive myself to a job. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
ROFL!
That is soooooo damn true. Last week I went to the Wisconsin department of Labor and did a search. ZERO jobs. NONE. 100% none for me to work. (This was 60 miles) I also did a search for 120 miles for laughs and only 1 showed up. G to the G.
If it works... who cares? We will see soon i guess.
<!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif' /><!--endemo-->