People's strange ideas about "The Homeless"

[astral]

"Many of those who live under these conditions are not comfortable living in apartments or housing that we consider a requirement for normal living. These folks are more comfortable living in the wilderness on their own. "

"Really, do we want homeless people downtown? I think not."

Two different letters to the paper from two different people. The first person apparently thinks we need to give them a place to be, but not any shelter. The second person thinks we have to admit we have them, but really can't we store them someplace else? (Where the tourists won't see them.)

I seems the homeless are being stigmatized as a separate species from the rest of the human race. I know, it's just some people who are like that, but it has its effect.

I would like to see a proper wake up call and have people hear the stories about how "The Homeless" got to be that way, and maybe sure some like it fine, but I'll wager a bet maybe not where winters get really, really COLD.

There are many causes, many stories, many different circumstances, some temporary, some permanent or long-term. I do not know what the solution is, exactly, but for a start, people need different kinds of help for different kinds of reasons.

And the numbers of first-time homeless and the reasons for it are changing.

[notesdev]

1. I've known quite a few

Traditionally, most - not all - are on the streets due to mental illness or chronic alcohol/drug abuse. However there are a lot of people forced into that position through economic stress, and I would guess that almost all the increase in homeless during this Depression fall into that category.

The number of people who simply don't want a home? So small it's absurd to suggest it.

[imdjh]

8. The notion of the resistant homeless comes from articles about those who refuse....

.... to use the shelters for a variety of reasons, from rules to safety to not being told what to do. I have yet to see an article which said that this type of person was the rule or even the majority, people imagine that when they read.

[dkf]

25. There is an assumption that the Government provides shelters to those

who need it, and that anyone who doesn't have it doesn't want it or won't live with the rules.

I have no idea if it is true or not. But it should be.

[mrcheerful]

2. No as by reading inetween the lines both people believe the same thing

The homeless choose to be homeless. The first one is blatant about it, the second one wants it out of sight so its out of mind, neither poster is concerned how the homeless became homeless. Little do either realize how fast they too could wind up on the street with no place to go, but in their minds they are the masters of their destiny.

[Mind_your_head]

3. Well, Jesus provides a wonderful example to follow.....

Jesus NEVER assumed what 'good' He could do for a person (although he could do anything/everything).

Jesus ALWAYS asked before He did anything!, 'Why are you here? What do you want? What can *I* do for you'? Jesus NEVER assumed that He knew what was best for the person. Jesus always sought FIRST what the person thought was his/her greatest need/desire....

[sojourner]

17. really? always and every time? how about when he "felt" healing go out from himself.

i think there are other examples - if memory serves. and jesus KNEW what was best.

i get your point about us, though. we are not jesus, and we DON'T KNOW what's best. wish more would follow his ways.

[Mind_your_head]

31. Glad that you understand what I meant

Peace,
M_Y_H

[Mind_your_head]

32. self-delete - dupe

[napi21]

4. I've never been homeless, but I've been onepaycheck away from it many times!

I sure didn't WANT to live on the street or under a bridge, or, as they used to have in Pgh. a lot people who roamed the streets during the day & camped on top of those vent grids outside of big buildings where the hot air rose through and kept them from freezing at least! One homeless Vietnam Vet used to frequent the little coffee shop across the street from where I worked because the owner always gave him a hot cup of coffee & a doughnut or breakfast roll every morning. He hung around the parks during the day. I felt really bad for him & his friends but I really was close to joining him and had NO spare money! I was working but hubby was laid off for a long time and I managed to buy a weekly bus pas to make sure I could still get to work every day. Many times I had a single dime to may name and it was 2 days until payday. That was a long time ago. God knows what ever happened to that guy & his friends and his successors whoprobably still do the same things in Pgh and all other large cities.

[demosincebirth]

9. Been there too."There, but by the grace of God go I."

[Berry Cool]

23. You are obviously lying.

Bill O'Reilly says THERE ARE NO HOMELESS VETS!!!!! And if Bill says it, it has to be so!!!!

[gateley]

5. Comments like that make me so angry I shake, and literally make me queasy.

Where is the humanity?

[rhett o rick]

6. These people are right wing authoritarians. They are delusional and rationalize

that anyone homeless is that way either because they like it or because they deserve it. This relieves them of any responsibility for helping.

To them, "rationalization is the key to happiness."

[Hannah Bell]

34. maybe they're just dumb.

[rhett o rick]

38. Dumb maybe, but not "just dumb". Willfully dumb. They are dumb and proud of it.

They resist knowledge because they either cant or are too lazy to deal with it.

[Hannah Bell]

39. i don't think it works that way. dumb or lying.

[rwheeler31]

7. We criminalize these people , Why?

[midnight]

10. Get rid of homelessness, don't let anyone live in poverty. We can and

should turn this tragedy around.

[imdjh]

12. Absent forced institutionalization, I'd say that's an unrealistic prediction.

Especially when you consider that there are quite a few homeless people who are homeless part time, who are truly transient. Unless you plan on some serious structure, there will always be people (guys mostly) who just take off one day from Columbus or Chicago, and come to Florida or Arizona or California with no place to be and no time to get there. There will always be people who are incorrigibly shiftless or inveterate inebriates. And there will always be some people who simply refuse because they can.

[LynzM]

11. Yeah, the level of judgment is pretty awful.

The one friend who I *know* was homeless was such as a teen because it was preferable to abuse at the hands of his foster family members, after abuse from his nuclear family removed him from that situation. Surely that's something that no 16-year-old would *choose.*

Mental illness certainly comes into it, lack of a supportive community where anyone can offer you a place to stay, and many other stories. As you say, people need different kinds of help and for different kinds of reasons.

[imdjh]

14. I have watched someone become homeless, and I couldn't/wouldn't help.

Oh, I helped at first, but after the fourth trip to rehab, after he fucked over everyone we knew, and after he made it pretty clear that he wasn't going to stop drinking I had to cut ties. I was his friend, not his brother. When I can't trust someone in my home or around my family, it's time for him to go. I don't know how these folks who have family members on downward crack or meth spirals do it. How can you sleep at night with a crackhead in your house?

[izquierdista]

13. The solution? Assigned housing

If you want to have a civilized population, you must provide for those who are unable to maintain a civilized dwelling. You do this by assigning them whatever the minimum standard that is established for housing. It could be a bungalow or a cabin or a single-wide, with a minimum number of square feet per person, or family, or living group, but you don't just leave the bottom percent of the population to fend for themselves with cardboard boxes. There would be an enormous headache in implementing it, and it has to be done by incentive, not by force, but it should be done.

Some people in Eastern Europe wax nostalgic for the Communist days on the subject of homelessness. You see, homelessness was not allowed in the Soviet Union. In theory, if a homeless person or "bomzh" (bez ofitsialniy miesto zhitelnyi) was found by the authorities, he would be taken to a social worker and assigned a place to live. How well that theory was put into practice is the matter of another discussion.

[imdjh]

15. Not to get too disgusting, but who cleans up the shit?

And before someone goes into some self righteous "how dare you assume that all homeless....." bullshit , it isn't all homeless. But if you are going to house all the homeless, then you are going to house SOME (note to the outraged, "some" means a subset of the total) nasty people who will destroy anything given to them, who will smoke crack and shit on the floor, who will allow garbage to pile up, and in a multi unit housing situation that gets ugly real fast.

And where do you propose this place be put?

[izquierdista]

26. Trailers

Yes, there will be some who will trash any accommodation they are assigned to. This is where social worker discretion needs to be used. They would need to review past history and future prospects to see what kind of unit to assign. To someone with a history of torching or trashing their dwelling unit, they would get a bare bones minimum unit, which had little depreciation value left i.e., a 25 year old travel trailer parked on a site which would otherwise be abandoned. I see plenty of closed car dealerships in my travels. Running temporary water, electrical, and sewer hookups and putting salvage value trailers on them would cost much, much less than any housing voucher program. And when they have hit bottom and want to rejoin the civilized, they can earn their way into a better "assignment".

P.S. I've actually done this with a homeless person, no government involvement, just one-on-one. Did it work? No, he never changed his ways and stopped drinking, but he did have a home when he died of liver failure.

[bluetrain]

16. The majority that I've known have been kids who chose to leave home because of really awful

circumstances and became travelers and most of them developed addictions to something or another whilst in the life. Very few would have hit the road if they'd had happy home lives though I guess I can't say for sure how many would have become addicts even with a more reliable place to stay. What always made me really upset though was my self-proclaimed/deluded Marxist stepfather literally spitting on homeless people or laughing at or screaming at them as we'd walk down the street. There's a reason I got to know so many homeless kids.

[Lyric]

18. A great solution for homelessness:

Housing--plain and simple. I don't buy all this nonsense about mental illness as a primary cause of homelessness. I think it's more likely the other way around--or more accurately that both homelessness AND mental illness can be caused by poverty. But seriously--cold, misery, and fear every night? Never, ever being able to sleep deeply because you never know who might take something that belongs to you? Never having any privacy or being permitted any dignity? Constantly treated like the scum of the earth, or (from the better-intentioned people) like a stupid child? Of COURSE there are a lot of mentally-ill homeless people. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, paranoia--all mental illnesses that are caused by emotional/mental TRAUMA, and being poor and homeless is about as traumatic as it gets.

We "fix" the problem of homelessness when we provide basic, functional housing to all people, regardless of whether or not they can pay for it. It's not like there's a shortage of sleeping and living space in this country. How many houses, trailers, apartments, condos, hotels, boarding rooms, and other accommodations are empty and unused every night in America? A hell of a lot more the number of homeless people, I'd wager. There's room enough for the homeless to live among us again. We just don't care enough about these people. We'd rather blame them for their own situation, because that makes us feel less guilty.

The problem will NEVER go away until we stop trying to pin the blame on the victims and start dealing with the uncomfortable reality that these people are homeless because there's no housing that (a) they can afford, and/or (b) they will be accepted into. Even middle-class people have a tough time getting an apartment without a good credit report these days. What housing is there for people who are homeless and can't get HOMES because they have either no credit history or bad credit history? And those are just two barriers. There are countless others.

Basic, functional housing should be a right, not a privilege, and CERTAINLY not a vehicle for private profit.

[Cleita]

19. It's their fault.

:sarcasm:

We have a system that makes it hard to find shelter under dire circumstances.

I grew up in an era when homeless white people chose to be that way for real, but if they decided they didn't like the life they could get back into the mainstream and get a place to live. I am talking about hobos who liked riding the rails and being free. There were those who liked doing the Route 66 scenario, driving and working their way across America and yes there were the skid row drunks who actually liked the lifestyle. They got sustenance from the missions and most of them did have what was called a flop for a home, a cheap hotel room that they kept their stuff in and they did day jobs to work for it. People of color did have it much tougher.

However, what is going on today is strictly third world country stuff and we should be ashamed.

[Swamp Rat]

20. k&r

[Greyhound]

21. GOD would never allow good people to be in such straights, therefore they are bad.

:sarcasm:
The process of criminalizing poverty continues...
:kick: & R

[cutlassmama]

22. K & R. I think recently there has been a turn towards family members

doubling and tripling up. Two to three generations living together just to make ends meet. I think we'll see a lot more of that with this depression. I feel sorry for the folks without family.

[Odin2005]

24. anti-homeless idiocy is disgusting.

[Hannah Bell]

40. worse than anti-teacher idiocy?

[BanzaiBonnie]

27. I heard someone call them scrap people

Niiiiice

[skygazer]

28. I get really annoyed with those who take the morally superior tone

For instance, they won't give a homeless guy a buck because "he'll just use it to buy alcohol."

Well, to me, if I give someone a buck, it is now their buck to do with as they please. If what he wants is a 40 ounce beer, that's his choice. Hard enough to beat alcoholism when you live in a nice house and get 3 squares a day - think how hard it must be when you live under a bridge. Same with smoking. If that's the only pleasure in your life, maybe you deserve to have it.

Sure, I could buy him a sandwich instead so I knew my money went to feed him. But maybe he'd rather have the beer and frankly, I'm not going to treat a grown man as a child, making decisions for him.

There are a bunch of homeless guys who hang out near my store. I treat them all with friendliness and respect, help them out when I can and don't judge them.

[redqueen]

29. Bless you...

I used to beg for change to call my mom. Wouldn't believe how hard it was to get a few lousy nickles together... and in a richy rich area too.

[Cid_B]

37. Its their choice to give up the dollar as well I would say...

nt

[OneGrassRoot]

41. To me, that is the true spirit of giving....

Giving without judgment, without expectation. You do it to be kind to another human being, nothing more. That is much more rewarding all the way around, IMHO. Yet it's rare.

:)

[PJPhreak]

30. When I was Homeless,

The problems that I had were with simple things that most folk take for granted.

a short list of the crap I heard and dealt with everyday...

A phone...If you don't have a phone no one will hire you.

An address...see above

A place to shower.

A safe place to rest and sleep...Few homeless actually sleep under bridges,too dangerous,too many vermin (Rats for example) most of the homeless Myself included prefer to find a hidden spot to sleep because no one wants to have what little they have stolen.

'Tudes... Society considers a homeless person 'Broken" for some reason or another,"If you are not defective in some way or another,then you wouldn't be homeless"

Employment....This is a big one,probably the largest single reason a large portion of us were in this position,all the jobs that would keep a good portion of homeless housed have been shipped out of the us...For one thing,We Don't make stuff anymore!! We have reduced the simple service jobs to nothing,When have you seen a "Pump Jockey" at a gas station for example? These are the type of jobs that gave a lot of folk a start out of the cycle of homelessness.

I can't count the number of times that I heard "McDonalds is hiring,ya bum"

Education...our school system in the US has failed to prepare a lot of people for life in todays world.

Drug and Alcohol/Mental Illness actually make up a minority of the homeless population...They are just the most visible. The rest of us ya'll just don't see.

Just to prove a point...When I was Homeless no one would have known it...I like many homeless are invisible,we made it a point to be,The stigma was just too harsh

[Mind_your_head]

33. +1

[vadawg]

35. i only know two homeless dudes who wouldnt live indoors for anything

the vast majority i deal with want somewhere to live, though i can understand the two gentlemen who dont want to live indoors and their reasons for this, and i get them...

[SoCalDem]

36. "..."Really, do we want..." ..as if they had a choice..

People are where they are, whether other people "want" them there or not.


If hoity-toitys don't want to have to look at homeless, perhaps they should also be willing to DO something about it...and tossing a quarter, served up with a dirty look is not cutting it.

[L0oniX]

42. Fools! Don't you know that it's more important that we kill people in other countries?

Come on people ...life in this country is all about supporting the troops, war and killing. Love it or leave it!

“My country right or wrong” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother drunk or sober.” – G. K. Chesterton