UGH, a fairly liberal friend of mine asserted that most homeless people are drug-abusers...

[Odin2005]

...and alcoholics. Wow, just wow. She's very liberal on most issues (Abortion being the exception, she's a Catholic), but unfortunately she is one of those people who believes personal experience (she taught in a "bad" school in Ocala, Florida for 3 years) over factual data. When I tried to convince her otherwise she took it as a personal attack. (

Wow, when an even fairly liberal person believes RW myths about the homeless how the hell are we going to change the minds of most people?

[Orrex]

1. Tell her that they're not actually homeless

In fact, they hang out on the street because it's easier to score drugs and booze that way.


Your friend sounds like a real winner, if you don't mind me saying so.

[treestar]

2. They might be - that does not mean they should be homeless or deserve to be

Checking statistics on this would help. From this link it looks like one of many causes.
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/why.html

[Orrex]

5. Excellent link--thanks!

I'm sure that a lot of homeless people get into drugs or alcohol because they can't believe how fucking fantastic their lives are.


Our fine nation turns an official blind eye to the homeless, and there's no shortage of soundbyte slogans to help people minimize or dismiss them.

On the plus side, multimillionaires don't likely have to see or to walk anywhere near a homeless person, so it's all good.

[n2doc]

24. +1000

Or, I might add, that we have to treat them as less than human.

[Sparkly]

33. Thank you.

Is there an assumption that addicts should be kicked to the curb?

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

3. Here are some basic stats.

Do with them what you will (or what your friend will):
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/who.html
http://www.cohhio.org/resources/factsheets/Chicagofactsheet.html

[flvegan]

4. If my fairly liberal friend said that to me, I'd suggest

that he/she go and volunteer at a shelter or soup kitchen. See a "population" of them, rather than basing what they've come to believe off of images in the media and the one-off unfortunate experience.

[William Z. Foster]

6. may not be able to, but that is not a problem

The dividing line is not between liberal and right wing, it is between the haves and the have-nots. The people taking the side of the haves are a minority of the population, but they loom larger because they are more successful and influential and we always feel like we need to argue with them or persuade them. We don't, and we may never be able to. For every winner who stubbornly adheres to "Republican light" ideas there are a thousand suffering blue collar people who know that this is a battle to the death between the haves and the have-nots. If we were to strongly and unambiguously take a position in defense of them, a position that was truly in opposition to the right wing - they relentlessly and reliably and exclusively fight for the needs and desires of the haves - and moved to the front where the battle is actually happening, almost all of those people would be with us.

[bobbolink]

7. People are much more comfortable blaming the victim rather than the society.

They want to know that they 1) are safe from ever becoming homeless, and 2) have no responsibility for the homelessness epidemic.

3), it is our fault for allowing this ignorance to continue.

[Gemini Cat]

9. +1!

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Mental illness and drug abuse

are part of the reasons for it. And for the chronically homeless they are also higher in the stats... but most? Hardly... in my experience and I worked with the population... (and my contact WAS skewed higher since I was a bloody first responder) it got close to 30%.

Ok but you did it in Mexico.

Yep, in a border town, and if people think Americans who are homeless staid on this side of the border...

And talking to homeless advocates on both sides, they said that the high number for mental illness would be close to 20% and drug\alcohol abuse mid 20%, aka 25%. And yes, this was the chronic population. Sad, but if you actually looked at the homeless population that was just US Military Veterans, then the stats jumped, and it still does, which is a tragedy on its own. And yes, we do have an inordinate number of Vets, by percentage of the population who ARE homeless.

[Cleita]

15. Read my post #14. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. The last thirty years had a lot to do with it as well

but I knew a few.... less than five percent mind you,, that is three individuals, one in Mexico and two in the US, who WERE chronic and removing them to any kind of safety net was kind of impossible.

Sadly those gents, and rarely gals, are what people think when thinking of the homeless...

And yes, that five percent is a high number, and it is a number that I suspect would exist in many societies. Granted, they should be, those three mind you, in a medical institution.

[Cleita]

18. I do know about the chronic, impossible ones, but they were so few

back before Reaganomics that you just gave them some money and let them be and I would say that 99.5% were not impossible if they had something to fall back on.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. As I said these three were

:-) and the 5% I gave is a high number... I suspect, just as you do, that it would probably be lower if we had a safety net, and those rooms were part of that safety net.

We tried... oh lord we tried.

[bobbolink]

21. Thank you very much for the more accurate numbers. It is past time for progressives

to become more educated on the actual facts about homelessness, rather than to continue to repeat the the same tired old falsehoods, which only hurt homeless people.

And, yes, Vets represent a disproportionately higher incidence of substance abuse, and yes, that is a sad fact that we, as a nation, must come to terms with.

What I would like for you to look at a bit differently is the phrase "chronically homeless", which "experts" use to often marginalize homeless people. We need to consider one basic fact: when so many localities have waiting lists of even 10 years for low-income housing, there are going to be lots of people who are homeless for a long time, having nothing to do with "mental illness" or substance abuse. That is the one fact that is so hard to get through to people.

The obvious way to solve that is to ensure there is enough low-income housing for everyone.

[Bigmack]

10. Self-medication for Depression... nt

[Lex]

11. Most homeless people are children.

nt

[quaker bill]

12. I have been volunteering for 25 years

and "most" seemed wrong, but the 38 percent figure cited in the statistics does sound about right. The data is not detailed and cross tabbed, but I would guess the percentage among single men, where I have done the most work, is probably a bit higher.

It is a tough field for social service work, because the failure rate is pretty high. I find keeping my focus on the successful cases to be quite important.

The bigger problem with this notion is not the fact or the error in fact about drug abuse in this population. The problem is the conclusion drawn that folks with "problems" are not worthy of service and care. Actually it is the most troubled among us who need the service the most, and also where it is the most in our interest to provide it. The drug addicted and desperately poor population uses the most law enforcement resources. It is vastly less expensive and considerably more humane to treat this problem than is to incarcerate it.

But then, if you did that, the private prison-industrial complex would be deprived of a considerable revenue stream. They heavily back republican candidates who in turn will have none of this aid and treatment stuff.

[maryf]

20. Even if it were 38%, that would mean 62% weren't...

The number one reason for homelessness is lack of affordable housing, housing being a human need should be mandated as a human right!!!

[quaker bill]

38. My guess

is that you did not read my post. I support your general concept, but a what level housing becomes a right is more than a bit unclear. I expect you do not mean a single family 3/2 ranch in suburbia. I would be happy to see adequate dormitory style housing for single men, with perhaps rather spartan individual flats for families. Experience actually doing this sort of work suggests that having people pay some nominal rent for such quarters is a very good idea. There would need to be exceptions for those truly incapable of work, and some are truly incapable and simply in need of some shelter and far better mental health services.

[AngryOldDem]

35. I think this figure is pretty accurate, too.

As a former shelter employee, I would have to say two of the main causes of homelessness are substance abuse and mental illness. There is simply no support systems anymore to help those who are in the most desperate need of it, and those organizations that **are** there are so overwhelmed that they really can't provide the level of care that is needed. Some can function quite well as long as they have access to medications and are taking them faithfully. But others are much, much more severely mentally ill to the point where institutionalization is the only answer. But there are no more inpatient mental health facilities in the city where I worked -- the last one closed about two years ago this coming July -- so many of the mentally ill are now on the streets. Same with alcoholics. When inpatient treatment programs have a waiting list of six months to a year, there is nowhere else to go but to shelters.

Shelter employees were asked to be psychiatrists, social workers, doctors, nurses, counselors -- in short, we were the sole support system for hundreds of hurting and broken human beings because nobody else in society wanted to do it. It's easier to just step over them and pretend they don't exist. It is truly shameful. And even more shameful is the fact that a lot are Vietnam and Gulf War I veterans. Some Vietnam vets I knew had totally given up and were literally just waiting to die.

[quaker bill]

39. Thanks for your service

I can see that you have been there too.

[BuelahWitch]

13. Many of us are one medical bill or car repair bill away from homelessness

I mention car repair bills because if you're driving an old clunker (or a new lemon) and have several things die all at once, you have to make some decisions. Do you pay to have the car fixed or pay the utilities? What if the car breaks down around the time the rent is due? Which one do you pay?

Your friend sounds very sheltered and naive. I don't know how to change the minds of people when they refuse to look outside their little middle class environment.

[Cleita]

14. Back before Reaganomics, I knew people who were alcoholics and

drug abusers who actually worked at day job, meaning they showed up when they could work, but weren't expected to be at the job every day. They still were able to feed themselves and pay rent on rooms in old hotels and apartment buildings and other types of places known as 'flops' back then. That all disappeared in the real estate boom of the eighties as a result of Reagan's economic policies. Those pathetic residences started going for higher rents and the incoming working class was willing to pay the sometimes triple rents for the same old dump.

These people had problems but yet were still proud about being able to support themselves, however marginally. I often brought up that they were good candidates for welfare, but they were too proud to do that. Most of them were vets of wars and actually did have that health care option. After these men had to leave their flops because the rent got too high, they became homeless. Lack of a home meant they couldn't take showers and keep clean clothes to change into. That very subtle change made them not hireable even in their day job positions where much wasn't expected of them. It wasn't that they wouldn't try to look after themselves if they had the means to do so. I think your friend doesn't have a foot in reality.

[mth44sc]

16. we welcome him or her to the real world

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stoneth/

[phasma ex machina]

22. So what? They're still homeless. What about their kids?

America ought to put its unemployed to work building shelters.

[awoke_in_2003]

23. ahh, there's the rub...

I heard someone babbling on about how people collecting welfare ought to be put to work. "AH", says I, "like Roosevelt's WPA- that would be great. We built all kinds of good things like the Hoover Dam." "Oh no, no" said he, "wouldn't be fair to take something like that away from private industry":wtf:

[happy_liberal]

28. Homeless people need homes, not shelters

the unemployed can be put to work fixing up gutted forclosed homes that the gov purchases on the cheap and turn them into low income housing.

There are so many ways the government could help, which the cost would be just minimal compared to well, just about everything else they spend money on.

[phasma ex machina]

30. "Shelter" is probably an anachronism.

The "shelter" I work with is actually a collection of old "fixed up" apartments and homes.

[dionysus]

25. a lot of homeless abuse drugs and alcohol because they are untreated for mental illness.

it doesn't mean everyone that's homeless is an addict or mentally ill though.

[phasma ex machina]

31. Saint Ronnie's legacy.

[dionysus]

32. sadly, yes.

[happy_liberal]

26. Most Americans are drug abusers and hypocrites

How many Americans are on one or more legal opiates, antidepressents etc? Yet they feel compelled to judge people who are suffering?

How many Americans drink at home meanwhile pointing the finger at homeless people who drink? The only difference is they have a home to drink it in...duh!! And homeless people have a lot more to deal with and many more reasons to drink to escape reality. What is the excuse of the excessively rich and their substance abuse problems?



As long as we can find a way to point the finger of blame at someone, we won't have to take responsibility as a society.

As long as the corporate media can maintain pointing the finger of blame at individual Americans, the corporations(and our government) that are robbing us blind and driving everyone to the point of homelessness are protected and encouraged to continue.

[slampoet]

27. This is why liberals are NOT progessives or Labor advocates.

[TheKentuckian]

29. Bust her upside the head with the Bible. There's way more in their about taking care

of the poor, against usury, and and obsession with material wealth than abortion or damning homosexuality combined by many a long mile.

Many of course won't cease spouting off "free market" platitudes or see themselves in another's shoes until trouble comes knocking at their door and knocks down the illusions in terms their bullshit can't reconcile.

[ismnotwasm]

34. Tell her to volunteer at a homeless shelter

Since she's Catholic, there should be no objections. She can get some new "personal experience".

[JuniperLea]

36. She needs desperately to spend a day at a shelter or soup kitchen...

And see the hundreds of mothers, fathers, little kids... from my POV, as someone who works in a metropolitan downtown setting adjacent to a "robust" skid row area, those who are drunk or on drugs first and foremost have untreated mental issues. Thank you King Ronnie Fucking Raygun. We have far too many Vets on the street too... with a vacant look in their eyes.

There is one woman, clearly suffering mental illness, who sleeps outside the Greyhound bus depot every day... as if she is waiting for someone that never comes. I've seen her almost every day for five years now. I affectionately call her (to myself) "Leather Foot" because her always-bare feet look like worn leather boots instead of feet. Only her toes give away the truth. There are kind people here, so she gets blankets and food on a regular basis... but she relieves herself in a storm drain and you can tell by the look on her face this is a complete embarrassment to her.

People just don't know. They really don't.

Then I go on to the 39th floor of a glass and steel tower and live a corporate life of lattes and fresh salads... it's really disturbing.

[CTyankee]

37. Since my husband has worked with this population here in New Haven, I know

what he has told me. The very "hard core" homeless have drug/alcohol problems or severe mental health problems. These people have nothing and are at the mercy of a city's ability to take minimal care of them and at least try to get them some counseling help. Our society today has people like this, whether we like it or not, and they are the ones "stuck," where others who are just temporarily homeless have some resources and strengths.

Our city is now abandoning its "no freeze" policy (overflow shelter in cold weather). The city is in dire straits financially. Jobs/programs slashed and taxes raised. We are living through a very painful time, both financially and psychologically as we watch these safety nets crumble due to lack of funding.

This is tragic...