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[God's Hand]

I live and work downtown. There are about 30 native indians in downtown Edmonton every afternoon that I pass by. Can't give them all money, but I do the best I can.

And I don't care what they do with the money. It's just money. What they chose to do with it is up to them. If they buy a warm meal, great. If they buy drugs, they'll end up dead sooner or later and save me a couple bucks.

 

[GLoK]

I'm pretty sure even McDonalds has an underwear go inside the pants policy. Not that they enforce it very strictly, but technically, I'm sure it's on the books.

 

[Maxwell House]

Anyone who actually hates homeless people is a complete asshole.

 

[FortNinety]

You know, its really hard to get a job when you have no address.

 

[EdLuva]

I don't hate homeless people, because some have actually fallen on hard times. It irritates me to run across a picky homeless/hungry person.

Sometime last year, this guy approached me in a parking lot riding a bike. He asked me for some money so he could get something to eat. I was in front of a Fred's Pharmacy/Store. I knew they had some food in there, so I told him I could buy him some chips or something in Fred's. Dude said "There ain't no food in Fred's!" I was like "wtf?" I just walked away.

 

[karasu]

I'm about to be homeless. Rent raise + losing a job = oh shit.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

If I visit new zealand could I just pretend Im homeless and get $200?

You don't even need to pretend to be homeless. You just show up and say "Hay doods, need some money" and they give it to you. Of course, you need a bank account, but if you can't manage that, then well, somebodys gotta be homeless I suppose. Otherwise there wouldn't be a word for it.

 

[Triumph]

Some of you people make me sick. I volunteer at a soup kitchen and homeless shelter once a week, and let me tell you that most of the homeless in Atlanta(which has a big homelessness problem) are mentally unstable. If our country weren't so focused on dry-humping every last ounce of oil out of the world so degenerate pigfuckers could continue to drive SUVs to work and then back to the burbs, maybe we could focus some of our time, energy and money on HELPING OUR FELLOW FUCKING MAN.

How many of you claim to be good Christians, too? This never fails to amaze me. At the shelter, devout Christian volunteers don't last. The full time staff there are all former homeless folks that got their shit together on their own and are trying to help others do the same. For the most part, they're not especially religous either. Whereas the longest tenured volunteers(myself and a mid 30's socialist chick) have no use for Christianity.

Enjoy your glass houses, you sick bastards. What would you do if the person asking you for money was related to you? Would turn away? Not care?

 

[Che]

Some of you people make me sick. I volunteer at a soup kitchen and homeless shelter once a week, and let me tell you that most of the homeless in Atlanta(which has a big homelessness problem) are mentally unstable. If our country weren't so focused on dry-humping every last ounce of oil out of the world so degenerate pigfuckers could continue to drive SUVs to work and then back to the burbs, maybe we could focus some of our time, energy and money on HELPING OUR FELLOW FUCKING MAN.

How many of you claim to be good Christians, too? This never fails to amaze me. At the shelter, devout Christian volunteers don't last. The full time staff there are all former homeless folks that got their shit together on their own and are trying to help others do the same. For the most part, they're not especially religous either. Whereas the longest tenured volunteers(myself and a mid 30's socialist chick) have no use for Christianity.

Enjoy your glass houses, you sick bastards. What would you do if the person asking you for money was related to you? Would turn away? Not care?

THANK YOU. This thread made me sick. Instead of having some compasion for these people you judge them? WhoTF are you to judge them?

Evil is the absense empathy. I love this quote.

 

[Warm Machine]

You know, its really hard to get a job when you have no address.

Some shelters or group homes have mailboxes to rent out. You can also rent one out from the City Post Office or Mailboxes Etc. or whatever.

I once thought about taking all the homeless on the street and combining their cash and starting some kind of union. 100 homeless a day can probably bring in about $50 each on a good day. I've read in newspaper "life on the street" columns that some of those guys can bring in $100 a day.

Actually it isn't surprising since the most common change in someones pants is a 25 cent or dollar piece and they see a lot of people walk by them in a day.

So those 100 homeless make $5000 a day lets say on a $50 take. If I were to take 25% I'd have $1250 a day. $1250 a day for a month is $37500 or $465250 a year. Now I'm pretty sure I could buy and run a hell of a wicked group home for these guys on $465250 tax free a year.

One of the worst fucktard on the streets of Vancouver is this one big scam artist. He would get all showered and suited up with a tie and then hit American tourists fresh of the Alaska cruises under the guise that he was collecting money for a church/charity/street kids group etc. Basically he'd take all the cash and buy smack. The cops figured out what he was doing and stopped him. Over the last few years he's slowly gotten more slovenly to the point where he is now wearing a grimy torn overcoat and playing the harmonica very badly for whatever people will give him.

As far as food is concerned...a loaf of bread is 2.50, Peanut Butter is 3.50, and water is free. On that $6.00 expendature you could eat for a week. Sure its not dinner at Lumiere but it'll keep you alive. Granted though, you have to have the knowledge and responsibility to pull that kind of thinking off.

 

[Warm Machine]

.
Enjoy your glass houses, you sick bastards. What would you do if the person asking you for money was related to you? Would turn away? Not care?

A lot of what you are saying is right and if I were allowed to yank some of these fuckers off the street and force them to get help I would. Unfortunatley they have free will and all the rights in the world to use it even though they use it to blatently lie, steal, and do narcotics. To force them into anything would be facist and instead all I can do is to avoid giving them money out of my pocket to fuel their drug habit, and pay my taxes which help fund group homes and support srevices and donate to various charities that attempt to make a difference.

Where does my responsibility to them end? Why do I need to feel guilty for their life?

If it were a question of family or friends the answer is obvious.

 

[way more]

Some shelters or group homes have mailboxes to rent out. You can also rent one out from the City Post Office or Mailboxes Etc. or whatever.

I once thought about taking all the homeless on the street and combining their cash and starting some kind of union. 100 homeless a day can probably bring in about $50 each on a good day. I've read in newspaper "life on the street" columns that some of those guys can bring in $100 a day.

Actually it isn't surprising since the most common change in someones pants is a 25 cent or dollar piece and they see a lot of people walk by them in a day.

So those 100 homeless make $5000 a day lets say on a $50 take. If I were to take 25% I'd have $1250 a day. $1250 a day for a month is $37500 or $465250 a year. Now I'm pretty sure I could buy and run a hell of a wicked group home for these guys on $465250 tax free a year.

One of the worst fucktard on the streets of Vancouver is this one big scam artist. He would get all showered and suited up with a tie and then hit American tourists fresh of the Alaska cruises under the guise that he was collecting money for a church/charity/street kids group etc. Basically he'd take all the cash and buy smack. The cops figured out what he was doing and stopped him. Over the last few years he's slowly gotten more slovenly to the point where he is now wearing a grimy torn overcoat and playing the harmonica very badly for whatever people will give him.

As far as food is concerned...a loaf of bread is 2.50, Peanut Butter is 3.50, and water is free. On that $6.00 expendature you could eat for a week. Sure its not dinner at Lumiere but it'll keep you alive. Granted though, you have to have the knowledge and responsibility to pull that kind of thinking off.

This sounds like something that Ross Perot would come up with.

 

[demon]

THE LAST THING YOU'D WANT TO BE IS FACIST!

 

[etiolate]

Life can chew you up and spit you out. I have no qualms with the homeless. Would you want to be homeless? No? Then stfu.

 

[MrAngryFace]

I know if I were homeless id be asking for handouts!

 

[Zaptruder]

No way. I'd totally be a vagabond.

Wandering from town to town to city to city, stealing lying and cheating until it all ended rather suddenly!

 

[MrAngryFace]

Haha, buy a gun, live by your own skill!

 

[DarienA]

A lot of what you are saying is right and if I were allowed to yank some of these fuckers off the street and force them to get help I would. Unfortunatley they have free will and all the rights in the world to use it even though they use it to blatently lie, steal, and do narcotics. To force them into anything would be facist and instead all I can do is to avoid giving them money out of my pocket to fuel their drug habit, and pay my taxes which help fund group homes and support srevices and donate to various charities that attempt to make a difference.

Clue time: Your taxes do absolutely dick.... so little funding goes towards public assistance that if you really want to help continue to do the other option, donate directly to charities and non-profits that are actually attempting to make a difference... but always investigate those groups to find out how active they actually are in your community.

Where does my responsibility to them end? Why do I need to feel guilty for their life?

If it were a question of family or friends the answer is obvious.

Did someone say you should feel guilty about their life? No you shouldn't, but you should be compassionate. By compassionate I don't mean give them money everytime you see them on the street, because you're right many of them do simply use the money to fuel a drug habit that has drained them of all other rational thought. Simply saying no without ridiculing them moving, on and just feeling some small pangs of sadness for seeing your fellow woman/man like that are enough.

Really focus on contributing to the non profits and charities in your area... that's the best thing you can do.

 

[aoi tsuki]

i had a guy drop by my work last week. He was rail thin, a little jittery, and missing pretty much all of his teeth. He stood in front of the counter, waiting to talk to me, but i couldn't hear him over the machines, and i was making drinks to whittle down the line that had formed right before my lunchbreak. i asked if he could hold on a second, and he ended up talking to manager who was running the register.

As i was leaving for lunch, i listened to his story. Basically, he needed a ride downtown to catch a train a few towns over to go to a clinic and get his meds. i told him i didn't have the time to do that (and i'm not a cab service for random people), so he asked for three dollars. i looked at my tip jar, knowing i really needed the cash, but had enough to give him two. i figured that if he really needed or wanted the other dollar, he'd ask someone else for it. i had a coworker call him a cab as i left for lunch.

i know a lot of people wouldn't give him the time of day, let alone any money, but i figure that if he spent the money on booze or drugs, he'll be the one that suffers. i'd feel worse if i hadn't given him the money and it turns out he was telling the truth.

 

[Fixed2BeBroken]

i always give change whenever i can, but never bills. Im broke too!

with that said....whenever i see a homeless person without shoes i always wanna buy them some shoes. i mean....not having a home is one thing, but not even having shoes just has to suck donkey balls.

if i wasnt broke myself, i would buy them shoes...like some 20 dollar adidas or some shit.

being homeless AND not having shoes just aint right.

You know, its really hard to get a job when you have no address.

or a phone.

peace

 

[sonicfan]

Some of you people make me sick. I volunteer at a soup kitchen and homeless shelter once a week, and let me tell you that most of the homeless in Atlanta(which has a big homelessness problem) are mentally unstable. If our country weren't so focused on dry-humping every last ounce of oil out of the world so degenerate pigfuckers could continue to drive SUVs to work and then back to the burbs, maybe we could focus some of our time, energy and money on HELPING OUR FELLOW FUCKING MAN.

Enjoy your glass houses, you sick bastards. What would you do if the person asking you for money was related to you? Would turn away? Not care?

You know why the mentally unstable are homeless? Because our courts, in their infinate wisdom, had declared that keeping mentally unstable people in homes violates their civil rights. In the 1970's, mental hospitals basically had their people thrown out on the street by court order.

I do not deny there are real people with real needs on the streets. But I would say that the vast majority that are"a problem" have a drug, alchohol, mental problem. Giving anybody who is homeless a quarter or a dollar really does them little good in the long run. They need real help.

Of course the real answer to why do they panhandle is, its works. The answer is STOP GIVING THEM MONEY. If it didn't work, maybe they would be more likely to seek out services they really need.

Oh, and the question on what I would do if the person was related to me. Since I WOULD KNOW THE SITUATION, I would help. I have given several thousdand dollars to my brother in law to help him out with a family legal situation, I have not nor do I expect him to repay me. But I know he is not taking the money and going on a cruise, he is using it to pay for lawyers and help make ends meet while he works his ass off with two low paying jobs.

 

[Crandle]

I would recommend not giving money to random homeless people for a couple reasons: the ones who have mental problems and actually need help will probably throw it away on drugs or something else, and the ones whose bodies and minds actually work but won't deign to get jobs or who have a bizarre attraction to the "lifestyle" don't deserve a cent (sometimes they make quite a bit of money faking mental illness, in fact, which disgusts me). Instead, take all the change you would've handed out to various people and donate it to an appropriate charity, one that will aid the mentally ill and street kids who truly need it. And then donate some more money, or time, or something. Toronto has a fairly large homeless problem because we don't put the seriously damaged people in institutions, and the ones with milder problems (who should be given rent supplements in order to get them back on their feet and off the street permanently) only have a series of dangerous, vermin-infested "shelters" to stay in, apparently a sign of our immense compassion. There's not a whole lot a homeless person can do when the left-wingers in a city want to use you as a prop for their own causes and the right-wingers just want to sweep you into the gutter and forget. You'd think that in political systems originally conceived as social contracts agreed upon by rational, responsible individuals we would make exceptions for those who fall outside the norm.

 

[Macam]

So where do you live? Austin, Washington DC, Seattle?

Funny you mention Austin; clearly, you've been here before. I don't quite understand why this city has a homeless problem in particular, but it's been around for ages. Somewhat ironically, it seems that every place I'd like to end up living in off the top of my head (the aforementioned cities and Vancouver no less) all have a homeless problem.

 

[MC Safety]

Evil is the absense empathy. I love this quote.

You can feel for the plight of homeless people without actively encouraging their bad behaviors.

When I lived in San Francisco, I was unable to give money to anyone if another homeless person was in sight. If anyone saw me acting charitably, they would approach me expecting their handout -- and to be honest, the sort of self-righteous sense of divine-right entitlement was sickening. It was if I was back in grade school and handing out cupcakes -- and I'd damn well better have brought enough for all.

I didn't give money to young homeless people. I simply couldn't distinguish between the kids who were homeless because they were fleeing an abusive home life and the idle suburban kids who came into San Francisco and were playing at being homeless -- either because they were disaffected and maybe thought it was cool or because they just wanted money without working for it. Sometimes it was blatantly obvious, but most times I wasn't skilled to sort the deserving from the undeserving.

Finally, I refused to encourage the overly aggressive homeless who would shake a dirty cup in front of me and then angrily swear when I didn't give. It didn't matter so much that they did it to me, but they would angrily berate young mothers, elderly tourists, and parents with kids who dared to pass them by. Frightening, bullying, and verbally assaulting people is not acceptable, and I refused to validate that poor behavior by giving.

 

[FortNinety]

Some shelters or group homes have mailboxes to rent out. You can also rent one out from the City Post Office or Mailboxes Etc. or whatever.

Ummm... do you know how they cost? At least at Mailboxes, its a small fortune.

 

[Manics]

I admit I'm totally ignornant of the issues around the homeless -- what issues make people homeless, reasons why it's difficult to get off the street etc., but the lack of compassion by some in this thread really sickens me. I'm sure there are no black and white solutions here such as "homeless person needs to get off drugs and problem solved" or "homeless person needs to go out and find a job and problem solved". Fuck.

 

[robertsan21]

there is one woman that askes me everytime i walk by here to give her money for coffe so if i have loose change in my pocket i give it to her, one time i had about 9 dollars in my pocket and i gave it all to her, i hate coins so...

i am a sucker and i cant say no when people ask me for money, i really want to help out.

but where i live we do not have alot of homless people maybe 4 or 5 maximum

 

[Cauliflower of Love]

I saw a homeless guy with a sign reading "I need $6.50 for a room at the red cross(salvation, one of those two shits)."

I was like cool, this guy is honest as shit, after I do my thing I'll drop him some cheddar. Then I got to thinking. If one person gives him $6.50 during a one hour span. That fucker is making minimum wage doing jack shit.

 

[quin]

you know, there is a difference between homeless and beggers. In Denver most of the people who ask for change are kids from boulder who don't want to work and just sit around the 16th street mall asking for money. I try to help the homeless when I can but it really is hard to tell who is actually in need of help and who is just trying to get money out of you.

 

[quin]

I saw a homeless guy with a sign reading "I need $6.50 for a room at the red cross(salvation, one of those two shits)."

I was like cool, this guy is honest as shit, after I do my thing I'll drop him some cheddar. Then I got to thinking. If one person gives him $6.50 during a one hour span. That fucker is making minimum wage doing jack shit.

one the news they ran a story about a guy who was making over 100 dollars a day at this one intersection here in denver.

 

[Eric-GCA]

I have to go into San Francisco a lot so I see my share of homeless, though fortunately I dont have to walk around the streets too much and when I do, I Just keep my eyes straight and never make eye contact with anyone.

Still, they are annoying, I'd much rather live in a homeless-free city than one infested with them.

What would you do if the person asking you for money was related to you? Would turn away? Not care?

The key point is them being "related" to you. Of course, if someone in my family had screwed themselves up by their own choice, I wouldn't be so eager to help them (nor would I expect such help if I did such a thing).

I could give a rats ass about a complete stranger who happens to stink to high heaven.

And no, I'm not religious at all.

 

[aoi tsuki]

i used to keep a few canned goods in my car in case in case i ran into someone begging for money. They keep well and it's a good way to weed out the people who are just begging for money from the people who honestly want some food, especially if the same people are in places you frequent. Sardines are pretty good since you can open them without a can opener and they're a good source of protein.

 

[Cherubae]

one the news they ran a story about a guy who was making over 100 dollars a day at this one intersection here in denver.

Wouldn't surprise me. I have a lady who sits at the end of the offramp every day with her little "everyone needs some help sometimes" sign. The odd thing is she does not even look homeless. She's clean, has permed hair, and looks like someone who just doesn't want to work a real job. Every day she has on new clean clothes and a newly drawn sign.

Her partner-in-crime takes the opposite offramp and at least tries to look desperate. She sits in a chair with a little cane off to the side. Sometimes they'll switch offramps on different days. Every so often a different "homeless" person beats them to their offramp spot in the morning so they end up standing together at the same place.

On rainy days they don't even come out :lol

 

[Outcast2004]

Move to Cleveland.

They're working on legislation that will prohibit those intrusive fuckers from badgering you in certain spots.

Problem being, if you move to Cleveland that same legislation will work against you when you can't find a job in this fucking city. :lol

I know, not everybody is fortunate; but if you're able bodied enough to harass people on the street, you can get a fucking job flipping burgers.

This is the way I view it too... if you can walk the street everday and harass me twice a day for change, THEN GO GET A FUCKING JOB! Even if it's flipping burgers. Those places will hire any able body.

Like Take Out, I live in NE Ohio (Canton to be exact) and work in the downtown area. I kid you not, the same few guys comeby and harass me every damn day for money. These are the brave ones, usually my size scares off the rest.

I undertsand that people fall on hard times, but if you can harass, you can work. PERIOD.

 

[demon]

Can you really get hired if you have no home, no clothes except the shit on your back, and you're, well, a "homeless man"? Who the fuck is going to hire you?

 

[levious]

jesus, some of you should at least wait until you're 50 to be this bitter and hateful of the homeless.

 

[radioheadrule83]

The streets in my nearest city are pretty much homeless free. But there are Big Issue vendors all over the place, "help the homeless, buy the big issue" - and some of these fuckers have seriously eroded my genorosity. From big issue vendors and other homeless people:

• I've said I haven't got any change, carried on walking and gotten verbal abuse.

• People have asked for a specific amount of money ie. £1, and when I pull change out of my pocket they see I have more and ask for it. One of them even had the fucking sack to just take a handful out of my hands.

• Some of them literally don't sell a Big Issue magazine all day. They say they're on their last issue and ask could they keep hold of it. Which I've known on more than one occasion to be bullshit.

• I've seen several homeless people / vendors band together to deliver abuse when they don't get money or are ignored.

• I've given some of these people money, and then seen them 5 minutes later with a single can of beer and a bag full of rubbish.


The sad truth as I understand it, is that some of these people don't want help. They're out on their ass for a reason, and it's because they're either completely mental, they're on drugs, down and out alcoholics, or thugs on the con.

Not all of them are of course. There's one man in Liverpool who walks around with a bike, mounted with bags full of rubbish, shouting at people in Polish. And if the stories are true, this was a perfectly able home owner gone mad with the loss of his wife. Could very well be a romantic urban legend of sorts, but still it illustrates what I mean.

There are scum on the streets. They really need taking off. Forcing off if necessary. There are shelters set up, there are people they can goto for help. Do any of the homeless people you see ever seem to be perservering to improve their life? The ones I see are just looking for the next trip to McDonalds or the next beer. It's fucking sad, yes, but you and I are not at fault. I am willing to bet everyone on this board will show acts of compassion many times throughout their lives, and I'm betting a lot of it will be well placed. With incidents like the ones I and others have described above, is it AT ALL surprising people are unwilling to show trust and give compassion to these people? Not everybody has the time nor obligation to work in a shelter. The only thing that sickens me in this thread is the holier than thou shit. People are only acting and talking from experience.

I was coming out of work on Monday, and some guy walks up to me and says he's ran out of petrol and has no money. I don't know if this guy was homeless or what, but his demeanour suggested he might be... so I took a minute to stop and listen to him, and held myself back from asking why his car doesn't have a fucking petrol meter. He was either homeless or very hard done by. He had scars all over his face, missing teeth -- man, the guy was rough. And I wouldn't have begrudged giving someone so fucked up some money... but his attitude... For a start, I've heard this "my car broke down" shit off about 5 different people on different occasions, one in another part of the country. It wasn't the truth. Not only this but his whole angle was intimidation. Swaggered right up to me and asked "are you a scouser mate?", which in case you're wondering was basically asking "are you from Liverpool?" - "you aint from round these parts are ya"... he was sizing me up. I said I was and purely to get him off my case, I told him I'd give him what change I had but I had to keep some for the train home. Bloody reasonable if you ask me. I had, after all, stopped to listen to his bullshit and already given him £2.50... and you should have heard this fucker moan and get aggressive with me. I'm glad he picked me and not some old/young person, or a woman on her own. £2.50 clearly wasn't enough for whatever crap at the news-agents he wanted.

Distrust of other human beings I don't know +1,000,000

 

[Cauliflower of Love]

Another homeless "couple" I guess their friends. At the offramp. Everyday I go by there, they are there. Asking for change through all the cars. Neither seem handicap. Both look like 100% Bred Americans. SMOKING CIGARETTES. Fuck that! They're begging for money to burn. Fuck them. Sigh, they get me agitated.

 

[radioheadrule83]

Can you really get hired if you have no home, no clothes except the shit on your back, and you're, well, a "homeless man"? Who the fuck is going to hire you?

There ARE some people who flat out need help because they can't help themselves. Especially in areas where poverty is a problem. And certain kinds of people need special care - people who have a degenerative mental condition for example. People who get themselves into trouble and end up having everything repossesed need help getting back on their feet too, at a time when nobody will touch them.

But some homeless people and/or runaways probably know someone who could put them up while they find work. If they don't know anyone or can't go home for any reason, they can go to the authorities or social services, or charities who will try and help them.

 

[number386]

Everyone has reasons for for being homeless, no one sets out to be homeless, no one says when I grow up I want to be homeless. Homelessness and additude towards it is an indictment on society. You can yack up on a videogame forum on how homeless people suck and it reflects very poorly on you, life is not fair be thankful you got a lucky roll.

Their are many reasons people go homeless, abuse at home, deaths of providers, inability to afford treatments for mental illness, etc... The sheer daily struggles of the homeless is staggering what do they have to look forward too? They are hated and loathed and they know it, people steer clear of them, it is a terrible existance. I dont condone them using drugs or booze, but it is understandable.

 

[Lord Error]

We have homeless people in NZ and it really fucks me off. Over here you just go to the Work and income office and they GIVE YOU MONEY. like 200 bucks a week

That's one thing that puzzles me about Canada. Here, you pretty much don't have to work and you still get enough social insurance to at least not be homeless.

Perhaps their mental disabilities are stopping them from getting thisinsurance (they don't know how to apply for it?). I definitely agree that most of them are mentally ill, just not enough to be institutionalized.

 

[Fragamemnon]

jesus, some of you should at least wait until you're 50 to be this bitter and hateful of the homeless.

They're what I like to call the "Fuck You" boys-the younger people that grew up in the fat 1980s and 1990s, and just want to live in a reality of decent wages and comfortable suburban lifestyles, plentiful availability for pot, and for government and to stay out of their lives and keep their taxes low so they can buy more consumer goods. They have a pervese blend of the everything bad about Ayn Rand's noxious bullshit and a flaming belief in social darwinism, and they are *rife* on the Internet.

As others have said here, it's all about the failure of the public health system and, to an almost equal extent, energy policy. Lack of effective, no-questions-asked public mental health care and similiar ask-no-questions effective drug rehabilitation programs make escaping the two biggest plights of the homeless impossible. The end-to-end solution just isn't in place-you get them off the smack, rehab their shattered minds as best as you can, you find them cheap housing with supervision (halfway-style houses) to readjust to working (this should be tied in with an overhauled welfare-to-work program) before setting them out on their own.

That stuff costs a lot of money. You're looking at an overhaul of the US health care system and some expansion of federal funds to the states to help provide for these services. Or, more accurately, you're looking at having to make the choice between guns and butter. At which point a certain banana-republic style political party will Luntz it over as "voting for or against the troops", and since wearing a uniform is like being an angel in our society, who could do anything against them?

Our demand for a suburban lifestyle where wealthy people can fence out the rest of reality also hurts the homeless. When people can "escape" the problem is becomes easy to demonize the problem and not worry about solving it, since it's far out of view from the back porch of their homes. That lifestyle is enabled by cheap oil, and it is not sustainable without it.

I fucking hate America. What a despicable, self-absorbed, destestable people we've become.

 

[Dilbert]

As others have said here, it's all about the failure of the public health system and, to an almost equal extent, energy policy.

Energy policy? I was with you through the whole thing, but that part confused me.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Energy policy? I was with you through the whole thing, but that part confused me.

Energy policy enables a lifestyle where people can function with very little interaction from city centers and public transportation where the homeless often are near. You live in your suburb or exurb, guzzle some gas, and endure your commute but live in a sanitized area free from public transportation and can get everything you need for day-to-day living from the strip mall in the designated subdivision junction.

This lifestyle isn't possible without cheap gas and low-efficiency cars that allows the commutes to be possible. You'd have to live closer to the employment centers-the cities, and would interact with the homeless more often, and eventually this interaction would affect perspectives of a large number of people.

 

[darscot]

The thing to remember with homeless people is they are more afraid of you then you are of them. There whole scheme revolves around the fact that they are hoping you will be uncomfortable if they make a scene. Take that away and they will never bother you again. I always talk to them respect and they rarely hassle me. They can be useful too, there usually good for hook ups on parking and shit like that.

 

[sonicfan]

Energy policy enables a lifestyle where people can function with very little interaction from city centers and public transportation where the homeless often are near. You live in your suburb or exurb, guzzle some gas, and endure your commute but live in a sanitized area free from public transportation and can get everything you need for day-to-day living from the strip mall in the designated subdivision junction.

This lifestyle isn't possible without cheap gas and low-efficiency cars that allows the commutes to be possible. You'd have to live closer to the employment centers-the cities, and would interact with the homeless more often, and eventually this interaction would affect perspectives of a large number of people.

Yes it is possible to do it with out a car. I used to live 30+ miles from downtown Chicago and my job, had a wife and two kids, one small economy car, and took the train to work. But the old city center model is becoming less and less relavant anyway, the jobs are moving to where the people are now.

 

[Escape Goat]

Most of 'em have serious psychological issues and have been abandoned by the system. They do drugs to dull the pain, and panhandle because they can't keep down a job (or even get one, in the more severe cases). Very few are actually lazy, and many times they appear capable and normal to the outside observer -- but they really shouldn't be outside proper hospital care. A select tiny few are anti-establishment types who like the lifestyle, but those are a VERY small minority. Nobody generally WANTS to be homeless and abandoned.

But hey: you get your tax break!

Isn't that what the very special Christmas episode of Saved by the Bell taught us?