Homeless in America

This might sound harsh but I think the most compassionate thing to do would be to ban it in populated public spaces. I don't believe we're doing people any favors by allowing them to make camp in the city or town. Sure ain't helping the locality either. There's the slab, BLM land, etc, where people set up camp and hang out without getting in the way of people trying to make a living. Plus, the easier it is to do, the more people will do it. We've already seen it snowball because of lax policy and it won't stop unless it's stopped. I would guess most people are unhappy with it. Maybe it should be a ballot question. Let the people have their say. Stop giving so much credence to vocal minorities who basically have too much time on their hands for not being productive. Build a camp for folks and staff it. The only reason camps are in cities is because it's allowed. If that's what the people want, let em have it. If not, then disallow it.

 

I've seen the cops drive the homeless from one town to another, in a giant circle around the entire country. Its all about how many people die and, if they start to die too fast, it brings down the real estate values, with the result that neighboring counties and cities have taken many decades just to work out who should pay more for dealing with the homeless, only to now have conservatives attempting to literally kill their opponents and drive the entire country into the toilet. The way to deal with homelessness right now, is to give the governors of every state a new strategy.

 

Yeah that's why I say they need to make facilities. I think it could work well but it would take commitment to implement. How do they work that at slab city? There must be shopping nearby.

 

Maybe send em down Baja... You know how we gringos love camping in Baja. And there's facilities. More affordable than gringolandia. Trade em for all the migrants coming across the border hehe.

 

I am not in the least bit surprised. America had huge booms both during and after WW1&2, they worked very hard.
Then when the next generation came along, they were less fascinated by the work part, they had people out in China to look after that.

 

Is there not, also, the possibility that if they were given land away from populated spaces that they would be completely off the radar of the normal citizen and therefore totally overlooked/forgotten/ignored?
The ultimate in disenfranchisement?

I recall a saying; feed a man a fish and he'll have food for a day but teach him how to fish and he'll have food for a lifetime.

Big companies & local communities should invest differently in their own areas. Provide training to those who would build their own home if they had the materials and the big companies could fund it.
Advertising benefit for them? Good results for the community orgs? People feeling better about themselves, feeling valued, improving mental health issues and by involving them in the community they participate in other good stuff.

There's a whole economy that doesn't need money but compassion and mutual benefit. It just needs a leg-up to get going and the big guys could do it.

Or having learned those new skills to create their own home, they could trade normally and give back to others who are still in the situation that they were?

 

Sounds absolutely fantastic!
Except...
I'm guessing you haven't really visited a homeless camp and talked to people about their plight, or watched YouTube interviews with homeless people in these camps, am I right?
With few exceptions they lack focus, structure, discipline, goals, systems, planning, foresight, diligence, commitment, responsibility, ... the skills needed to turn a helping hand into self-sustainability. They're immediate gratification seekers not delayed gratification planners.
You could give them a million bucks and find them broke a year later. You could gift them a house and find it trashed a year later. You can offer free skills training and some might show up for the first session. You get the picture. The problem cannot be ameliorated by handing out free stuff and encouraging them to get back on their feet. It has been tried since the sixties (that I know of, maybe earlier) and never worked to solve the problem, only to exacerbate it.
But don't feel alone, a lot of people have thought that would fix it.

 

While I certainly don't have any solution, a little compassion and humanity would be nice. I hate it when unhoused folks are called things like "the homeless problem" or "homeless element" etc. It's like there is a real fear by the politicians and media: if they humanize them, people might demand actual reform. And we can't have that.

 

No I haven't looked at YouTube videos of it because, well, there's little to be learned that way.
It would be filtered by the decisions of the editor and it would have their commentary on it, which means I would be hearing only their opinion and not seeing the reality.
And given the state of so-called 'influencers' - Oh, pulleeeeze.

And, anyway, I've never been one to shove the whole of a group of people into just one pigeon hole.
I do know a little about it because I have some friends who work in that sector.

They work with the homeless, sofa-surfing, and with community kitchens.
They know what it's like in their areas and I listen.

That's why I had the content of my last post readily available on the tip of my fingers because that's what I would attempt if/when I have/have earned/have received the resources to achieve it.

I know there are a lot of variables.
Sometimes an individual is different from day to day as they feel 'up' and then they feel 'low'.
And the issues vary between people, from one person to another because we are all different.

That's why pigeon-holing and considering people or a majority of them to be 'all the same' is much too simplistic and that can prevent real solutions from being found or implemented for any one person.
It would be like saying we'll only fix one of you when we can fix all and that's no use to them or society in general.

Thinking of cake: eating it is much easier if broken down into bite-sizes chunks rather than trying to eat all in one go.
Thinking as a software engineer; It's much easier to write long and complex work when broken down into many smaller functions or smaller blocks of code.
Thinking of a shopping list; it's much easier to lift each thing off the shelf, in sequence, according to our list rather than to reach around the shop and lift everything in one go at the same time lol

Breaking down the people in difficulty into smaller groups, according to their trigger or consequences of circumstance, can enable some to be helped sooner and others who are in a more deeply concerning stage, to be worked with for longer.
Nope; they won't all cross the finish line at the same time but they can all cross it.
We just need to make sure the race isn't too long or too arduous and there are many replenishment stages along the way - just as with a marathon run.

Regarding those symptoms you've described; they may be a reasonable current description but :-
1. How many of those people are like that normally or were like that before they became homeless?
2. How many have chronic mental health issues? ( PTSD/Vets/etc)
2. How many suffered some personal trauma (a trigger) including mental breakdown, which put them off the rails, broke their rudder and, from then, their life fell apart?
3. How many suffered some personal trauma (a trigger) without mental breakdown but have since had breakdown caused by their plight in homelessness or at least, subsequent to their homelessness?
4. How many suffered some personal trauma (a trigger) without mental breakdown but who have since, for whatever reason, had breakdown and also now have a drugs issue which beforehand would have been an anathema to them because they didn't do drugs?

Each and all of those things can cause people to lose direction, to lose their ability to stand up or to fight back, which means they may need support and a real constructive push.

Also, yes, there are those who are rudderless, 'easy-going', 'without a care in the world' and there are those at the other end who are, or who want to be, focused.
Is that not just like most schools across the country?

An example: Just like the '5 stages of adoption' (a relatively widely-known psychological model), there are people who are leaders, some are followers and there are others, somewhere, in between.
Sometimes they will lead and on other situations they will follow.
That variable may be relative to confidence in the subject at hand and self-esteem or it may be due to a lack of self-esteem.
However, when any one of us is vulnerable (or feels vulnerable), many will tend to 'keep their heads down', to fit in, to blend in with others, which means we are not necessarily our true selves.
That may also mask who we really are and how we really feel which, in turn, may mask the fact that we can bounce back with just a little help.

It may appear - as you described - that "with few exceptions they lack focus, structure, discipline, goals, systems, planning, foresight, diligence, commitment, responsibility, ... the skills needed to turn a helping hand into self-sustainability. They're immediate gratification seekers not delayed gratification planners".

However, it's not always the case. Some are masked by their situation making them blend in. We need to identify each for who they are and tailor the help to their need.

In my opinion that only proves that it was never done correctly in the first place.

Was the motivation good but the ability to deliver poor?
Was the money invested but the project exploited by professionals who made their money from the project rather than it's results?
Were the best people employed to deliver the results?
Was enough money invested or was it thrown at it as if some vanity feel-good project?
Were professionals employed or was it just a group of people who believed they could make the necessary improvements to people's lives?

Each of those are simple questions rather than any judgement but they may highlight some of the reasons why such projects in which ever country have failed in some way.

 

It's similar in UK with regard to the 'small boats' people as well as homeless.
It's a govt strategy to de-humanize them so more of the public see them as a problem not to be helped but to be down-beaten and further ostracised.

 

"there's little to be learned that way"

Now that's the scholarly way! Don't investigate, just pontificate. Imagine oneself in their shoes and by golly that's no doubt gotta be how it is. Go see them and interview them? Ask them their points of view, inquire about their condition, how they explain it came to be, how they survive, what they would like if they could get it, how they would rationalize it, ... the hard questions, the pertinent questions, the questions that might lead to understanding. But Naaah, that's for chumps. I know what they're thinking and I know what they need and what's good for them. And by golly I know I'm right. Otherwise show me a source that proves me wrong.
/sarcasm out

 

Further to my previous posts, especially the earlier of the two, in Africa, parts of it at least, there's a water shortage but also, an inability to access it. What to do?
It's a less than ideally-educated population.
However, they have been provided with drilling wells and this has made the obvious difference but others have sprouted too.
They can water their small-scale crop plantation, so they can create food. They had no knowledge of hos to do so but with a few demonstrations and some guidance, they are progressing a very long road towards independence.

You didn't read or understand my post, perhaps because I hit a nerve.

I said I wouldn't watch youTube videos because they would be subject to the opinion of the person making them and I would be limited in whatever I may learn because of that.
I don't learn because I find out for myself and am totally unconstrained - or at least constrained only by my own limitations.

Ironically, to watch via youTube is NOT the scholarly way.
Yes, it's purely a medium and whether there's i s valuable learning on it is down to the person publishing it.
However, if I can't vouch the publisher or if I don't know their credentials and reputation, I shall avoid watching such a subject so I don't learn a pile of poo.

Anyway, if you had read my post you would know I know much about their situation and you would have known much more about the context of my posts.

 

When i was io sanfran a lilwhile. I was reintrduced to the concept of streetsweeping. Wouldbe nice to find a list of areas that offerthis as employment.

 

You know what, I find that logic fallacious, but I do appreciate your honesty. And because of that logic many other people also have strange ideas of reality. A person who does not look at all sides of an issue does not know the issue. He or she only knows that one opinion because they're afraid of getting stained by poo.

It's like they think, I figured it out and the last thing I need is for me to see new information that might be confusing, make me think, and heaven forbid possibly even causing me to consider changing my made-up mind.

Like homeless people speaking in an interview. They only say what the video publisher wants them to say because the interviewer secretly planted electrodes on the interviewee's brain to get them to only say things which align with their hidden agenda.

I guess if you think that's a thing, and are afraid of your carefully crafted opinion becoming revised, then don't dare listen to what the homeless people have to say. Just keep pretending you already know what they're gonna say. It's not like there's anything you can do to affect the situation anyway. Leave that up to the brilliant people running these disasters.

 

It seems strange to me, in a textual forum, that someone won't read and re-read as necessary, until they understand, that which someone has written.

When they respond before they have got a grasp of that to which they are 'replying', it can make them look plain silly.
Top respond to them is, quite frankly, a waste of my time.

I find out the facts for myself with knowledge from those who know the facts. Always triangulated from multiple other sources - at least two.

In this context, that may be the professionals working with the homeless and it may include homeless people too.

I choose not to find them out from an intermediary who, being human, may distort the facts with their own bias, however well intentioned they may be.

To suggest the blind acceptance of something shown on, say, youTube as fact, is ridiculous and says more in the negative, about the individual writing it.

It also gives reason to ignoring their opinion in future.

Nothing annoys me more, online, than when someone whose ability to thrust an opinion forward exceeds their ability to form that opinion.

It seems you directed that at me, however, had you read my posts, you'd know enough not to have written that.
I just don't listen to potentially heavily-filtered information. I choose my information sources wisely.

Again, more evidence that you haven't read my posts but are eager to criticise them. I review my opinions frequently and continually.
I choose what I shall listen to and will only listen to those who know their field.

Like I said, you know nothing about me and what I can achieve.

Given that your responses bear no relation to anything I have written and that you contradict what I write without understanding me or without knowing the first thing about me, I shan't respond to any more of your posts, anywhere.

 

Havent read anything here about narcotics problems troubling certian sectors of the unhoused. Shelters will turn away the inebrieated.

Tis a dense problem.

The media available on Lakewood, NJ Tent City is good and non judgemental.

The media available for Kensington, Philadelphia is just auful tho.

The Slab(s) is an area way east of Los Angeles, near Bombay Beach and Salton Sea where homeless camp, very rural desert with no facilities. Little in the way of police, fire ambulance.