If the taxpayers of Pinellas County want to raise taxes on themselves, more power to 'em. Although, I’d bet less than 1/100th of that 1% tax goes to help actual homeless people.
What you are advocating, then, is for you to give 2%, and everyone else be forced to give 2%. What does force have to do with compassion?
We don’t know. As I explained, there doesn’t seem to be any information in the study I found that indicates what fraction of the minor children who make up about one-quarter of the total population of homeless services users is included in the half of that total population that was currently literally homeless at the time of the survey.
The phrase in question was “vast majority”, and I already said I think that a proportion of children among the homeless of even only 12% or 10% seems too big to describe the remainder as a “vast majority”. You’re perfectly free to describe it as such if you want to, of course.
Um, no, you’re misremembering, if nothing worse. I did not ever claim that the percentage of homeless people who are children is 41%. I linked in post #25 to a report which, as I said, “notes that 41% of the entire homeless population consists of families.”
That seemed to me to augur a not insignificant proportion of children among the homeless population, but you’ll note I didn’t presume to estimate an actual figure for them. I simply asked Crafter_Man if he was including children among his alleged “vast majority” of homeless people whose condition is allegedly “100% their own fault”, and wondered how big he considered a “vast majority” to be. I’d still like to know, but he ain’t saying.
What do you mean by “concentrate on”? Is that conservative-speak for “we should defund major government initiatives for caring for the homeless and leave private charities to tackle the problems as best they can with much more limited resources, and we should justify that move by alleging that private charities have better success than government programs in helping homeless people overcome chronic alcoholism”? If so, then no, I don’t agree with you that we should do that.
As RTFirefly pointed out, the critical problem with private charity efforts (laudable and effective though many of them are) is that they’re necessarily on such a small scale, due to their comparative lack of resources. Like it or not (and I can tell how much you don’t like it), governments (at state and local as well as federal levels) are the entities best equipped in terms of resources and power to cope with systematically addressing large-scale problems involving homeless people.
You don’t clear a snowdrift with a teaspoon instead of a snow shovel. Not even if the teaspoon is new and sturdy while the shovel is old and cracked. In such a case, the big battered inefficient tool is still better suited to the size of the job than the better-quality small tool.
Well, I’d like to see some evidence before I venture to assume demonstrable superiority in either direction. So far, you’ve provided no cites whatsoever about the comparative effectiveness of privately funded versus publicly funded efforts to help the homeless. You’ve only asked me to find you a cite about how the different types of programs succeed in addressing alcoholism, and since I didn’t provide one, you now appear to be falling back on sheer hypothetical speculation.
? You accuse me of committing a fallacy of the excluded middle, and then make exactly the same sort of argument yourself.
AFAICT, nobody here is arguing that we shouldn’t encourage the efforts of private charity to help the homeless. Why can’t we have both the housekeeper putting out small grease fires immediately if they happen to arise, and the publicly-supported fire department dealing with larger-scale problems? Both the small, mobile, efficient local private charity services in the areas of greatest immediate need, and the government agencies to address the systemic problems on a large scale?
As I said, your (unsupported) insistence on private charity being a better investment than government programs doesn’t appear to be anything more than an underhanded rationale for destroying government homeless services while not replacing them with anything comparable in the private sector. I think that would be a really irresponsible approach, no matter how good it may make conservatives feel about not being “forced” to spend tax money on the homeless anymore.
Huh? Your kidding, right? Check figures for the 500 largest charities. And compare private charitable contributions to government response in cases like 9/11 survivors, Katrina, and the Indonesian Tsunami.
My comment was referring to adults, not children. (I was assuming this would have been obvious.)
Of course not. The US spends nearly half a trillion dollars on antipoverty programs (including Medicaid) at the federal, state and local level every year. By comparison, the total annual revenues of the largest 100 US private charities in 2003 came to less than $50 billion—only about a tenth of the government spending figure.
Note, moreover, that a substantial amount of this private philanthropy money goes to activities like lobbying, political organizing, and church support, rather than directly to charitable efforts. Note finally that much of the private charities’ funding (around 65% of the $2+ billion annual budget of philanthropy powerhouse Catholic Charities, for instance) comes directly from the government itself. What we call “private” charity is accomplished largely on the taxpayer’s dime.
It’s not realistic to pretend that private institutions can seriously compete with, or even function independently of, government social spending.
Yeah, and? Total private direct contributions to Katrina relief came to something over $3 billion, IIRC. And if we’re feeling lavish, we could also count in with that the $11 billion that was donated to all charities (not just Katrina-relief activities) in 2005 as a direct result of the “Katrina tax break”. (That $11 billion includes general-philanthropy gifts to recipients like Duke University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.)
By contrast, the Feds alone were spending about $2 billion per week in fall 2005 in Katrina relief and recovery efforts. I lost track of the allocations somewhere around the $100 billion mark, but again, the gummint is way outspending the private foundations here. 'Cuz that’s where the money is.
Now, on the foreign aid thing with the Indonesian tsunami relief, you’ve got a point; the half-billion dollars or so of private contributions by Americans was more than the $350 million that the Bush administration allocated. But when we’re talking about American support for Americans in need, the government at all its levels is the big dawg.
Thanks for the info. Out of curiosity, what approximate figure did you have in mind when you spoke of a “vast majority” of (adult) homeless being “100%” to blame for their status? 60%? 80%? 95%? 99.9%?
And will that religious charity pass out condoms and accurate sex info re STDs, abortion and AIDS? Or will it tout its own agenda or even insist that those who use their services profess a belief in that religion’s deity? IMS, there was a legal case about this not too long ago. Do not remember the outcome, though. I can’t see Catholic Charities helping a young homeless woman (perhaps a prostitute or drug user) to get an abortion, for instance. By help, I mean even telling her where the clinic is… Same with Reformed Presbyterians or other “conservative” churches.
Nowhere do I read that the OP wants “everyone else” to pay for services. Instead, I see that s/he wants us all to contribute to the wellbeing of society-including her/himself. How dare s/he propose something so horrible? Surely the homeless/mentally ill/ determinedly jobless are to do what conservatives desire–die quietly somewhere far away from their neighborhoods; they are supposed to just “go away”. After all, it’s their “fault” that they’re homeless and therefore must be punished for it. Their position is clear to me. It is indeed, “I got mine.”; with a large dose of “don’t you even think of touching it–I’ll see you dead first.”
It is truly sickening. I deal with the homeless somewhat frequently-as a nurse they tend to be pts, often. I have only rarely worked ER, but we got our share of street people in ICU and stepdown as well. Sicker than sick, dirty, rotting teeth, maggots, lice, roaches in their hair etc. Should we leave them lay? We the taxpayers pay for their care–it’d be nice to prevent some of this stuff, so that their hospital care wasn’t catastrophically expensive. Prevention is a lot cheaper than treatment, but we as a nation refuse to see that, sadly enough.
As a church member, the homeless fill our basement one Sunday a month (we have a rota system here wherein a different church site is used each week). There is no preaching, no prayers forced upon anyone, but there is also no access to condoms, to info re STDs or mental health issues. They get a hot dinner, a breakfast and a sack lunch. These shelters run from October to March. Having seen snow often in April in Chicago, already this program is inadequate.
Our local program has expanded to include interview clothing, basic hygiene materials, job counseling at the central site. It is not enough. We’ve had people move out of the area surrounding the church because we dared to open our doors even this much. Our shelters had to be divided up-our church only serves men now because there were too many people to serve. That and there were fights about women, and between women and men when they shared the same basement. The kids just about break your heart, (if you have one, that is.) No inebriation is allowed (no drugs either); if the homeless person is not at the pickup place when the bus arrives, he or she will not be allowed into the shelter (church basement) on foot. It is easy to see how this does not meet the needs of all the homeless even in our smallish community (Chicago suburb).
Even though I am supportive of our church’s program(it is doing something to help the problem), I am not pro-private charity/religious overall. The problem is too big, but also relying on charities and religions allows the problem to be ignored by too many people, the whole “not in my backyard” stuff.
In addition, the possibility of evangelizing and of undue pressure on the homeless to abide by the religion’s “creed” and platform is something I find distasteful. The homeless should be allowed freedom of (and from) religion like the rest of us. Just my two cents.
By ‘less visible’ I think you simply mean ‘less.’ But in general, thanks for confirming my intuition: a lot of people are sleeping on heating grates now because a lot of inexpensive shelter has gone by the wayside.
FTR, although I’m willing to be won over with the appropriate evidence, I highly doubt that heroin has gotten purer or more potent than the 1970s–especially the cheap stuff the homeless probably use.
eleanor, you are right that most Catholic organizations don’t typically steer women towards an abortion clinic (I’m willing to bet a lot of money that it does happen sometimes), but as far as your concerns about evanglelizing, Catholics don’t do that too much anymore, and I’ve never seen it done by a charity like Catholic Charities or St. Vincent de Paul…evangelizing is not part of the mission. I work with a small local Catholic organization, and I never hear the subject of religion even brought up unless the person being helped asks (like if they want to get in contact with a priest to receive a sacrament or such). I have found that most of the people running these kinds of charities these days are social liberals, who also believe strongly in freedom of religion.
Yeah, it’s amazing what a few billion in gummint loot can buy:
Stuck and Suicidal in a Post-Katrina Trailer Park
More like the big ass.
I didn’t think that the Catholic charities were the ones evangelizing–sorry I didn’t make that clear. I have heard that the more conservative “Christian” churches do so: here, we’ll provide you with some stuff that you need to survive, but you’d better pray like us, pray with us etc–it’s appalling, if it’s true. I see no reason to think it’s not true, since some (not all, but some) envangelicals will flat out tell you that you’re going to hell if you don’t believe as they do. What’s a little coercion to people of that mindset?
Sadly, even with Gment involvement, the homeless won’t suddenly disappear. But I think that the number of people who fall into homelessness would decrease significantly, and it might just pull most of them up. The number of “dedicated homeless”–the ones who will not change their way of life, no matter what is done for them, is quite small. But they are used as the “reason” to do nothing.
Well, Lib, nobody else likes government fraud, waste and corruption either. Remember that fraud, waste and corruption are by no means unique to government institutions:
Charity exec pleads guilty to embezzling money to pay dominatrix
Ex-Official of Red Cross Is Charged With Fraud
Country’s First Arrest Over Post-Katrina Internet Charity Scheme
Fraudulent Charities Use Tsunami Pleas To Prey on Donors
Tsunami Relief Fraud Spammer Pleads Guilty
And that’s not even counting any of the private individuals and companies who deliberately defrauded FEMA of relief funds with bogus stories in the wake of Katrina.
Sure, the government is a very easy target for ridicule and ire because it’s big and clumsy and omnipresent. But we can’t just use ridicule and ire to hide from the realizations that (1) government institutions do play a very important role in taking care of people in our society who desperately need help; and (2) a lot of the flaws, idiocies and crimes that plague government institutions are all around us in other human enterprises too.
Maybe it’s easier for libertarians to believe that human beings as individuals are perfectible, it’s just government that sucks.
Depends. Counting the homeless is tricky. If someone is moving from fleabag to fleabag, do you count him homeless? Or do you fall back on that old standby of “no fixed address?”
I will agree that what we have now isn’t ideal, and that the skid rows of old had their advantages. But let’s not kid ourselves about skid row - those guys would have been considered homeless by any reasonable measure today.
What Catholics do is put a band-aid on the problem. That’s all they have the resources to do. There simply is no other institution with the resources to handle a problem of this size.
Though it is 3 busrides and a trek away from most of the homeless, I used just that to illustrate the difficulty of getting into this program. I helped my alcoholic friend get into this detox, so I know first hand how hard it is. First, they take no walk-ins. You must call first and do a phone evaluation with a counselor. Sounds simple enough, except that the program is so inadequate to deal with its patients’ needs that it took 3 days of calling every hour on the hour to speak to a counselor. Now, your average bum isn’t going to have the money or the patience to stand at a payphone for 3 days trying to reach someone. Even I, the completely sober and dedicated dialer that I was, got so frustrated with their stupid stupid phone system that I wanted to dive into a gallon of vodka. But I digress.
I just meant to show that even someone who’s truly committed to getting sober would find it exceedingly difficult to get the help s/he needs with this program, because it can only handle around 12-15 at a time. There’s one other non-medical detox, where they give you a blanket and a corner to huddle in, which is dangerous for someone experiencing alcohol withdrawals. Every other program requires insurance.
OK, I’ve been trying to be reasonable, but this is ridiculous. I have something I won’t be using, and instead of throwing it away or giving it to a friend, I give it to the less fortunate, but that’s not good enough for you? When I take clothes that no longer fit and donate them to charity, or grab some canned goods from my cabinets and give them to a food drive, that’s not good enough because they’re my discards? You have a seriously fucked up world view.
As for not doing much beyond “contributing my discards”, :rolleyes: how many times do I have to say that I’ve VOLUNTEERED IN SOUP KITCHENS? I’ve spent many a Saturday cutting mold off of vegetables so that the nonmoldy parts could be made into stew. No, I haven’t done everything in my power to help, but I have done something, and that helps me sleep at night. In fact, I’d wager that I’ve done more than most my age and in my financial situation. I remember one day when I was volunteering, another young woman around my age started making small talk by asking what I’d done. 
You know, what’d you do to get community service? Oh, nothing, I’m here to volunteer. Well, the other folks were shocked to hear that I was there voluntarily and not as a court-ordered part of probation.
I’m done arguing this. I’m sick of hearing your fallacious reasoning that because I haven’t martyred myself for the cause of the less fortunate, I have no right to argue for more to be done.
Yes, “arresting them” is a simplistic solution for a very complex problem.
However, so is blaming condo developers. Many homeless would still be homeless if there were an excess of “half market rate” apartments. DanBlather has is mostly right, but even this "I call BS. The “homeless” people I see have more problems than lacking affordable housing. They are drunks, addicts, or mentally ill. If there were $100 a month apts available they would just spend the $100 on drugs and get evicted for not paying rent." is simplistic. Some Homeless are dudes who would happily pay rent , if they could. Many single Moms with deadbeat Dads become homeless too.
The “homeless” problem is complex because “the homeless” are people and people are different. Many are diehard “bums” who don’t want to work. Some are insane. Some refuse shelters as shelters don’t allow smoking, drugs, booze and often (sadly) pets. Some are the Poster-child Single-mom who was “one paycheck away from being homeless” and then that paycheck didn’t come. Some are runaway teens- sometimes running from a horrible home, sometimes from a loving home.
It’s a complex problem with no simple solutions.
Now for those homeless willing and able to work with the Government and other agencies, there is help. The “poster-child” homeless don’t stay homeless for long. (But the wheels of government grind slowly, and 6 months can seem like forever) We need to continue to fund those programs.
The real question is: what do we do about the hardcore homeless? We are seeing more of them now as the insane are now free to run about, and various programs have made it so that the Homeless now congregate where the programs are, and vice-versa. There used to be “hobo-camps” and "skid-rows’ even in the 50’s and before, but they were away from the sight of most citizens.
Oh and for those who want to give a hand-out: warm wooly socks, not cash. Socks are in high demand. I have actually gone out there and done something, you see. Warm Socks are a simple solution to cold wet feet.
I’m not so sure I buy the argument that a large portion of the homeless are people who have been “squeezed” out of housing because of rapidly increasing housing prices in cities.
For one, something that stands out to me is the claim that you have to make more than $14 an hour or work 80 hours a week to avoid being homeless. That just isn’t the case. I don’t disagree with RedRoses bringing it up about St. Petersburg, but St. Petersburg is not the only place in the United States. Most rational people will not be so attached to living in St. Petersburg that they will go homeless there before moving to a much cheaper place where they can keep a roof over their head.
I can certainly buy that in location X, that is the bare minimum to get by. However, I know of a lot of locations other than X, locations Z, Y, YY, YZ, et cetera. I know many areas from personal, direct, current, experience in which it is not at all uncommon to see housing going at the rate of $400-500 utilities included. You only have to work 40 hours a week at 5.85 an hour to make enough to get by at a housing cost like that (less if you can find a roommate to help split costs.)
Even taking into account payroll taxes, 40 hours a week at federal minimum wage and you should clear ~800 a month.
I’m not saying I don’t think people sometimes get “squeezed” into homelessness, I think that does happen. I think most people who get put into such a situation, especially those with families, tend to get out of it quickly, tend to get by for a few weeks or months and get their lives back on track. It takes something fundamentally different in a human being for them to be totally content with climbing into a bottle or a box and living the rest of their lives.
I’m familiar with one housing complex for single men who are down and out. You are only allowed to live there for a certain amount of time. If you don’t have a job, you can only go into the housing complex between 8pm and 8am. From 8am to 8pm, you’re expected to be out looking for work.
The overwhelming majority of the homeless people I’m familiar with who lived there/live there, spend that 12 hour period wandering into local businesses trying to get free food, messing up their restrooms and et cetera. They get kicked out of a local Subway franchise regularly for trying to sit around for hours on end without buying anything.
What they never do, despite having seen a “Now Hiring” sign up dozens of times, is ask for an application. They would rather wander the streets and find ways to pass those 12 hours doing nothing than they would actually trying to find a job.
Now, I’ve also seen a very small subset of them who actually go around looking for jobs, get jobs, and move out. Ironically the overwhelming majority of those who do this are recently released convicts from prison.
People that are down and out–but mentally stable enough to at least function in society.
I don’t think homelessness is all the mentally ill, but I just know that most of the “stereotypically” homeless people I can think of have to have some mental illness. These are people who never want to do anything other than drink or abuse drugs, and will spend hours looking for hand outs but won’t ever take the time to put in an application anywhere.
That’s why I agree with differentiating between the temporarily homeless and the permanently homeless. Interestingly enough, people with genuine disability can usually get into government assistance of various kinds. I have a cousin with schizophrenia who has never spent a day in is life homeless because he gets significant help from the government. He gets HUD housing and he gets other types of support. He even holds down a job from time to time, as well.
I genuinely think a lot of the people who are permanently homeless are either too insane to look for help or they have become so disheartened that all they are comfortable with anymore is their homeless life–and they have no desire to try and change their circumstances. Not unlike people who have been incarcerated so long that they fear being released, I think some of these people fear going to the “other side.”
No.
There are outfits who measure this sort of thing. So: cite?
Well, maybe, but that obviously wasn’t the point I was trying to make in that post.
Personally, I’m for funnelling government funds into these kinds of charities, and letting the charities run our social programs. I think they’d do a better job of it.
Although I should add that I do think that charities which evangelize should not get any government funds.