# How bad is homelessness where you live? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 31, 2018, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963 "2018-12-31T05:02:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/61 "2019-01-04T14:22:27Z")
Fortunately, I had a full time job, which kept me sane and helped in finding a place. Secondly, I worked in real estate for 26 years and still had some contacts. One such person knew someone who knew someone who was looking for a tenant. He agreed to interview me based on my full time job, an it turned out I knew the landlord, so once we met up the entire renting process took about 10 minutes. Connections are great, even second and third hand. ---
**Author:** ![txjim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f07891/32.png) [@txjim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/txjim)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/62 "2019-01-04T15:44:27Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > It’s pretty bad in Honolulu. It was bad when I was in school here 25 years ago, and it seems worse today since I returned, but the government claims it’s actually started to go down. But if you’re homeless on the mainland, you can always go someplace else even if you have to walk. Here, you’re just stuck. Even here in Waikiki, there are some standard characters sleeping on the streets, and we often hear maniacal screaming at night. But downtown can be pretty dicey even in the daytime with all the homeless camped out around there, many of them mentally ill. Would not want to spend too much time there at night. > > There is a misconception that Hawaii will fly the homeless to the mainland, but this is not completely true. There is a program but with all manner of restrictions. To begin with, it is NOT a free ticket. The homeless person must somehow come up with half the fare. And they won’t just dump them onto someone else’s jurisdiction on the mainland but rather the homeless individual must demonstrate some sort of support system in existence back home. It is also a one-time deal. To date, five homeless that I know of actually made it back to Hawaii, then tried to get the same deal for being sent back, and that was a big no. And while the program is administered by the state Institute for Human Services, it relies completely on donations, and not one penny of taxpayer money is used. I lived on Oahu (worked in Mililani) for a couple years in the late 80s, back then a couple leward beaches were pretty much full-time tent camps for some of the homeless population. This is in addition to the Honolulu-based people, such as the person who lived in the stairwell of the hotel I stayed at for a few weeks while looking for a place to live. The story I was told by the locals (true or not) is that it’s more common for a family to provide a one-way ticket to the island than for someone to be flown back to the mainland. Mild climate and a charitable population base guaranteed that a person would not starve or freeze. ---
**Author:** ![Royal\_Nonesutch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecb155/32.png) [@Royal\_Nonesutch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Royal_Nonesutch)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/63 "2019-01-04T16:44:21Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If you have a point to make with this vulgar video, make it. I am still finding my way around here, but it is abundantly clear that like me (at least in in most areas) this board skews extremely liberal, but with that said, if, for arguement’s sake, we say that the video linked above is accurate and the people depicted are indeed what most average people would dub, “Scam Artists” (like the “homeless” couple with a Mercedes and a Fiat, for example) what is the rationale for NOT exposing them and their fraud, greed and arrogance? I imagine that if I were ever homeless and reduced to panhandling on the street for daily hand to mouth subsistence and I found out the guy working the street a half-block down had a Mercedes, a Fiat and an apartment to sleep in at night, I would be absolutely thrilled if he was outed as a con artist. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/64 "2019-01-04T17:06:06Z")
> [@Royal\_Nonesutch](#): > > I am still finding my way around here, but it is abundantly clear that like me (at least in in most areas) this board skews extremely liberal, but with that said, if, for arguement’s sake, we say that the video linked above is accurate and the people depicted are indeed what most average people would dub, “Scam Artists” (like the “homeless” couple with a Mercedes and a Fiat, for example) what is the rationale for NOT exposing them and their fraud, greed and arrogance? > > I imagine that if I were ever homeless and reduced to panhandling on the street for daily hand to mouth subsistence and I found out the guy working the street a half-block down had a Mercedes, a Fiat and an apartment to sleep in at night, I would be absolutely thrilled if he was outed as a con artist. I’m sure a homeless person would be pretty annoyed about finding someone like that around, yes. Is posting in this thread meaningfully exposing those individual con artists? It seems far more likely that it’s simply adding to the general perception of many people that all, or at least most homeless people aren’t really in any need or deserving of any help, and can thus be ignored. The existence of fake homeless people may be an issue, but the public perception of fake homelessness is a far bigger issue for those who are, in fact, homeless. ---
**Author:** ![Royal\_Nonesutch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecb155/32.png) [@Royal\_Nonesutch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Royal_Nonesutch)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/65 "2019-01-04T17:20:26Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > Is posting in this thread meaningfully exposing those individual con artists? It seems far more likely that it’s simply adding to the general perception of many people that all, or at least most homeless people aren’t really in any need or deserving of any help, and can thus be ignored. I am not familiar with you or your political outlook, but I would wager someone using that logic about a different tiny minority population, say White Supremacist university students for example, would have you singing a different tune. I don’t imagine that most people, upon seeing that video, would henceforth assume that the average panhandler they see in front of the local 7-11 also has a Mercedes and a Fiat stashed around the corner. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/66 "2019-01-04T17:25:50Z")
> [@Royal\_Nonesutch](#): > > I am not familiar with you or your political outlook, but I would wager someone using that logic about a different tiny minority population, say White Supremacist university students for example, would have you singing a different tune. > > I don’t imagine that most people, upon seeing that video, would henceforth assume that the average panhandler they see in front of the local 7-11 also has a Mercedes and a Fiat stashed around the corner. And if someone posted a video about white supremacist university students in a thread about white university students, I’d have an issue with that too. ---
**Author:** ![Royal\_Nonesutch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecb155/32.png) [@Royal\_Nonesutch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Royal_Nonesutch)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/67 "2019-01-04T17:30:19Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > And if someone posted a video about white supremacist university students in a thread about white university students, I’d have an issue with that too. In this case, wouldn’t it be more like White Supremacists posing as nice college kids? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/68 "2019-01-04T17:32:43Z")
> [@Royal\_Nonesutch](#): > > I am not familiar with you or your political outlook, but I would wager someone using that logic about a different tiny minority population, say White Supremacist university students for example, would have you singing a different tune. > > I don’t imagine that most people, upon seeing that video, would henceforth assume that the average panhandler they see in front of the local 7-11 also has a Mercedes and a Fiat stashed around the corner. The purpose of that video was to collect viewers, not to accurately tell a story-[Here is a list of other videos they have put out.](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Top%20Trending&qft=+filterui:userpage-toptrendingtv&FORM=VQCHNL) Relying on crap like this to form an opinion on the homeless is asinine, and pushing crap like this is devious. ---
**Author:** ![Royal\_Nonesutch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecb155/32.png) [@Royal\_Nonesutch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Royal_Nonesutch)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/69 "2019-01-04T18:35:15Z")
I don’t for a second think that the average homeless American panhandler is secretly living the life of luxury with a veritable fleet of fine European touring sedans parked behind the dumpster at Round Table Pizza all gassed up and waiting to take them to their condo when they finish their shift hitting me up for two dollars when I walk out of the corner liquor store, and I don’t imagine that most other people do either, even ones who might watch a poorly made video with a nakedly transparent agenda. No, candidly, (and fully expecting that this observation isn’t likely to make me any friends around here) in my personal experience, at least over the past 10 years or so in places like Salt Lake, San Francisco, Denver and New Orleans (the U.S. cities I have spent the most time in over the past decade) the average panhandler I encounter is typically a 20 or 30-something year-old guy, (sometimes a gal) often seemingly with some level of education, and usually sporting a pretty good Mexican junk habit and a pretty bad attitude but who is indeed legitimately, genuinely, authentically homeless. I am also fully aware that there are tens of thousands of Americans out there on the streets tonight from all walks of life who are homeless for a multitude of reasons that do not include drugs, alcohol or criminal behaviour, poor, sick people grappling with mental illness, hard working people who were laid off thru no fault of their own, people who lost their home due to bankruptcy because of medical bills, natural disaster or bank fraud, or any of a thousand other personal reasons. I know this, and I am sick about it, disgusted that in a country with the resources that 2019’s America has at it’s disposal people are out in the cold who have “Played by the rules” and still ended up on the short end of the stick. I can simply attest that in my own experience, the “average” street panhandler I tend to get hit up by (who I fully understand is not representative of the “average” homeless person, were there such a thing) is not someone who is simply down on their luck thru no personal fault of their own, but instead someone who has retreated from society via drugs or alcohol and gets by relying on handouts from others, unwilling to take any steps to better their situation. (I understand that this is a bit off topic from my earlier posts, but while demonizing an entire group of people–in this case homeless people–isn’t productive, I see no problem with exposing the fraudulent assholes out there among them taking advantage of people’s good nature) ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/70 "2019-01-04T19:12:23Z")
**Annie-Xmas** , thanks for sharing. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/71 "2019-01-04T19:16:09Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > **Annie-Xmas** , thanks for sharing. What do you think of the tales we told? Have they caused you to form or change any opinions on what it takes to get out from under homelessness? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/72 "2019-01-04T19:37:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What do you think of the tales we told? Have they caused you to form or change any opinions on what it takes to get out from under homelessness? First off, I appreciated them, greatly. I’m not sure how many larger lessons can be drawn from Annie’s and your experiences. Both of you seem somewhat … atypical (in a good way) compared to the typical homeless population. Neither one of you appear to have any substance abuse issues or serious mental health challenges, whereas among the homeless population at large “[38% of homeless people were dependent on alcohol and 26% abused other drugs](https://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/addiction.pdf)” and “[20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some form of severe mental illness](https://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pdf)”. Those are tough issues to resolve, even without the compounding complications of the challenges of being homeless. Annie mentioned that following the rules of the shelter helped improve her position there, and was similar to the sort of basic respect for others that would be needed to maintain employment. It seems pretty obvious you’ve got similar socialization. I would hope that for most people with similar attitudes and behaviors, homelessness would usually be a very temporary affair. But, how do we convince people that don’t want to follow those societal norms to do so? I don’t know the answer. Was there a particular lesson you were hoping I’d take from it? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/73 "2019-01-04T19:41:48Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Was there a particular lesson you were hoping I’d take from it? No-Just wondering what you got out of what was said. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2019, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/74 "2019-01-04T20:06:10Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > … > Both of you seem somewhat … atypical (in a good way) compared to the typical homeless population. Neither one of you appear to have any substance abuse issues or serious mental health challenges, whereas among the homeless population at large “[38% of homeless people were dependent on alcohol and 26% abused other drugs](https://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/addiction.pdf)” and “[20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some form of severe mental illness](https://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pdf)”. … Appreciate your measured comments. Apologies that I did not parse your cites, but are those DISCRETE percentages of the homeless that fit into each of those categories? Do 38% abuse ETOH, a DIFFERENT 26% abuse drugs, and a DIFFERENT 20-25% have mental illness? Or might there be 20-25% who are mentally ill AND abuse ETOH AND drugs? Even if it is the former, that adds up to 84-89% - which might leave a good 11-16% of the homeless who might be similarly situated to Annie and Czarcasm. As SSA found when disability benefits were ended for individuals with drug addiction and alcoholism, it turned out that none of those folk were substance abusers after all. Instead, their substance abuse was merely a manifestation of their underlying bipolar disorder! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/75 "2019-01-05T04:07:11Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Appreciate your measured comments. > > Apologies that I did not parse your cites, but are those DISCRETE percentages of the homeless that fit into each of those categories? Do 38% abuse ETOH, a DIFFERENT 26% abuse drugs, and a DIFFERENT 20-25% have mental illness? Or might there be 20-25% who are mentally ill AND abuse ETOH AND drugs? > > Even if it is the former, that adds up to 84-89% - which might leave a good 11-16% of the homeless who might be similarly situated to Annie and Czarcasm. … The source doesn’t specify, but I suspect there is significant overlap, at least between the mental health and substance abuse numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/76 "2019-01-05T06:12:10Z")
While I don’t think most panhandlers are living high on the hog I’m not sure all of them were homeless. I see some regulars in downtown Little Rock who are well groomed, wear clean clothes, and aren’t carrying everything them own on their person but otherwise don’t seem to have any discernible occupation other than hanging around while everyone is at work. But I do see others who are not wearing the cleanest of clothes, are not well groomed, and appear to be carrying most of their worldly possessions with them. There’s one particular guy I’ve encountered several times around downtown who frequently hits me up for cash. He might be technically homeless but _someone_ is taking care of him some of the time. Once in the drive-thru at McDonald’s the guy in front of me got out of his vehicle, approached me, and ask for a few extra bucks so he could pay for his meal. He took off his hat revealing an odd dent and told me he was injured while serving in the military. The following week he came into the museum I worked at and not recognizing me told me the same story before asking for money to repair his vehicle. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/77 "2019-01-05T06:15:31Z")
I remember when I first moved to Albuquerque the first time I returned from Thailand, there were so many panhandlers along Central that I seriously considered trying it just as an experiment to see how much I could make. But then I found a job and started meeting people, so I blew it off. Still wonder how that would have turned out. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/78 "2019-01-05T12:34:07Z")
I hope this is acceptably close to the OP’s subject, but has anyone noticed the changes in new business construction lately? I’ve started calling it “vagrancy resistant” architecture. I live in a former backwater-exurb of the DFW area which is seeing explosive new growth (i.e. council meeting next week to rezone nearby area for an additional 5000 new homes). As a result, all the construction and businesses around me are brand new and constructed differently from what I’m used to. It took me a while to figure out the apparent purpose of this. Businesses used to have a “front” and a “back”, for customer and deliveries respectively. Now all the new restaurants have encircled most of the building with drive-thru lanes. Ditto for the new Starbucks, and the new CVS/Walgreens\* stores. There is no longer a “back” area or alley for homeless to hang out or forage. The new home improvement stores have an odd (to me) layout too. The stores are part of a group that face inward to their parking lots, with their “back” delivery areas facing the main road. There are no places anywhere where someone could obscurely camp out – they’re on solid concrete in the midst of large moving delivery trucks. I’ve also noticed that any unused areas are strongly fenced off. In the big-box store I now frequent, there’s an unpaved region of their parking lot that holds a small drainage ditch and it has a tall iron fence around it, making entry/exit almost impossible. I’ve seen this repeated several places and at first was mystified by the effort to secure and wall off unusable areas. I’m curious is anyone else is noticing this subtle change in construction. I’m just guessing at the purpose, but it seems correct. \*For non-USians, large retail pharmacy chains. And to answer the OP’s question, No, I’m actually seeing fewer homeless than a few years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/79 "2019-01-05T14:31:00Z")
One thing I did notice about some homeless people; They believe everything should be handed to them. Some have a sense of entitlement that is almost pathological. I made phone calls until I found someone with a place to rent. I had a full time job, and was no on the government’s dime. I got out of the shelter by doing something about my situation, instead of sitting back and expecting the government or someone else to solve the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963/80 "2019-01-05T18:01:45Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > The source doesn’t specify, but I suspect there is significant overlap, at least between the mental health and substance abuse numbers. Yeah - that is my suspicion as well. Which would suggest that a greater percentage - a quarter or even a half - of homeless are similarly situated to Annie and Czarcasm. Rather than being a single phenomena that can be addressed from one direction with a single strategy, I’d imagine multiple efforts would be required to chip away at homelessness. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-is-homelessness-where-you-live/826963.md?page=5)