I’ve already been opinionated in this thread, so I won’t claim to be above that, but I will post this without editorial comment of my own.
This is an article that appeared in the paper at the start of the month: Death of our homeless pal, million-dollar man
I’ve been addressing a couple of poster’s claim that ‘capitalism’ is the cause of homelessness in our society. Yeah, Sweden has little homelessness compared to other nations, but it also has the 2nd highest tax rate in the world to pay for its services. Yet, it still has homeless people! Are these the selfish, greedy capitalists who can’t make it in such a caring society because they can’t exploit the ‘worker’, or are they similar people that live on the streets here, but only less so? Are you willing to increase your tax rate about 50% so that a few less homeless people are on the street?
Actually you can. You can live with family or a roomate or like Migrant farmworkers do, spilt a “by the week” motel room- and by “split” we mean like 4-6 living in one room.
Me? Absolutely. But I’m pretty much a socialist anyway. I realize my world view doesn’t match up with most of the rest of the nation. I also have a higher tolerance for the homeless (granted, there aren’t many doorstep squatters in Dog Patch, IL). The experimental project referenced by Cowgirl seems like it’s got lots of promise. I’d like to follow the progress on an expanded basis over a period of 3 or so years. Put some up in Chicago or New York or wherever the problem is out of control and see what happens.
So, should cities build and mainatin flophhouse accomdations for the homeless? Why not build complexes like college dorms-one small room per person, with communal living/dining rooms. Tese would be cheap and if kept clean, would allow people to have some dignity. also, having clean bathrooms to wash up in-that is a major plus.
Has this been tried? of course, you simple HAVE to jail/hospitalize the violently mentally ill.
Calgary is actually attempting to end the homelessness problem here (and not by rounding them all up and gassing them, either) with a 10 year plan. A friend of mine is an executive on this council. I’ll be very interested to see what they come up with. And yes, Calgary does have a large homeless population, due to our recent boom and the high cost of housing here.
Everyone in this thread saying, “Something needs to be done!”, I’d appreciate it if you stopped saying that - it makes it sound like nobody realizes there is a homelessness problem, and nobody is working on it. Lots and lots of somethings are being done everywhere. One thing hampering homelessness relief efforts is that pesky human rights thing, where we can’t force people into rehabilitation or into taking the meds they need. In a free society, you have the right to piss your life away drinking; you don’t, however, have the right to affect other people while you do it. Once we can reconcile these two basic facts, maybe we can get on with fixing things.
There is a documentary highlighting the gentrification in (I think) New York’s Bowery and how the flophouses are disappearing. They created “dorms” (and I use the term loosely) in one building that these guys reside in. The ceilings are chicken wire and the walls are paper thin. It’s basically the size of a closet. I don’t think the city provides funding for it but it they are, it’s woefully missing the mark. I don’t think you can expect homeless addicts to maintain their space the way most people maintain their homes, but it is a place to live nonetheless.
I don’t necessarily hate the homeless as a group. Like everyone else, it’s on a person-to-person basis. I seriously dislike the aggressive panhandlers. One of my jobs is at a grocery store, and these guys hang around the doors and harass everyone going in or out of the store. One even ripped a shopping cart out of a lady’s hands so he could have the quarter from it. They frighten people. The cops may come and shoo them away, but they’re back an hour later. My manager now has a “no tolerance” policy for panhandlers on the store’s property, and we have to have security guards there all the time.
One funny food bank story: One week, the 20 pound bags of potatoes were on buy-one-get-one-free. Who needs 40 pounds of potatoes, though? Every time someone came through my line with a single bag, I asked them if I could toss their “free” one in the food bank hamper. Most happily agreed. When the Food Bank guy came to collect the donations, he had a good laugh: there must have been 15 bags of them piled in and around the donation box. It took him a few trips, and, I imagine, filled up a lot of bellies for a while. 
We have a few elementary schools sitting empty. Can’t they be used as additional shelters?
Wasn’t this supposed to be accomplished when that 5 story brick building was built about 10 years ago next to the Cecil? At the time a co-worker commented, “Build it and they will come”. As in the better services you have to support the homeless, the more homeless seem to appear to take advantage of the service.
That is the truest thing I’ve probably ever heard said about the homeless problem. I live in a place where there’s a large homeless population, and there are also many, many services, both publicly and privately run, to help these folks. Everything from PADS to soup kitchens to a pretty well-run, decent but very cheap SRO that’s just a couple blocks from my house. While I don’t begrudge the existence of the SRO, it is annoying and a little scary to find used needles in my front yard, or diarrhead pants in my back yard (yes, this really happened). Do they have a right to live there? Sure. Do they have a right NOT to live there and live in the streets? I guess they do. Do they have the right to drop their biohazard trash on my property? I don’t think so. But they do, and there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it. So how DO you fix it? I’m at a loss, and the more I’ve been involved with the help efforts, the more stymied I am.
OK, can we break it down just a little?
Consider a hypothetical single person on their own in the wilderness. Now, if they don’t want to freeze to death at sundown, they better get busy and do a couple hours of work. To me that’s the bottom line, and having other people around doesn’t really change this essential fact. So if for some reason a guy can’t work, then it’s just basic kindness for his neighbors to lend a hand. If a guy can work but just won’t, I’d say let him starve for awhile until he gets the picture. I don’t need shiftless assholes riding around on my back and hassling me on the street.
Two scenes from my past that I can’t forget:
I’m walking down the street on a raw cold rainy day. Shortly after our Governer and future Prez Ronny Reagan cruelly emptied out most of the funny farms in California to save a buck. Up ahead I see an emaciated old man huddled up against a building, soaking wet and shaking uncontrollably. He’s only wearing jeans, sandals, and a tee shirt. As I approach I can see there is nobody home behind those eyes. He knows he’s cold but he can’t figure out why. I talked to him a bit and he’s just not there. I gave him a bagel out of my breakfast and he eagerly gummed away at it, but he had no teeth or dentures. I led him to the overhang of a nearby store front to get him out of the rain. I was destitute at the time and had nothing else to give him. I didn’t know what to do. I was late for school and eventually I left him there, telling him I’d be back with something for lunch. When I returned he was gone. It’s entirely possible that he died of cold and hunger like an animal without ever knowing why. I think about that guy once in awhile.
Years later I’m walking down a city street on a nice warm sunny day. Ahead of me was a lady walking toward a big hotel wearing a maid outfit, looked like she was going to work. Sitting on the sidewalk, blocking half of it with his legs, was a big fat dirty hobo hassling people for money. There was a half circle of trash around him, and by his side was a big duffel bag with two beer bottles sticking out the top. As the lady approached he heaved his bulk up and loudly demanded money. She shied away, obviously frightened. The bum got louder and followed her cursing. Then I stepped up behind him. I bounced him off a brick wall and suggested that the lady should carry on, which she did. Then me and the bum had a rapid chat. Nothing too serious, just a little manners lesson. I still get pissed off whenever I remember that guy.
Guys like the poor old crazy man should get help. Guys like the dirty slob hobo should get a cattle prod in the ass. I can tell the difference between them, and I refuse to believe that society can’t.
I understand what you are saying, but I was replying to the comment made by gonzomax:
[QUOTE]
Originally Posted by** gonzomax **
*The government says you should spend 30 % of you income on shelter. When you work for 8 bucks an hour., assuming 40 hours,( actually they keep it under to avoid benefits) You take home about 270 a week. That would mean you have about 330 a month for a place to live. Good luck finding one. Then utilities. You just can not make it. Sorry ,you can work full time and be homeless…and stinky.[/*QUOTE]
I get that it is damn near impossible for someone who has been unemployed for 14 months to get an apartment but that isn’t the kind of homelessness I was talking about. For someone who has a job that pays them $8 an hour they have proof of steady employment. They have to maintain a minimum level of cleanliness to be able to go into work every day so they are somehow getting a hold of soap, water, laundry facilities, etc. They have a boss and coworkers who can give them references if they need it as long as they don’t alienate their work peers. They don’t look like they are going to turn the apartment into a flophouse because they are just normal people who are fast on the path to homelessness if they don’t band together and make some sacrifices. Having screwed up credit can cause problems but I know lots of people with fucked up credit who live in very nice apartments all over the country so credit ratings alone can’t be what is causing the working homeless to be without shelter. And if these people are already homeless and are living in a shelter and managing to get to work every day (again, we are talking about the working homeless here) then saving up a 1 month deposit is not impossible, even without a checking or savings account. It wouldn’t be an easy situation to be in but it is not the dire situation that some would have you believe either.
Sometimes people go homeless by choice. My SO managed a convenience store in short SE near the railroad yards that got a lot of homeless guys in. He worked up an arrangement with them–he’d let the regulars have free coffee on a regular basis (because the profit margin on coffee is huge) and in return they policed themselves not to leave a mess of the coffee bar or steal the sugar packets and not to shoplift–also he didn’t let them panhandle on the premises or go through the trash. Most of the guys thought this was a pretty good deal and a couple of the more violent “fuck you” types ended up getting roughed up pretty bad when they wouldn’t toe the line–one of them ended up with a broken arm and the other guys admitted they’d busted him up to keep him from fucking up their coffee supply.
Anyway, down the street from the store was a tow truck company and the guys were regulars. One guy stopped coming around for awhile, then the SO noticed he was back, but stanky, unshaven and hanging with the bums. He asked a couple of the other guys from the tow company what happened and they said he started drinking, abandoned his job and went bumming–and that it had happened before. He’d go homeless for a year or so, dry out and go back to work but sometimes the siren call of the streets got too good to him. Now that guy always baffled me. Sure, you can’t drink and hold down a driving job but there are plenty of other jobs that you can do while half in the bag, and this guy appeared to be one of those maintenance drunks, always a bit gone but never really schnockered. The sheer effort involved in pulling himself up from homeless to a good job, an apartment and a life doesn’t seem to be something you’d want to do repeatedly on purpose, y’know? That was a headscratcher…
It can’t be that dire, because that’s what young people have ALWAYS done to get by on their low incomes. When I was just out of college, I was able to get a studio apartment by myself, but I was spending a lot more than 30% of my income to do it (had to cut way back in a lot of other areas). I remember one friend of mine, though, went in with something like 6 or 7 other people to rent a bigger place, and they all doubled up on rooms, and turned the dining room into an extra bedroom to squeeze more people in. It wasn’t the most ideal situation in the world, but none of them were out on the street. That doesn’t take into account any other problems a person may have, but only having 30% of your income to spend on housing shouldn’t be the thing to put you out on the street.
[quote=“pbbth, post:132, topic:468848”]
I understand what you are saying, but I was replying to the comment made by gonzomax:
I agree, but “this” homeless guy isn’t “every” homeless guy. People who are in the system and not drunk, addicted, or nuts can get it together, camp on a few couches, live in their car, or whatever and within a few months of starting a bottom-rung job, have the money needed for the security deposit and first months’ rent. It’s the other groups who are the problem.
I knew a guy up in the mountains. He worked a part-time non-supporting job and drank a lot (but he wasn’t a scary drunk). He’d crash on a friend’s couch for a while and then he’d wander off into the wilderness for a couple months. He said it helped him somehow – getting next to nature and what have you. I think he could have done better, but he didn’t have any interest in a traditional lifestyle.
I know that. I am in no way saying that every homeless person is in this position. I live in NYC and I am very familiar with homelessness and it’s different forms. In my above post I was simply addressing a point made by someone else about the working homeless, I wasn’t talking about the other groups of homeless people.
It is my understanding that most homeless children are acutely, not chronically homeless. The same thing goes for the majority of homeless women. They’re not shitting in your doorway or scaring decent people out of the library, they live on the couches of friends or in a car or something for a few weeks until Mom finds a new job. I’ve never had a child panhandle me (in the US) or seen one asleep on a bench. These people are served fairly well by services because they can actually be helped; these are not the people we’re discussing in this thread.
Please stop being disingenuous in your answers.
I always worry about the kids the most - I was one of those kids in Calgary, not in 2004, but in 1986 to 1989.
I was a runaway, I was running away from emotional issues due to an abusive step-father, and although I could live with my dad instead, the trauma of the life in my mother’s house had psychologically messed me up so much, that I ran. Some kids were running from less, and some kids from far worse. I knew kids as young as 11 years old who were on the streets, who had grown up in a parade of abusive foster homes. Because of shared suffering in childhood, the kids were quite similar.
The street kids became a tribe, almost like a family. Most of the kids are far too young, with far too little education to get even a fast food job, and too afraid of the authorities, foster homes, and social workers who will send them back to abusive homes to get help. The kids who say they are 15 are actually 12, those who say they are 17 are actually 15, and those who are 16 and up said they were somewhere between 18 and 21. It seemed that with my grade 10 education, I was light years ahead of many of the kids - I knew kids who had dropped out in grade 6. The average last grade of school was grade 8.
At 16 years old or if you were a pregnant girl who was 14 or older, you could get social services similar to an adult and finally get off the streets on the condition that you went to school or got a job, but for some it was hard to leave the tribe. Beyond the trauma of childhood, were traumas inherent in the street life that only psychologically messed up everyone even more. Many kids messed up their chance on social services, because they were too maladjusted to society to be able to play the games, and jump through the hoops required to stay on welfare.
It feels like you are no longer a part of society, and the only thing you have is the tribe, and it is hard to bring people this damaged back to normalcy - but something has to change for these kids to get what they need, and have a chance at a better life.
There is so much animosity towards these kids from the general public. People assume that they are just bad kids who don’t like rules, or they assume the kids are older and capable of getting work. They don’t understand the fear of foster homes, and the fear of one’s own parents that drives the kids to the streets. They don’t understand the despair & distrust, and that the only thing holding you together is your group of friends.
When I have the time, I sometimes stop & talk with the current batch of kids, and let them know I was there once, and now I have a good life. I let them know I worked a full time waitress job & went to finish my high school, and that after that I went to college, and that it was hard work, but I am happy now. I hope what I am doing is spreading hope - because I know that can be one of the things most lacking in a street kid’s life.
The solution for teenage homeless will probably be the hardest of all the homeless solutions, and I don’t know if it can ever be solved, but I just wanted to share my experience in that world to let you people here know the reality of it, so that next time you see a couple grubby kids with a dog asking for change, you’ll have a better clue of why they are there.
Waht is the difference between acutely and chronically homeless? I think I can figure it out, but a clarification would be nice.