We should end homelessness in America

Great Debates
121

No, I’m not “OK” with it - but I don’t expect mentally incapacitated people to act like functional adults because they are unable to do that. It’s like screaming at a legless man because he can’t tap-dance.

The crazy people stumbling around alleys, eating out of dumpsters, wearing tin foil hats and muttering to themselves are not doing that to piss you off or game the system or because they;ve made a conscious decision to stick it to The Man. They’re doing it because their thinking machinery doesn’t work right. It doesn’t matter if their brain broke due to injury, disease, trauma, or what have you - they’re disabled and we don’t have a good fix for a broken brain.

I’ve got a nephew who suffered brain damage and if it weren’t for an insurance settlement and a trust set up for his care he’d be wandering the streets homeless. He set himself on fire once and no one can say if it was an accident or deliberate (fortunately, because he’s in a protected setting, mostly just his hair went up and he suffered no serious long-term damage) . He’s in a safe place where he’s cared for, even if he’s unhappy about his situation, but that’s because there’s money to spend on caretakers and a small apartment in an assisted living complex and to make repairs when he wrecks something. Which he does from time to time because his brain isn’t working right, he can’t focus, and he has trouble with self-control Locking him up in prison isn’t going to fix him. Putting him in a “camp” isn’t going to fix him. Forcing him to get a job isn’t going to “fix” him (he’s had several jobs since his accident, but even in a “supported” and supervised circumstance he is unable - not unwilling but unable - to work). NOTHING is going to fix him. So… what is to be done with him? He LOOKS like a perfectly healthy young man - and physically he is. He looks like exactly that sort of person you’d have a fit about “not trying” and being “lazy”… but he’s not. He’s disabled. Meaning unable. Not able. It’s not that he won’t but that he can’t be an independent, functional adult.

The sole difference between my nephew and a lot of the chronic homeless is exactly one thing: money. He got a settlement that will provide him a place to live for the rest of his life. The guys on the street have nothing outside maybe a few socks and a shopping cart of stuff. All the types of coercion you can come up with to “fix” a person with a broken brain is not going to work, such a person is never going to be a productive, tax-paying citizen.

What you propose to do with such people says a lot more about you as a person than I think you realize.

122

I am not o.k. with all the attempts to label the homeless as criminal and/or mentally ill and/or lazy. These seem like attempts to distance them from the rest of humanity, a way to say “I am better than that-it can’t happen to me”, a way to say “it’s their fault”.
I was homeless for a few years, and I wasn’t a criminal, mentally ill or lazy. I merely had the misfortune of working at a job that had no health benefits, catching pneumonia, losing my job, then losing my apartment. It’s just that easy to lose it all, folks, and it is next to impossible to climb back up.

123

Off to Mars with you!

Czarcasm, I agree with you that not all homeless people are mentally ill, etc., and it’s easy for people to find themselves in unfortunate situations. But many of the chronic homeless are as people upthread have described.

There is not one size fits all solution as the OP has suggested. As with most societal problems, it is complex and requires many different approaches.

124

I suspect, however, that when you were homeless, Czarcasm, you were relatively decent-smelling, tried your best to keep up personal hygiene, wore clothing appropriate to the weather, and were able to conduct yourself as a normal, civilized person. You are were able to work your way back up out of it.

MOST of the homeless I know are not sleeping on the streets, or at least not often, look like everyone else, act like everyone else, couch surf, sleep in their vehicles, find ways to get a shower, seek out food panties that also supply things like soap and deodorant, have some friends and relatives that will help them out from time to time, and are able to engage with social services. Most of the ones I currently know are folks who lost work in the recession and lost their housing due to foreclosure or failure to pay rent because they simply didn’t have sufficient money. One of them is still working full time but her partner isn’t even getting odd jobs anymore, their home was foreclosed, they turned the kids over to the grandparents to give them a stable living environment, and they’re couch surfing/renting a room occasionally/sleeping in their SUV. I don’t see an out for them because they aren’t earning enough to make a security deposit on even a small apartment because minimum wage isn’t a living wage.

But no one thinks of them as homeless because they don’t look homeless, because they are able to shower at least semi-regularly, because they aren’t sleeping in a cardboard box, because they have some sort of employment. They’re invisible, but they’re all around you. They’re the nice if somewhat worn down looking person having dinner at Denny’s or McDonald’s with someone else, they’re the part-time person at your local grocery store or drug store or big box store or laundromat or busing tables at the local eatery or serving your coffee at the local shop. Since I lost my lush corporate job in 2008 I’ve been amazed at how many coworkers I’ve had since who were homeless. They ARE functional people, they are trying VERY hard, they get to work on time, they’re clean, they’re groomed, they’re personable and paste those smiles on their faces for the customers because that’s what the public wants but they’re just as homeless as the smelly bum sleeping on top of a sewer grate. They just don’t look homeless.

I’ve known people rendered homeless due to a house fire or a flood. Due to illness, like Czarcasm, or just losing a job and having a hard time finding another because they’re over 40 and ageism is a thing. But functional homeless people are, like I said, somewhat invisible.

And, by the way, herding the “invisible homeless” into camps isn’t going to solve anything, either - if you aren’t free to come and go at will you won’t be able to get to job interviews to get the job that might get you out of the hole you’ve fallen into.

The able homeless need to be given real help, not punishment, and not treated as criminals for being poor. The ill homeless need to be treated sufficiently to allow them to be well and able to work, or if they are disabled treated with compassion, not contempt.

125

But what it doesn’t need is the excuse that we can’t do anything at all while we are searching for the perfect answer. I remember the “Give A Hand Up, Not A Hand Out” campaign, which was specific about not giving directly to the homeless, but pretty damn vague about the “Hand Up” part.

126

Most of the chronically long-term homeless are mentally ill, substance abusers, and some of them are lazy and criminals. Whether it distances me from them or not, it’s a fact.

And when most people say, “it can’t happen to me”, the overwhelming majority of the time they are quite correct. It doesn’t - because most people aren’t mentally ill winos who can’t hold down a job.

Congratulations on working your way up from homelessness. What do we do about the problem of homelessness with people who can’t, or won’t, work their way up? Do we send them thru treatment for the fifth time? Institutionalize them permanently? Offer them shelter without conditions, and watch some of them rape and rob and stab each other? Find them a job? If they could keep a job, they wouldn’t be homeless.

Compassion is a great thing. What should we do?

Regards,
Shodan

127

What are you talking about? I didn’t have a place to shit, shower or shave, I certainly didn’t have money to buy decent, let alone weather appropriate, clothing, and if you live off of stale bread “generously donated” by bakeries that were going to throw it out anyway and sleep outside in the winter “normal” and “civilized” are a pleasant memory of bygone days. BTW, I didn’t “work my way” back up out of it-who the hell would hire someone without a permanent address or phone number or clean clothes, who had to be in line at 3pm to attempt to get floor space and a dirty thin mattress at a shelter?
I got lucky. I happened to be walking around a free science fiction exhibit that the Seattle Center used to throw, and befriended a crazy female fan who latched onto me, took me to my first SCA meetup that very night, then to my first Rocky Horror Picture Show, then took me home to sleep in her guest room. The next day she made me her housekeeper. Without that insane sequence of events, I would probably be dead by now, so I have to ask: how far would you go to help a homeless person?

128

How far would you go to help a homeless person who can’t hold down a job as a housekeeper, and can’t befriend anyone because he thinks they are the CIA? And what would you do that would help?

Regards,
Shodan

129

That’s your excuse for not taking a chance on finding someone who doesn’t fit the extreme examples you hide behind?

130

I am saying that most of the long-term chronically homeless are mentally ill and/or substance abusers. What is your excuse for not taking a chance on them?

Regards,
Shodan

131

Guys, one thing to remember- it is cheaper to help them than not.

Health? They rely upon EMTs arriving or County General. This is damn fucking expensive. A walk in clinic would save millions.

Housing? Cleaning up their camps or the fires they start with them cost millions.

132

Why do you assume I need an excuse? I have been helping them for many years, donating clothing and supplies, giving room and board to someone who needed help, and donating my weekends at my local food and clothing bank where we make sure they have food to eat, weather-appropriate clothes to wear, food for their animals, diapers for their babies, backpacks and other items needed. I talk with them, I laugh with them, I commiserate with them and, far too often, I mourn for them.
edited to add: What is your excuse for not taking a chance on them?

133

Apparently you were clean enough to be allowed indoors a free exhibit. Apparently, a “crazy female fan” was willing to hire someone without a permanent address or phone number or clean clothes. Apparently, you were willing to work as a housekeeper.

Yes, it was an insane sequence of events but you were able to take advantage of that stroke of luck.

My nephew, on the other hand, has to have an adult minder to go anywhere (sometimes, he has two). He gets thrown out of places regularly due to acting “off” and scaring people. He is incapable of working as a housekeeper, or taking advantage of a stroke of good luck.

None of which I say to minimize how shitty your personal situation was. The difference is that you are capable and able - you can leverage a stroke of luck into a better life. There are people who can’t.

Admittedly, my help of homeless strangers consists of handing out food to people standing outside a restaurant saying they’re hungry, and back in my college days providing financial and material help to a new shelter struggling to get off the ground. Also, NOT kicking them out of parks where they are sleeping, or out of the store where I work so long as they’re not being disruptive, or NOT calling security because someone is taking sponge bath in a public toilet which I’ve seen several times. I try not to make their lives harder. I still very much support food pantries, not only with donated food but also clothing and toiletries. No, I wouldn’t invite a homeless stranger into my home, I’m not that generous.

134

Go volunteer at a homeless shelter or food/clothing bank-then they won’t be strangers any more.

135

I don’t invite “casual acquaintances” over to my home, either. My home is my sanctum, I invite very few people to it homeless or homed.

136

Did you get him off the street corner? Tell the story, either here or MPSIMS.

137

It doesn’t work out well for everyone.

138

Nothing works out well for everyone-if you have a reason to look hard enough, I’m sure you can find a bad example for every situation there is.