nevermind
[Edited 4/7/10 12:13pm]

1) They don't exist, if you don't acknowledge them.
2) I wonder what countries like Iceland do with "homeless" people. Places where parts of the year you can not survive without a place to stay.

Did anybody see this episode of Oprah where she had a guest that conducted an experiment. He gave a homeless guy $100,000 to see what he would do with it. You would think giving a homeless ma 100 grand would be the end to all their problems right? Negative. The guy went and bought a 55K Escalade, got either an apartment or hotel room and continued to sleep on the floor, then he connected with some so called family and friends who had previously written him off and within months he was back broke and homeless. Oprah asked him what happened and he said he's always had a problem with authority and that's why he remains homeless.

DesireeNevermind said:

This does NOT surprise me.

DesireeNevermind said:

So they still need help, just help of a different kind

NDRU said:

I hope we really can say that one day.

IMO one of the biggest shames of our society is that as a whole we're so affluent, and yet there are tens of thousands of people without a safe place to sleep or enough food.

In my province, over 30% of children are living in poverty conditions. Why?

kewlschool said:

How about here in Canada? In the prairies it can drop to temperatures so low in the winter the water in the air begins to freeze.

DesireeNevermind said:

Proof that money doesn't solve everything. Caring enough about someone can. Imagine a supportive family-that's key.

DesireeNevermind said:

IMO that kind of behaviour is symptomatic of our entire society's problems with money and responsibility. It's easy to shake your head in disapproval when a poor person does that, but it's the exact same thing middle- and upper-class people are doing when they put a big holiday on credit or take out a loan for a down payment on a home they can't afford.

meow85 said:

To me, this has everything to do with overpopulation. People are breeding FAR too much, which is taxing on the environment, the economy, the culture...everything.
=0P

A friend of mine started a business helping homeless vets. He provides them room and board, as long as they stay straight. If they don't, he sends them to detox.

He gets paid from their government check.

It's been so successful that he now has a second house. It's unbelievable how these guys had been taken advantage of - both by nefarious people that would steal their money, and by alleged "caregivers" who were charging them 4x what they should for room and board.

Some guys do well, some don't. One guy killed himself by throwing himself in front of a car as he and my buddy were taking a walk.

RodeoSchro said:

that is incredibly sad.

Death penalty.

well here they have places to eat and things for homeless people and things like that theres a place to git connected i usually found out through some of the programs i was going for domestic violence....(shrug)

i'll be right back on that

but ya as a child i grew up living on gov funding cuz i grew up living with alot of people and most times my family (my mom's couldn't afford that)
[Edited 4/7/10 14:45pm]

chocolate1 said:

I know I would have freaked out and gone into a rage on that cat.

Number23 said:

?

I don't care about people who had the chance to work for their living and instead decided to go into crack.


But reading about mentally disabled people living on the street, because nobody cares to integrate them makes me very sad, really. I can't stand the thought of people being helpless because of a mental illness.


I have no idea what to do, I haven't given it a proper thought yet; I just wanted to say that reading through some posts here really made me .

Hero0101 said:

Thing is, in North America and Europe we're NOT overpopulated. The problem is in how wealth and resources are distributed.

We're currently trying to function in a system wherein people are being allowed to starve; where people even with full time jobs are having to worry about how to pay their bills. I can't honestly say I know what the solution is but clearly something needs to change.

Number23 said:

That's not funny.

meow85 said:

One problem (I think there are a lot of contributing problems) is acceptance, either our acceptance of people being homeless, or their acceptance of it.

Dave1992 said:

How do you feel about functional addicts? People with serious substance abuse problems but who do work or don't lose their homes? Are they superior because they didn't lose it all? Are only the people hardest hit by the chemicals okay to denigrate?

IMO we have to move completely away from the moral judgments we're placing on people in these situations. Why? It's hypocritical. All kinds of doctors and lawyers and bankers and other professionals also have addiction problems but have superior resources and support to begin with and so rarely end up with anywhere near the same level of destitution. And not only do we expect rock stars and athletes to have drug problems, we practically cheer them on when they do.

If Keith Richards was a heroin junkie working at a gas station instead of a heroin junkie in one of the world's biggest rock bands, whose hero would he be?

NDRU said:

A lot of people don't even think of the homeless as human beings. It's most telling in media representations. How many times have you heard references even from reputable news organizations to junkies, crackheads, and bums and not references to homeless people? I've seen that too many times to count.

If it's true that we think in language then the fact that people who are homeless are so rarely even verbally referred to as human is very troubling to me.

I give money to the homeless. If they go buy booze or drugs with it thats their choice. God as seen my heart and that I've given out of goodness.

meow85 said:

yes, and from my fascist side, I see lots of young people who seem to have chosen it as a lifestyle. They have accepted it, and maybe it's fine for a while to sit outside with your friends & do drugs, but it's sad to think how their lives will progress.

NDRU said:

There's several sides to even that, though.

Some of these young, able-bodied people were kicked out of their homes or are escaping bad situations.
Some are lazy and don't want to work. These people, at least in colder climates, are often only seasonally homeless. It's easy to be homeless by choice in Canada in the summer. In winter, no one in their right mind would choose it over getting a job. That's a hell of a way to freeze to death.
Some have mental health or addiction issues.
Some seem homeless but aren't. If there is a fruit or produce industry of any kind in the area, there's a good chance they're actually farm workers.


And some are freeloaders exploiting the goodwill of others. Those people are almost never genuinely homeless or jobless. After a while, you learn how to spot the bullshitters. Body language is the biggest indicator of need, from what I've experienced. People who genuinely need the help tend to be unobtrusive and humble and polite in their requests. If someone gets in your face about giving them change, they don't actually need your change.

meow85 said:

unless they're in a recovery program (and WORKING IT,not trying to bullshit themselves or others into thinking that they can drink/use every now and then and they'll be alright), there's no such thing as a "functional addict". 100% BULLSHIT.

meow85 said:

I can't be sure I can tell who is genuinely homeless & who's fooling, but I can definitely spot the difference between someone in need & someone who is just wasting time.

And it's fine to waste time, fine to choose to be homeless, but I don't have sympathy for a person who begs for weed money (and advertises it). I'd like to sit on the street & get free drugs, too!

meow85 said:

Exactly. The winters in Iceland are actually milder than in some places in Canada and the US, including Minneapolis.

The number of homeless people in Reykjavik was believed to be somewhere between 40 to 60 people in 2008. There are available special programs and (at the very least temporary) acommodation for the homeless with in-house support for those seeking to battle their addictions. The number of homeless people might have increased in the last two years though because of the deep recession here.

RipTheJacker said:

The term functional addict refers to people whose addictions haven't -or haven't yet -disrupted their life. They're addicts, but they still work, go to school, etc.

NDRU said:

That sounds about like heaven to me. No work and free pot? Sign me up!

I do not think it's cool for people to do that, but believe me I can understand why. Who wouldn't sit around and have fun instead of working if they had the chance?
[Edited 4/7/10 15:38pm]