meow85 said:

it seems like almost everyone I know is either a functioning alcoholic, or a recovering one

purplehippieonthe1 said:

If only we had that few. Conservative estimates in this city place the homeless population at around 3,000, and social workers and shelter employees freely say there are many more than that.

NDRU said:

A lot of people are. As long as it doesn't disrupt your work or family, you can hide an addiction for years.

The fact the homeless veterans even exist tells me everything I need to know about our governments' real attitude about our troops. Young men and women in the military are discardable cannon fodder.

kewlschool said:

They probably might even have some homeless people now for the first time ever after all their trouble

i've made a concerted effort for many years to help the homeless as best i can.
who knows, a person might be helping one of God's angels that's here on earth scoping out who's who when it comes to caring for our kindred kind.

i know that sounds kinda "spiritual,"

let me share this:
i can recall a very rewarding incident that i experienced way back when.
i remember a young lady came to my place of work (i worked for a civic center at the time). she told me she was facing homelessness and had a toddler age child. she quoted to me how much she needed to get a motel for just one night and that the following day she had an appointment with the red cross and they would help her find a place to live until she and her child could be placed in an apartment.
so after pondering over the situation, and feeling that the lady was being truthful, i gave her the money i could spare which was about $5 dollars less then what she needed (but it was all that i had on me at the time.)
so anyway. she left after thanking me with a tear in her eyes.

the story does not end here. about two years later, the same young lady came back to my job and said, "i just wanted to come in here and thank you for helping me that day. you made it possible for me and my baby to have a roof over our heads that night. I am now working and have an apartment and my baby is going to a good day care/pre-school."
the feeling she left me with was undescribable (even to this day). i wasn't looking for any thanks.
it's just that my mom always told me, if someone needs help and you can help them no matter how small the amount of help you give, just do it,
because you never know what disguise one of God's angels is wearing.....

i know i cannot help everyone, because me and my family come first. however this planet is one huge spaceship and i try to do my best to help it stay on an unfaltering course in my own little way by carrying out beneficent acts as often as i can.

homelessness has always been here, it's just that the world is getting more and more crowded so we see the needy and homeless more and more often.

meow85 said:

Nobody is superior to anybody in any way. I was talking about those who had the chance to work their living and were too lazy to do so and instead opted to rely on other people's money. There is no excuse for that. But it's true that a very small amount of homeless people had a real choice.


And no, I don't cheer anybody on for being addicted to drugs. I don't think it's cool at all.

Dave1992 said:

Really?

lawd lol
[Edited 4/8/10 8:33am]

Graycap23 said:

Sticking to this topic and what meow was talking about, yes.

Dave1992 said:

?




Simply put, the moral judgments we place on homeless people are hypocritical. I'm not condoning the behaviour of those who are capable but choose not to work, but let's not kid ourselves. Somebody like Paris Hilton is a celebrity with the commercial endorsements to prove it and she's done nothing but the exact same thing some of us want to wag our fingers at poor people for doing.

paris hilton's fame for nothing persona is an insult to homeless people. she's not unemployed, not poor, has not been denied any opportunity in life, has not so much as gotten her hands and feet dirty. I wouldn't even classify her as lazy. It takes effort to get dressed up and go to parties and look like a dumb ass half the time.

meow85 said:

Exactly. That's why I do not respect her either.

DesireeNevermind said:

ALL the time. That's what makes her stand out so much!

Dave1992 said:

true. i was trying to be nice since she's claimed to have "grown up."



Speaking of spoiled, good for nothing, fame whores....Nicole Ritchie has really turned her life around.

^ That's my point, you guys. People like Paris Hilton are celebrated in our society -though God knows they don't deserve it -for doing nothing at all and leeching off other peoples' money, meanwhile some of the same people licking Paris' asshole want to turn around and scorn those few poor and homeless people who do the same thing.

I'm not condoning laziness, just saying we're hypocritical about condemning it.

We do the same for drug addicts. What, really, in terms of behaviour, seperates Amy Winehouse or Keith Richards or Robert Downey Jr from the junkie down on the corner?

meow85 said:

Nothing and that's my point.

You say that "we" are hypocritical about condemning unnecessary, harmful laziness. Well, I am not. To me there is no difference between a drug addict on stage and a drug addict on the streets. I might like the one because they can sing and play an instrument, but by no means would I look up to anyone who is a drug addict.

meow85 said:

You got me on that one. If I had seen RDJ during his worst days and he asked me for a handout, I'd keep walking. Keith Richards scares me still; horrid looking. I'd have given Amy money though or at least bought her a hot meal.
[Edited 4/8/10 12:33pm]

http://www.takebackthelan...etterID=90
I like the ideas expressed here in this article, what do u guys think

The housing bust and faulty government policies have immersed the United States in a full blown economic and housing crisis. The cruel irony of this crisis, and what makes it so profoundly immoral, is that the commodity at its root- housing- is not at all in scarcity. To the contrary, sufficient vacant housing stocks exist to accommodate virtually everyone in need, including families forced into overcrowded and substandard conditions as well as the homeless.

In the face of this severe economic crisis, people are rising up. They rail against the bailouts and bonuses, protest the lack of lending, rebel against unfair credit card rate hikes and, most dramatically, fight back against losing their homes.

The Take Back the Land Movement is calling for a May 2010 National Month of Action to assert the fundamental human right to housing and community control over land. Participating organizations, communities and families are asserting this right in two ways: by “liberating” government, foreclosed and warehoused homes, making them available for families with nowhere else to live, and by protecting families, our neighbors, from foreclosure related evictions from houses, apartments and condos as well as income related evictions from public housing.

Every family, indeed every human being, needs and deserves decent and adequate housing that they can afford, regardless of their income. However, instead of facilitating this need, federal, state and municipal governments are instituting policies and enacting legislation protecting the profits of corporations at the expense and exclusion of families. These policies serve only to compound, rather than end, the crisis. For example, the same financial institutions which caused the crisis, are both bailed out for their “toxic assets,” and allowed to evict families and keep those assets vacant. In addition, federal and local governments are actively vacating, boarding up and demolishing public housing and underfunding rent subsidy programs in order to free up monies for bank bailouts and sports facilities.

North Carolina A&T students sit-in at a lunch counter in Greenseboro to assert their rights by challenging unjust laws.

This series of policies and laws not only allow human beings to live on the street while hundreds of thousands of houses sit vacant, but the bailouts effectively compel struggling families to finance their own evictions and then subsidize hefty bonuses to the executives evicting them.

In the context of a severe housing crisis, policies and laws which impede the human right to housing are morally indefensible and, as such, must be directly challenged until they are changed. The May Month of Action will challenge those laws which prioritize corporate profits over human needs. This is an historic crisis, one which merits an historic response.

On February 1, 1960, four North Carolina A&T students sat-in at a Greensboro Woolworths lunch counter and stepped into history, sparking a movement and changing this society forever. The “sit-in” campaigns were predicated on the notion that legal equality was a human right and, as such, laws violating those rights were morally wrong, and, therefore, must be directly challenged- and broken- in order to be changed.

Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the first sit-ins, the Take Back the Land Movement asserts that housing is a human right and, as such, the policies which violate that right are morally wrong and, therefore, must be directly challenged. As such, this May, organizations across the US are engaging in “live-in” campaigns designed to house human beings and directly challenge those policies and laws that promote vacant housing during this housing crisis.

Take Back the Land "liberates" a foreclosed home for a family in Miami, FL.

Civil disobedience campaigns directly challenge unjust laws by breaking them until they change. The Take Back the Land Movement and the live-in campaigns, however, encompass more than merely disobeying immoral laws: it is fundamentally about empowering communities to take control of their land and implementing the moral imperative of housing human beings. More than simple civil disobedience, the live-in campaign is, in fact, a movement of moral obedience.

Organizations in no less than ten (10) US cities will help their family, friends and neighbors “live-in” vacant government owned or foreclosed homes, buildings or land by either moving them in or preventing their eviction. Organizations in cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, will be joined by others in Chicago, Miami, Sacramento and New Orleans. Smaller cities include Toledo, Ohio, Madison, Wisconsin, St. Petersburg, Florida and Portland, Oregon.

Of course, no social justice movement has ever been won in a single month or by utilizing a single tactic or strategy. As such, May 2010 is not the totality, but rather the dawn of a movement whose aims are to elevate housing to the level of a human right and to win community control over land.

The solution to the housing crisis lies in your community, even on your block, and in your hands. The time has come to Take Back the Land.

forward,

Max Rameau

For more information about the Take Back the Land Movement visit www.takebacktheland.org
[Edited 4/8/10 17:58pm]

Dave1992 said:

I meant "we" as in the collective -everybody. If there wasn't a majority of people doing this this discussion wouldn't be happening.



For the record, I Robert Downey Jr., but I also think he's just as much of a fuckup as anybody else with substance abuse issues.

Thanks for the article above, TwinFlame.

Our focus has to shift toward caring for and protecting those who need it, and big business does not meet that definition. Sure, a certain amount of industry is needed to keep our economic system as it stands afloat. But if people are losing their homes at the same time billionaires are getting bonuses, there's a serious problem with our priorities. A safe home and shelter is a basic human right. That extra yacht for Mr. Moneybags is not.

I am not religious -at best I'm agnostic. But I was raised going to church, and when it comes to this topic these words I try to keep in mind at all times, "Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."

I'm sure in today's economy...many people are one or two paychecks away from homelessness.

DesireeNevermind said:

I know I am.

meow85 said:

DesireeNevermind said:

Very true. Most people live to their means, however much they earn, running up credit cards, paying monthly contracts, bills, expensive wife, waiting on the next pay day.

I've just secured a new job, had to, my current place were looking to offload me. i was facing the above scenario, but fortunately i got a happy ending.

So many don't though.

Marrk said:

It's hard when your paycheque doesn't even cover basic expenses. I can manage because I only have myself to consider, but I'd be so screwed if I had a kid or even a dog right now to support.

"The way you treat the least of them is the way you treat me."

Jesus/God!

I used to be homeless so I understand this lifestyle. Several of them are alcoholics or drug addicts. They either sell food stamps to buy the stuff or they pan handle. Many of them work. They do not make enough to have liveable lifestyles.

Many are also mentally ill. You cannot expect the mentally ill to work. They either have to be taken care of or put back into hospitals.

Many are also just poor. This capitalist society makes it hard to exist, with rising rents, prices on energy, food, clothes. Conservatism leads to poverty, which would mean more conservative policies will lead to more homeless.

The majority are black, which shows that there is racism involved.

A big majority, in my view, want to work and are not lazy. Many have felonies and cannot get easy work or have to work part time or labor halls, which pay lower wages.

There has to be job programs, more shelters, low income housing, fairer incomes, more unions, food banks, fairer police.

2freaky4church1 said:

All that, and more, is right on the money. In Canada the numbers lean more toward a Native, rather than black, majority in homeless numbers but the racism angle remains the same.

There are some people who are homeless because they're lazy freeloaders, but those are an underwhelming minority.

I haven't gotten connected to the homeless people in Vancouver the way I did back in Kelowna, but I know for a fact a lot of the people I knew there actually did have jobs but still couldn't afford a place to live.

There is something very wrong with the system when someone working full-time is still sleeping in a shelter.

On my way to work every morning back in January when it was snowing (London), I used to see a homeless person sleeping on the pavement near the hospital where i used to work wrapped in bubble wrap for a sleeping bag. It was so awfull to see that every morning. One day i left them a bag of warm clothes gloves and blanket, I did'nt know what else to do, but I could'nt walk by everday and do nothing. After about 3 weeks they were no longer there, I hope they have a nice warm place to stay now.