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( I don't know what other word to use, so forgive me if bums is politically incorrect)
I visited Charlotte last month and stayed at the Crown Plaza on McDowell Street. I work in NYC and live in Jersey City just to give you a little background about myself...so I'm used to the pros and cons of city living.
I will preface this with the fact that I was only in Charlotte for 3 days but I was absolutley shocked at the amount of bums out during the day in the city.
At first I thought that this was just because their was a Large Bus Depot near the Basketball Arena and just like in any big city you will find bums who congregate near bus depots. But I went over a few blocks and there was about 10-12 more bums infront of the local library just hanging out sitting on the bench and bugging anyone and everyone who passed by for change or a cigarette. One even struck up a conversation with me and literally followed me 3 blocks until I gave him a dollar. He was nice enough, but I was just shocked that they seemed to be everywhere.
Was my visit an anomoly, does Charlotte has a huge population of bums in the city? Am I naieve to thing Charlotte or any big city wouldn't? It could be that I just had this vision of Charlotte being the clean, pristine, perfect city of the South and maybe I fooled myself into not thinking it was a city like any other when it comes to having bums. I'll be honest, I was a little disapointed at what I saw.
Don't know what other word to use? Is "homeless" such an unfamiliar term to you? C'mon, you stated yourself you live in JC and work in NYC. I am really having a hard time believing you were "shocked" by much visiting Charlotte. The situation can't possibly be as severe, the scale is certainly nowhere near the same!
Don't know what other word to use? Is "homeless" such an unfamiliar term to you? C'mon, you stated yourself you live in JC and work in NYC. I am really having a hard time believing you were "shocked" by much visiting Charlotte. The situation can't possibly be as severe, the scale is certainly nowhere near the same!
Sara
Wow, is Defensive such an unfamiliar term to you? I just said I dont know what other word to use, I'm not looking for suggestions and even apologized if it was incorrrect. Way to jump down my throat.
I'm not trying to compare Charlotte to NY as far as being shocked, obviously if anyone has lived in NY they have seen it all, the good, bad and the ugly and they wont be suprised much wherever they go.
I'm saying I had a view of Charlotte being this beautiful, clean, pristine city and while I did see beauty I saw a ridiculous amount of bums or homeless people as you clearly like to call them out. It was just as many as NY but I wasn't expecting Charlotte to be like NY, I was expecting it to be closer to a big version of Greenville, SC......which where if you see a bum on their Main Street is a pretty shocking thing to see.
So does Charlotte have alot of bums? Or did I just get them all on my trip?
Not at all defensive but still incredibly mystified by how someone could not be familiar with the term "homeless" and seems to delight in using the word "bum".
Sorry Charlotte was such a disappointment and you were so thrown off by the presence of homeless people. Again, a shock considering it's the perspective of someone who lives in JC and works in NYC.
Wow, is Defensive such an unfamiliar term to you? I just said I dont know what other word to use, I'm not looking for suggestions and even apologized if it was incorrrect. Way to jump down my throat.
I'm not trying to compare Charlotte to NY as far as being shocked, obviously if anyone has lived in NY they have seen it all, the good, bad and the ugly and they wont be suprised much wherever they go.
I'm saying I had a view of Charlotte being this beautiful, clean, pristine city and while I did see beauty I saw a ridiculous amount of bums or homeless people as you clearly like to call them out. It was just as many as NY but I wasn't expecting Charlotte to be like NY, I was expecting it to be closer to a big version of Greenville, SC......which where if you see a bum on their Main Street is a pretty shocking thing to see.
So does Charlotte have alot of bums? Or did I just get them all on my trip?
Just as many as NY???? Please tell me you don't really think that. YES, we have a homeless population here - why wouldn't we? Don't you think the homeless people want to live in a "beautiful, clean pristine city" too? But in a city with this large a population our homeless population is really quite small - not more than about 3000. I believe NY has about 35,000 homeless.
The problem was that you were somewhat near the men's homeless shelter and went right by all their favorite places to wile away the day until they get let back in the shelter in the evening.
i wish people would understand that Charlotte is a large city, no matter where in the United States you are, all big cities are going to have homeless people.
Although I disagree with using the term "bums", I have to agree that Charlotte does "seem" to have a large homeless population compared to cities up north such as NYC and Boston.
I think this is because of the weather. Personally, I would rather be homeless in Charlotte then in Boston, especially during the winter. I bet if you look at percent homeless in each city Charlotte would be higher then NYC and Boston.
I also think that because the uptown part of charlotte is so small, it is a lot more apparent to see homeless people vs. a larger city where there is so much more room to spread out the homeless population.
Yes it is a little naive to think a large city dosn't have homeless people. According to A Way Home there are over 5,000 people (over 2,000 children) in Meck county homeless each night. When you consider that there are over 600,000 people in Charlotte proper, the homeless make up less than 1% of the population.
If it makes you feel better, Charlotte has an anti-panhandling ordinance.
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