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I know here in Ireland (and in many other European countries) there are organised street beggars. Most of them are Roma gypsies.
I think Ireland has fairly generous public benefits. I have a friend who was interested in finding out more about them and decided to do an experiment where he obtained public benefits and lived on them for two years. I don’t think it was easy, but he had a place to live and figured out the best way to buy affordable and healthy food.
In the US, it is a bit harder. You may be able to qualify for food stamps, but there aren’t really any long-term assistance programs to help you get on your feet outside of unemployment insurance. Most states limit how long you can be on it, and without the federal subsidies given during the pandemic, these benefits can be far less than you might need to survive. People who are gig workers are not eligible for traditional unemployment.
A local TV station was doing a spot on homeless and when they went to interview the homeless, they admitted that they were college kids doing a class project on the homeless.
I'm not saying that there isn't any homeless but when I see homeless, I think are they college students?
This made me smile. Can you picture Johns Hopkins University students pretending to be homeless...in BALTIMORE? I don't think so... That said, my son worked for Johns Hopkins Public Health after he lost his job due to the Great Recession. He dressed "down" and walked the streets of Baltimore, along with a partner, observing and recording signs of criminal activity. Fun times!
I was semi-voluntarily homeless for 3 weeks, one summer in college. The semester had ended, and the dorms had closed. An unfinished project was looming, requiring my presence near campus. One “friend” after another was unable to offer a couch, despite my explicit offer to pay market-rates. The result was sleeping in my car. Personal possessions could be stored in a cubby in spare lab-space in the aerospace building. I removed the back seats of the car, strewed clothes all over, creating a makeshift bed. Taped pieces of cardboard to the windows for privacy. This worked OK, the main trouble being getting hassled by police or parking-enforcement, who would tap their flashlight against the glass.
Money was comparatively plentiful… I’d eat fast-food or cold-cuts from the deli counter of the local grocery store… fruits and vegies, pastries and so on. My diet was probably better than during the regular semester, that being from the campus cafeteria. The real problem was lack of social-connections to provide a bridge in troubled times, specifically for housing . It was a lesson both in the importance of maintaining networks, and in their fragility. Which brings us to...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric
...If I lost my job and had to make spending money driving Uber Eats and doing odd jobs, there's a long list of people I could crash on a couch, spare bedroom, park my car on their property ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140
...I would think that most real middle-class people have a good support system of family and friends to help them through a financial crisis. ...
The real class-divide is not whether Suzie has millions while Bobby doesn't have two greasy farthings, but our human-capital... the networks that we build and maintain. The wealthy are well-connected, professionally, filially, socially. The middle-class is less favorably connected. The lower-class is mostly solitary. One could have copious amounts of stock, cash, gold, investments of whatever sort - but if one is thus solitary, one is essentially lower-class.
And that brings us to perhaps the opposite of this thread’s theme. If we can’t rely on people, we have to rely either on our own selves, or lacking heroic improvisational/survivor skills, we rely on money. The accumulation of money allows us to compensate for lack of social capital. Those who fall through the proverbial cracks, aren’t necessary alcoholics, junkies or lunatics. They simply lack the skill and wherewithal to cultivate the social contacts that allow for continuation of good function, even in hard times.
I would venture this only happens because of mental illness or addiction.
Never say only. Physical disabilities can sideline people, as well. Car accident, onset of a debilitating condition, etc. Waiting for Social Security Disability approval can take years and result in homelessness.
I have a friend from work who has a homeless brother. Their mother needed to be moved to a nursing home (where she stayed the last six years of her life). Even though she has a brother who is loaded; he barely agreed to sell the house to pay the nursing home. This left the schizophrenic brother homeless. My friend was a single mom and had struggled financially throughout life and was not in a position to do more than the leg work of getting her brother on disability. Though that made him qualify for housing the problem is that he cannot abide by any rules or cooperate and keep subsidized housing (because of the mental illness -- and, I don't think there are drugs involved). She does throw a little cash his way and I believe she is his only contact with the family. So, it's been a burden on her (I believe at one point she tried to have him stay with her and it was just too insane (she cannot house him and stay sane herself (and she's 70))).
I have another friend who houses her Mother In Law (who was also a single mother). She has been a low wage earner (and also lived with her parents (so, my friend's husband grew up with his Grandparents in their house). By the time both parents had died the house was sold and the money split between 5 siblings (house was in disrepair and they basically got land value). So the MIL received maybe $30k (not enough to buy a place to live around here). MIL's Social Security is low and she's able to make it because she is being housed by my friend and her son. So, that's a situation where family stepped in (and I have a feeling there are a lot of examples where there's no family to step in (or there is family for whatever reason will not step in). There's no drugs involved; but, who knows if there's any mental illness involved.
I came damn close. I was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer a few months after graduating from an elite college. It was the height of the recession, so I was in a "for now" job while I prepared for next steps (Foreign Service or, failing that, the Peace Corps) to pursue the career I had trained for. Even while living with 2 roommates, working full time against doctor's orders, and with excellent insurance, I drained all of my savings (a 6 month emergency fund) in a month, skipped medications and appointments because I couldn't afford them, and spent the time I wasn't at work, chemo, or recovering from chemo fighting with insurance companies, going to limited hour foodbanks, or begging charities for a token $50-$100.
Luckily, I had spent all of college building up a huge line of credit across several cards that I never used, so I was able to max out my cards to stay afloat. I didn't lose my job, and my cancer didn't have a recurrence. But at the end of treatment, I was dangerously close to not being able to pay my rent.
Now, I volunteer in the young adult cancer community educating and raising money around financial toxicity. I have run into a handful of people over the years who are living in cars because they got cancer in their 20s. I wouldn't necessarily say that any of them were "rich" but many were on promising career paths but just didn't make a ton of money - certainly not enough to pay for cancer (even with insurance) - at that stage in their career. The worst case was someone I met about a decade ago who had to drop out of med school after she developed a brain tumor. She lost the cognitive function to continue her career, but was over $100,000 in debt for school and further in debt for treatment. She was the first in her family to go to college, and her parents were of no help. I have no idea what happened to her, but I think of her often.
I'm doing a project on homelessness in college and tackling misconceptions. I've always heard that many people can become homeless but for the vast majority, it's only temporary and few if any ever sleep rough and stay with family or friends. Those who you see on the street for months or years on end have severe mental illness/drugs issues/parental abuse combined with coming from impoverished backgrounds.
But then I was listening to the radio of a man who became homeless after a divorce and no family left who had no addictions or mental problems beforehand but simply couldn't get emergency accommodation/social housing (here in Europe).
Are stories like his the exception to the rule?
I don't know what the rule or the exception is in this case. I know what I am about to say is going to be twisted to all hell, but here goes. I myself fell into homelessness, and I've even been out on the streets for some years. I eventually made it back. I wasn't really raised in poverty, but there was chaos in my home. Some parental abuse, a lot of domestic violence. My parents were involved in drug abuse and there was a point when my house became a crackhouse right before I became a teenager. My father used to give me beers when I was a young kid. Fortunately, I never touched the harder drugs.
My parents divorced, Father was able to win the custody battle. Then turned around and married a narcissist who really had it out for me to the point that she would make up all kinds of lies about me saying I did things that I would never do. Sometimes father knew it was a lie, other times...
Both my mother, and my father (to a smaller extent) were really paranoid. They thought the world was literally out to get me. Whenever I talked with my mother in later years leading up to homelessness, she would bring up the news about what is happening in places like Iraq and somehow relate that to my life and how everyone is supposedly out to get me.
I was able to move out and get an apartment, but couldn't find a job to save my life (I lost my other job right after getting an apartment). Eviction time came, I was not going back to my mother or father, disorders all over. I disappeared and started over. Became a freelancer and eventually got a place.
One thing to add to the list of factors to length of time in homelessness are opportunists and "rescuers". These are the people who "romanticize" your homelessness and will do everything to interrupt you while you are working so that they can seem like the hero. They will come to you and stop you from working and try to beat it into your head that your a "victim" and you are in your place because of a certain group of people.
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