Here's a question .. Why so many homeless people in Seattle? (movies, tax)
Seattle areaSeattle and King County Suburbs
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Maybe the West Coast needs to look into that. Just get together with people around you and go to City Hall. Vote. It works. You dont like something. Dont put up with it. City Hall baby...........
I don't know about the rest of the West Coast... but I highly doubt that "it works" just like that.
The mentality is here in Seattle is very different. No one wants these people not to have options that could help. You also have to deal with the fact that some people are just oblivious about this issue and doesn't think its that bad. The cops are pretty much tied up-- given that they just can't win for losing. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Nashville TN had a great law with regards to panhandling: You could do it, but you had to obtain a license to do so. It let you know EXACTLY who was choosing panhandling as a career.
Licenses cost money. Nice touch, gouge the homeless for a license fee.
I don't know about the rest of the West Coast... but I highly doubt that "it works" just like that.
The mentality is here in Seattle is very different. No one wants these people not to have options that could help. You also have to deal with the fact that some people are just oblivious about this issue and doesn't think its that bad. The cops are pretty much tied up-- given that they just can't win for losing. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Panhandling issues often end up in court, wasting tens and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. Nobody really wants a court battle over the issue. I'd rather not see the public's time taken up with defining rules and regulations that most homeless will ignore and most police won't enforce.
In the arguement between AlohaHuey and Xanathos, I say that Xanathos wins. AlohaHuey you use too much emotion instead of supporting your view with facts. You also probably don't know about half the things that Xanathos is talking about because you don't seem worldly or very educated. Here is my prediction:
Xanathos: business-spirited and motivated, probably works for a big and successful company and getting paid well or he is his own business owner and gets paid even better.
AlohaHuey: Stay at home wife, goes to church a lot, thinks that religion and outside factors aka not-facts determine all of how we should act and thus doesn't need to read any other book to learn new information because the bible is the only book there is.
I had to convince my wife to stop feeling sorry for homeless people. You never see someone with a nice car (like a new Mercedes) giving money to them, because they understand how the system works and how homeless people are adding no value to anyone yet expect free money. Money is freakin' hard to earn when you're actually trying to sell a product rather than guilt with a fake tagline, like "My son has X and I just got laid off." There's no way in hell those stories are true. Those people asking for gas money never actually walk into a store to ask people, and it feels very cold and impersonal when they ask you right next to the pump: basically they are raping your wallet and nobody rapes someone where the action can be witnessed publicly like in a store. I have seen many blue collar type cars like Camaros and beat up trucks or jeeps giving homeless people money, though.
As to MattClyde and his OC friends: When you grow up in a lavish and affluent lifestyle, especially in one of the best parts of the USA, then of course everything is going to be ghetto. They are narrow minded and live in their small bubble and can afford to be narrow minded. A real poor person can't stay the same because then they'll just be poor: they have to go to school and learn self-development and become successful, while the rich kids can just do whatever their parents hand to them and they're set for life. Thus, the difference between being "sheltered" and "wealthy" is that one sheltered is only acceptable if already wealthy. You could say I'm sheltered because I didn't wash my own clothes or do chores around the house or drive more than 10 miles from my home in Houston, but Houston is one of the most ghetto and ugly cities in the US. Most people there aspire to be rappers. There is also a higher proportion of black people there. There are barely any blacks in Seattle and yes it's a clean and safe feeling city. Everyone is just too damn shy but they are nice and respectful, unlike in other cities where they are loud, rude, and uneducated (see Houston).
What I'm trying to say is that any city is going to have it's nice and bad parts, but it mainly comes down to money and how nice of a lifestyle you can afford. I choose not to visit the bad areas of a town because I'm living a slightly better than average income than most Americans my age and I have learned how to spot the ghetto because my parents live right next to a Mexican ghetto and their house is almost worthless compared to houses in the OC, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, or anywhere where people have money and thus the city is going to automatically be nicer because nice and successful people want to live there. It seems to me that in these forums the people ghetto mugged or attempted pick pockets must have lower salaries and don't know the difference between nice and ghetto so they hang out in the more ghetto areas. The people that don't have that happen to them and experience pleasant bums wouldn't be caught in the ghetto and will never encounter actual hostile bums.
So this discussion mainly comes down to how much money you have and how you were raised, because if you had a nice childhood and you only know the good areas than there won't be many bums.
For the OC people, though, they have no hope. Rich kids are the scum of the earth as far as I'm concerned, and they all need to be cut off a lot earlier then they probably are, if ever. No sense of humbleness or perspective on the world. If you think about it: wars were fought and hard working people sweat and bled to build complex road systems and the nicest architecture of the best cities. And for what? So that arrogant and rich "Samantha" can complain about her manicure not being done right and bleaching her hair blond and being so much of an airhead that it wouldn't fly in any job, but it's okay because she knows how to leverage her looks and get plastic surgery so she can attract a rich husband--which will be easy for her since everyone she grew up with and hangs out with are rich. It's ridiculous how superficial and worthless excuses for humans some of the "elite" or pinnacle Americans are.
Anyway, I'm planning on being rich myself and it's hard enough to make good money myself without giving it away to bums. I could go deeper and say how society has screwed us all by setting up a system where we all have to work and are only seen as valuable humans if we are producing something that someone else can use, but at the end of the day it's the best option rather than going back to survival of the fittest and living in remote wilderness locations. We've come a long way and homeless people are exploiting the system. Of course there would be no homeless in a wilderness tribe, they wouldn't last long because they wouldn't be able to survive by leeching off other hard working people. Don't give money to homeless because they're just going to buy drugs or alcohol with it anyway. Try giving them a sandwich and they usually get angry and feel insulted. Just try that, AlohaHuey.
AlohaHuey, there are also articles that say that panhandling is bad because it reinforces that homeless people don't have to work and they don't have to clean themselves up or give up drugs to get a real job. If you really want to help there are soup kitchens. Read this article and get really educated: Give… but don’t give… to help panhandlers. I think… | GivingCity Austin
Last edited by SuccessBoy; 02-15-2014 at 10:11 PM..
Reason: changed curse word
Then don't allow yourself to be. My experiences with homeless have ranged from annoying to near-fatal. With regards to the latter, they have a penchant for ignoring street signs (particularly at night) and simply walking into busy roads. One two separate occasions this year alone I have nearly run one over when they just decided to randomly step into traffic.
Unless they are physically or mentally ill, their homelessness is a self-inflicted status. With the amount of social welfare these days, nobody needs to be on the street - they choose it. And they don't deserve your money. The next time they hassle you, tell them to go off somewhere and die.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlohaHuey
I am SO glad I am moving someplace where this attitude is the exception, not the rule.
Your post is equally revolting on many levels. Many people in this country are one layoff away from being homeless. You can lump your bias and heartlessness into an armor that deflects any and all stories of woe.
It's so amazing the powers you have, that you KNOW JUST BY LOOKING at someone what their story is. You know it's all their fault, whatever the case. How you can lump kids homeless by choice in with people who are living out of their cars because they cannot find a job, despite a skill set.
"Whiteguilt"?? WTF are you babbling about? Only a true racist would inject race into a subject, homelessness, that is truly color-blind.
Your attitide sickens me and anyone with an ounce of compassion for those less fortunate.
So all charity is useless, why give something of yours to someone you don't know? Bill Gates should keep every last dime, and why bother having national charity drives for places like Haiti? If you don't know them, well, they probably had it coming anyway. 9/11 victims? Most people didn't know any, why bother to give them a dime? New Orleans, well, they built in a drainage area, screw-em even if they are Americans, nobody told them to live there, right?
Disgusting.
Oh my God, you are freaking INSANE. I don't know where to begin with this pile of dribble. You are so wrong - all the way from interpreting a comment about white guilt as racism (lol - way to word drop the 'go to' card of confused, babbling liberals everywhere), to the bleeding heart assumption that every piece of garbage on the sidewalk has an honest tale of woe. Why, they're all just former UAW union members who were laid off, right? And there was no safety net of welfare or charity there to catch them, huh? My goodness, how fast that mortgage, car and kids can transform themselves into a half-smoked blunt and a broken bottle to shank pedestrians with! What a cruel, heartless world!
You belong on the streets, if only because people as brainwashed and mentally unsound as yourself don't deserve to continue to live amongst the civilized folk. And, let's face it, you leftists have successfully shut down all the institutions, so homelessness is all that's left for you. Now go - go! Your people await the coming of their king! May they crown you with a woven tiara of wet napkins, and may you feast from dusk 'til dawn on rat carcasses and half-eaten quarter pounders. All hail mighty Lord Trashfiend, steward of the crushed beer can; champion of the fraudulent emergency room visit; dauntless protector of the sovereign cardboard citadel! Let his long rule prevail until he is struck down by hepatitis B!
Last edited by PrincessoftheCape; 02-18-2014 at 02:27 AM..
You belong on the streets, if only because people as brainwashed and mentally unsound as yourself don't deserve to continue to live amongst the civilized folk. And, let's face it, you leftists have successfully shut down all the institutions, so homelessness is all that's left for you. Now go - go! Your people await the coming of their king! May they crown you with a woven tiara of wet napkins, and may you feast from dusk 'til dawn on rat carcasses and half-eaten quarter pounders. All hail mighty Lord Trashfiend, steward of the crushed beer can; champion of the fraudulent emergency room visit; dauntless protector of the sovereign cardboard citadel! Let his long rule prevail until he is struck down by hepatitis B!
Whenever I read your mean-spirited diatribes, "Princess", I marvel at the venom you spew at your fellow-man.
I can't imagine living with so much enmity towards folks whose views are different than one's own!
Try a little kindness, understanding, or simply ... restraint!
If you think Seattle has a lot of homeless, it's nothing compared to San Francisco. Way larger, grungier and more aggressive homeless pop there. Also SF homeless is more wide spread around the city. Outside of Pioneer Square and that Yessler and 4th area I actually don't notice that many homeless in Seattle. Most cities have their pockets of homeless. There were a lot in San Diego east of downtown starting around 8th street. San Diego easily had as many as Seattle, in SD they just seemed to herd them better away from tourist areas.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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While they are hard to count, attempts are made regularly, with hundreds of volunteers and public agency workers wandering around at night, and talking to the various shelters. The latest data showed Seattle with 6,000-8,000 homeless,
San Francisco with about 7,500, so relatively the same. If you want to see the homeless in Seattle Pioneer Square and Yessler/4th area is not the worst, try the 3rd/Pine area, and even Ballard in front of Safeway at 15th and Market.
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