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There is no magic welfare for people to live off of. Mot people contributing nothing, get nothing. Don't be fooled by the grand tall tales of welfare queen living. It isn't actually true.
Most contributing nothing most certainly get something or they wouldn't survive.
They get handouts, live in public spaces that belong to the makers, or they live on somebody's elses property, they likely stay in homeless shelters from time to time, they might steal a bicyle, or food.
I agree with you that the welfare queen is a myth, but there are some people that are very adept at finding & taking, all kinds of assistance from governments, churches, not-for-profits, & other people.
I knew a Mother of 2 who told me she would need a job making $50k+ to beat what she was getting for nothing. She dug herself out of the hole by getting a nursing degree, & is fine today making $80k because she was bright, & took some initiative, but I think she is unique.
Homeless people living on the streets have free access to improved land with good drainage, probable mosquito abatement, occasional police protection, occasional visits to the ER, and proximity to charity from passersby and social services. All because they are squatting in highly developed areas, without paying a cent.
They would be much worse off in the boonies.
These things exist with or without the homeless. To deny them to the homeless would go further than ignoring them. It would require us to actively deny them access. We would have to actively discriminate against them & drive them away.
We can't get rid of the homeless by just ignoring their existence. The byproduct surplus of society is enough for them to eke out survival for quite a while. They're dying, but slowly. I feel that many on here would prefer to exile and ban them from even being able to live off the excess refuse of society, so that they die more quickly.
Last edited by redguard57; 09-27-2021 at 08:07 AM..
OP started off by stating "Let's assume they are able-bodied, & able-minded, people who simply choose not to participate." So let's leave out the people who do justifiably deserve assistance--the disabled, homeless who are mentally ill, addicted, poor uneducated single mothers, etc. That leaves a ton of people who could really contribute more to society than they are. These are the able-bodied, able-minded 25-40 year olds who went to college but only work a part time minimum wage job, the 50-59 years olds who can't collect SS but don't want to work so they're living in their elderly parents' house and living off Mom's Social security, the people who got laid off from some union job and are spending months and years sitting on their couch and watching TV and collecting unemployment. These are the people who could work a lot more but choose not to. We've all heard the various excuses why they "can't" work so spare us. Right now I can think of a 55 year old man who is able-bodied, able-minded and has absolutely no reason whatsoever why he can't get a job but he just doesn't want to. He lives with his elderly mother and lives off her social security and small amount of savings that the father left her when he died.
It seems there's a trend that if someone's job falls through when they are in their 40's or 50's, they never seem to recoup. The company closes, they get laid off, or the company cuts back and they get let go and they don't find new work. It's almost like people in this situation are too reluctant to learn something new or start at the bottom again in a new field. They get used to sitting on the couch collecting unemployment.
Some of the people who become unemployed in mid-life, at 50+, truly can't find work. If there's a significant employment gap in your history, it can be hard to get hired, no matter what job you choose, whether in your field or in customer service, or whatever you might try to get. In some markets, even basic customer service jobs require prior experience in customer service to be hired. And those near-minimum wage jobs don't pay enough to support someone in many locations these days. Rents are going up all across the country, due to apartment buildings being acquired by real estate investment trusts, that charge what they call "market rate" rents, even when their new acquisitions stand half-empty for years.
IMO this is a hidden driver behind homelessness. And investment companieis and pension funds love REIT's, because they seem to be a source of stable returns and easy money. So people keep creating more of them, locking up more RE, and now, even trailer parks are being taken over by them, the last bastion of affordable housing.
So sometimes, moving back in with mom and dad after a business folds or is acquired by a bigger corporation and the employee rolls are trimmed back or the new company owner moves their own people in, or Covid causes business failures, or whatever the cause of job loss may be, is the only stable option.
It's alarming what's going on with RE in this country. And the homeless get blamed for their homelessness, the unemployed for their unemployment that may force them to move back in with parents, because everyone's too overwhelmed by the homeless problem to look deeper at some of the causes, and to try to figure out solutions. How are any of us equipped to take on the RE industry and and investment instruments that are set up to milk the RE industry? These issues are too big for ordinary citizens to address; Congress needs to do something about it. Divesting in REIT's, like everyone divested in South African companies, might be a start.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 09-27-2021 at 09:05 AM..
These things exist with or without the homeless. To deny them to the homeless would go further than ignoring them. It would require us to actively deny them access. We would have to actively discriminate against them & drive them away.
We can't get rid of the homeless by just ignoring their existence. The byproduct surplus of society is enough for them to eke out survival for quite a while. They're dying, but slowly. I feel that many on here would prefer to exile and ban them from even being able to live off the excess refuse of society, so that they die more quickly.
Society actively denies access to living in city centers to those who cannot afford to rent an apartment there. Would you call that discrimination against those who play by the rules?
And there's a big difference between passing through a city center during the course of one's day, and living there.
In any case I was responding to your original claim that the homeless seemingly receive no benefits. They do receive benefits, and some of those benefits, such as being able to live in a city center, are not widely shared.
OP started off by stating "Let's assume they are able-bodied, & able-minded, people who simply choose not to participate." So let's leave out the people who do justifiably deserve assistance--the disabled, homeless who are mentally ill, addicted, poor uneducated single mothers, etc. That leaves a ton of people who could really contribute more to society than they are. These are the able-bodied, able-minded 25-40 year olds who went to college but only work a part time minimum wage job, the 50-59 years olds who can't collect SS but don't want to work so they're living in their elderly parents' house and living off Mom's Social security, the people who got laid off from some union job and are spending months and years sitting on their couch and watching TV and collecting unemployment. These are the people who could work a lot more but choose not to. We've all heard the various excuses why they "can't" work so spare us. Right now I can think of a 55 year old man who is able-bodied, able-minded and has absolutely no reason whatsoever why he can't get a job but he just doesn't want to. He lives with his elderly mother and lives off her social security and small amount of savings that the father left her when he died.
It seems there's a trend that if someone's job falls through when they are in their 40's or 50's, they never seem to recoup. The company closes, they get laid off, or the company cuts back and they get let go and they don't find new work. It's almost like people in this situation are too reluctant to learn something new or start at the bottom again in a new field. They get used to sitting on the couch collecting unemployment.
Your post leaves me wondering how you feel about college-educated women who forgo employment to raise children and find themselves with little to do when the kids fly the coop. Are they also drains on society because they either do not go back to work or work in minimum-wage jobs?
Could the middle-aged man in your example be considered a caregiver? Does that give him societal worth? Would your answer change if he was a woman instead?
Society actively denies access to living in city centers to those who cannot afford to rent an apartment there. Would you call that discrimination against those who play by the rules?
And there's a big difference between passing through a city center during the course of one's day, and living there.
In any case I was responding to your original claim that the homeless seemingly receive no benefits. They do receive benefits, and some of those benefits, such as being able to live in a city center, are not widely shared.
The "services" you mentioned are mostly a byproduct of modern urban society, not services for homeless people. Get rid of the homeless and those services are still there and still cost the same amount. I imagine almost all homeless people would trade whatever "services" they get for a place to live.
The homeless have neither the money nor the mental & physical fitness to afford to live anywhere, let alone a city center. So they live wherever they can eke out an existence. Cities have more people and thus there is more stuff thrown away that they can live off of, more nooks and crannies of structures they can find some relief from the elements, more volume of people willing to throw them spare change, etc... and yes, likely more drug enterprises so they can try to forget such a miserable existence for a little while.
I'm confused what you want the solution to be. A real "handout" for most of them would be a free apartment or home, re-habilitation or institutionalization. As a country we seem to prefer their presence on the street, which is not very expensive in terms of money but quite expensive in terms of aesthetics and convenience, over the cost of an institution to care for them. Which would be expensive, since every one homeless person probably needs the services of 3-4 full-time professionals to rehabilitate.
Last edited by redguard57; 09-27-2021 at 02:52 PM..
The "services" you mentioned are mostly a byproduct of modern urban society, not services for homeless people. Get rid of the homeless and those services are still there and still cost the same amount. I imagine almost all homeless people would trade whatever "services" they get for a place to live.
The homeless have neither the money nor the mental & physical fitness to afford to live anywhere, let alone a city center. So they live wherever they can eke out an existence. Cities have more people and thus there is more stuff thrown away that they can live off of, more nooks and crannies of structures they can find some relief from the elements, more volume of people willing to throw them spare change, etc... and yes, likely more drug enterprises so they can try to forget such a miserable existence for a little while.
I'm confused what you want the solution to be. A real "handout" for most of them would be a free apartment or home, re-habilitation or institutionalization. As a country we seem to prefer their presence on the street, which is not very expensive in terms of money but quite expensive in terms of aesthetics and convenience, over the cost of an institution to care for them. Which would be expensive, since every one homeless person probably needs the services of 3-4 full-time professionals to rehabilitate.
The problem is that we closed the mental health institutions decades ago and tossed everyone out on the street. We also made it pretty much impossible to institutionalize someone against their will.
I’m just glad I live somewhere with a real winter. Nobody is going to pitch a tent on the sidewalk in front of my house. There’s a leash law so I don’t even have dog carp on my lawn let alone human waste.
OP started off by stating "Let's assume they are able-bodied, & able-minded, people who simply choose not to participate." So let's leave out the people who do justifiably deserve assistance--the disabled, homeless who are mentally ill, addicted, poor uneducated single mothers, etc. That leaves a ton of people who could really contribute more to society than they are.
That's kind of a slippery slope because most people are chronic underachievers.
I took two years off at age 40 after a bunch of years in the tech startup grind. I wasn't contributing a thing. I skied 100+ days per year with ski trips all over the world. I got my golf game back from pathetic to bogie golf. I spent a ton of days on the sailboat. I did tech telecommuting lifestyle jobs from 2009-onwards where I wasn't contributing anything close to my capabilities. As a development engineer, my "contribute to society" events have been fleeting. 10 years later, anything I built was obsolete.
We are dependent on the earth. Societies that only take and give nothing to the earth end in famine. We will have many famines over the next century as our civilization sputters out.
One of freedoms we have is the freedom to not work if we don't feel like it. What doesn't make sense to me is that other people are then taxed to prop that person up. This is a weird concept to me...
Most people can't or don't plan for the future. They stop working, or work less, because they think everything will be all right. Then life catches up to them and the only way out is for others to prop them up.
Desperate people don't care about logical consistency. They just want to survive.
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