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the causes of homelessness are deep. it's a result of the unfairness and the extreme competitiveness of society, poor parenting, bad or cruel people etc. if you don't have a solid and good start, you will be left behind and may even be damaged. once you are damaged, you can be lost pretty much forever like a handicapped person. most of them are deeply sad and heart-broken. homeless people are usually too weak or naive. of course, some are scum too.
compassion is not enough, practical solutions are. i would say a good start to end the homeless problem is put them in cheap housing where there is strict and ongoing drug testing as well as help for them such as counseling, drug rebab etc. they do have programs like that in some places for homeless veterans.
also, there could be a choice such as sterilization for housing if one refuses to work. but i would say that society would also need to change how it's economically structured and place these people in jobs they can do. they are not in any position to compete. even with the most menial jobs, society wants perky people who are unaffected and the homeless know they will not be accepted because they are slower or not as proficient. it would have to be very simple and menial most often such as factory work etc or work set up that they can do. society could do it but it's not there yet.
it would be a good experiment to set them up in self-sustaining colonies where they grow their own food etc. actually, this would be the best for them. homeless people tend to look out for eachother. these people just cannot live in the world that most do. to not recognize that is going to end in repeat failure. people are usually not able to understand those that are different from them and don't fit into general society, that is why you have homeless too.
You're just a bundle of assumptions, regarding the homeless. Not all of them are on drugs, mentally ill, unable or unwilling to work. There are many homeless people, that are educated, able-bodied, and willing to work.
You have to realize that the working poor, are just one pay-check away from the streets. And people who were solidly middle-class, can become homeless if they lose their livelihoods, and have no one to help them survive. This is happening more and more, in our current economy.
You're just a bundle of assumptions, regarding the homeless. Not all of them are on drugs, mentally ill, unable or unwilling to work. There are many homeless people, that are educated, able-bodied, and willing to work.
You have to realize that the working poor, are just one pay-check away from the streets. And people who were solidly middle-class, can become homeless if they lose their livelihoods, and have no one to help them survive. This is happening more and more, in our current economy.
Well not all housing is "affordable" by everyone in the first place..........so you'd need to define what you mean by "affordable housing" to start with and then define who it is that "needs it the most" that isn't already being taken care of by one program or another.
Obviously if I'm earning a decent salary I have more "affordable housing" options than someone who is earning minimum wage. That's a given.
Afforable housing, means housing that someone can afford, based on their income.
Yes it's absolutely true. As I've mentioned, people are losing their homes more than ever, because they've become unemployed and have run out of financial resources. If you don't know that, then you must be living in a cave, with no access to the media.
I disagree with your time frame, but there were and are huge factors that gave us a surplus with Reagan. And there are no simplistic answers.
You are going to have mentally ill on the streets until it is decided that they need to be placed somewhere and it has to be better than it was 40-50 years ago. As it stands there is like this revolving door which actually wastes more money. They refuse to or can't afford to take the meds, they live on the street, they have a psychotic break and are either treated and released from mental health facilities or wind up in jail or prison. Sometimes they are arrested for crap like loitering so they don't freeze to death over the winter. That will take a commitment. No more placing them in homes where they pay the caretakers 5 bucks an hour that do not give a damn because they are making 5 bucks an hour.
A portion of the street people are runaways or those who were wards of the state that as soon as possible hit the road and now have nothing. I think there has to be a decision that runaway is a crime just to get them to a locked down facility. A committment has to be made to their education and a hella better transition program in place. Many of those kids that were wards have never been allowed to make their own decisions. Every movement is determined by a court order. So, there can be something like 140K dollars on one child and the kid walks out with not one thing to show for it.
Some of that above group are LGB & T youth, who have figured out that they are second class citizens. It takes a commitment.
Drug/alcohol addiction. The 12 step program does not work for many, many individuals. It does not. And there is an enormous amount of money that is directed towards the use of that program in many rehabs. Secondly, there are a lot of people that wind up homeless first and then become alcoholics or drug addicts.....because being homeless sucks big time. They are in limbo, they can't even begin to figure out how to get out of it.
For families that have lost everything, there is more coming.
I think that now is the perfect time to start taking a very deep look into what programs are out there and restructuring them without a bunch of crap. The welfare money shifted to church programs needs to be cut off and returned to the state and federal government so that we can begin to make a dent in it.
You seem to have a very keen insight into the homeless issue which is why I choose to quote you. There are many varying factors that leads to homelessness. I have volunteered at a homeless shelter & have seen it all.
Ironically a person who winds up on the streets due to economic hardship and has no addictions or mental issues will probably find themselves being able to recover and be able to put their life back together.
Drug addicts & alcoholics have a tougher time but a willingness to be treated and of course support from family is critical not only to recovery but their ability to leave homelessness behind.
Lastly there is the mentally ill and I include Veterans who are homeless and have never been treated. This part of homelessness in America is perhaps the most shameful of all.
We do not take mental illness in this country seriously enough and until we seriously start addressing the mentally ill there will always be the homeless.
The homeless problem started up in the 80s, after Reagan became President.
That's a blatantly false statement. Their have always been "homeless" people, you just didn't call them "homeless" before the 1980s when "homlessness" became a $60 Billion a year business that people make money off of.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artwomyn
And it's been going on now, for over 30 years. Homelessness has continued to increase, since the great recession began over two years ago.
Actually it's been going on for more than 250,000 years.
Their were "homeless" Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but that's beside the point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artwomyn
In a wealthy country like America, the homeless problem is a national disgrace. Shouldn't we use our considerable economic resources, to eliminate homelessness once and for all? And what do you think would be the best way, to go about doing so?
Thanks to you and people like you, namely liberals, the only thing we can do at this point is to throw money at a problem.
Before people found out how profitable the "homeless" could be, they were called vagrants.
When we define the "unemployed" we use an established criteria which is a three-prong test:
1] You must be available to work
2] You must want to be employed
3] You must be actively be seeking employment
When we define the "homeless" we also use an established criteria which is also a three-prong test:
1] You must be available for permanent housing
2] You must want permanent housing
3] You must actively be seeking permanent housing
The "homeless" fail the test, so they aren't really homeless.
If you want to help the "homeless," then stop interfering. It is your interference and the interference of others like you that has exasperated the problem.
Of the people you erroneously claim to be "homeless"
1] About 1%-2% truly are. These persons are "homeless" by circumstance, however, they are not "homeless" very long because they meet criteria of the objective three-prong test. Here's an example: A veteran has a good paying job and a nice apartment. He get's busted for DUI and during the process takes a swing at a Boone County police officer. He's in lock-up. For about 6 months. He lost his job. He was evicted from his apartment. His car was seized and the repossessed. Once he was released, he was effectively "homeless." He stayed at the Drop-In Center in Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati, then went to Mount Airy Men's Shelter, a "homeless" shelter paid for by the tax-payers of Hamilton County. During that time he attended drug and alcohol classes at the VA Hospital (where I met him) and he eventually got another job, saved up money living at the shelter and then moved into another shelter sponsored by Goodwill Industries, and then eventually had enough money saved up to purchase furniture and house-hold goods and move into an apartment.
2] About 10%-12% of the "homeless" are nutters. These people are whacked. When I came to the US back 2001 I used to work at the Potter Stewart Federal Courthouse in the city and would see a lot of these people wandering around or pan-handling at lunch. Even today I still see these people, the guy with the dreds, they guy that walks around with his hands over his ears (he hears voices), the lady with all of her bags she drags around etc etc.
Thanks to you and people like you and especially the ACLU, there is nothing we can do for those people, because you have used the courts to tie our hands behind our backs.
So congratulations for dicking them over.
Thanks to court actions by you and people like you, we cannot confine them, nor can we force them to take their medication which would allow them to function somewhat normally and possibly hold a real job.
Then you have the gall to sit there smugly and demand that we throw money at those people. There's no way to help those people. They are mental, and they need psychiatric help, and they need medication, and they need supervision, and you have done everything in your power to ensure that we cannot get them the psychiatric help they need, or the medication they need or the supervision they need.
I hope you feel really good about that.
3] The remainder of the "homeless" are not "homeless" they are street people: vagrants. They love living on the street. It is exciting to them as each day brings something new and different and a challenge to get enough money to buy beer, drugs or sex. Those people have no desire to live in any permanent form of housing. We can look at the St Petersburg Times for an instructive article about these people. The tax payers of St Petersburg built an $8 Million state-of-the-art "homeless" shelter and it is unused.
The "homeless" didn't want to stay there because there are, um, "rules" like they have to be in the shelter by 11:00 PM, they can't leave once they're inside, they can't sleep all day either as they have to be out of bed by 8:00 AM so they can participate in activities that lead to a job and permanent housing, which is exactly what they don't want.
We see the same thing here in Cincinnati. The city tells the Drop-In Center it's funding is being cut unless it does something, so the Drop-In creates some new rules, like you have to a state-issued ID card to stay there, you have to be in by 9:00 PM to get a bed, you have to be out by 8:00 AM etc etc and they revolt and now they have this "Homeless Congress" where they are fighting for their god given unalienable right to sleep of their drug/alcohol/sex-fest all day at tax-payer expense.
And of course they are fighting for their god given unalienable right to urinate, defecate and sleep in Washington Park to the exclusion of all other residents of the city and that problem has been exasperated because about 2 months ago a police cruiser drove over and killed an "homeless" woman sleeping in the park while chasing a suspect.
The overwhelming vast majority of those people have drug and/or alcohol addictions. A 30-day program is not going to help them. Such a program is only marginally successful for those who have been substance abusers for less than 6 months.
When you have people who have been substance abusers for years and years and years, it's going to take more than a 30-day "feel good" program.
You need intense behavior modification, and that requires some form of confinement and restriction, as well as supervision by psychologists.
In Eastern Europe we just round up street people and send them off to a farm or coal-mine/salt-mine to work like a dog for the next 12-15 years and maybe when they finally "get it" they'll ask the world to stop so they can get back on it.
That's what you need to do in the US. Round up the "homeless" and put them in an environment that is highly supervised and extremely regimented where a typical day consists of 8-10 hours of hard labor and another 4-6 hours of intense workshops and group therapy in drug and alcohol abuse, anger management, personal financial responsibility, emotional wellness and so on. It will take about 7 to 12 years to break their addiction and modify their behavior to the extent that they no longer have the desire to live on the streets.
We can't do that here in the US, because pan-handling on the streets and urinating, defecating, sleeping, drinking and doing drugs in public parks is protected speech under the 1st Amendment thanks to you and people like you.
So yet again you have tied everyone's hands behind their backs and now you're going to attempt to shout everyone down who doesn't want to waste several $Billion in tax payer dollars doing absolutely nothing to solve the problem.
And before you start spouting off at the mouth about "families" in "homeless" shelters, there are none.
Well there's a women and her children in a homeless shelter..... Yeah, I'm sure there is and I'm also equally certain that she is either the non-custodial parent and has illegally taken the children and is in hiding, or she is fleeing an arrest warrant, or she has been convicted of a drug or other offense and fled to avoid the sentencing hearing or something similar to that. Police and private investigators will tell you that's the first place they look when there are missing children and custody is possibly an issue. You'll typically find them there are find they were there and moved on.
You also don't seem to understand that the "homeless" is a $60 Billion a year business. It spans various groups like "homeless coalitions and homeless congresses and other homeless advocacy groups who get lots and lots of money from the federal, state, county and city governments as well as private philanthropic organizations, religions organizations and groups, businesses and other private groups.
They have a vested interest in perpetuating the plight of the "homeless" because they make money off of it. It is a career. The director of the Drop-In Center is not driving around in a beat-up Ford Pinto. The staff drives Acuras and Lexus and BMWs and Mercedes.
There's also the "politics of power." Those people are nobodies, but because they perpetuate "homelessness" they are constantly in the spot-light doing interviews with local television, cable access, local newspapers and magazines, press conferences, lobbying, news letters, their internet web-site and blogs and twits, demonstrations and marches and candle-light vigils and such.
That's a blatantly false statement. Their have always been "homeless" people, you just didn't call them "homeless" before the 1980s when "homlessness" became a $60 Billion a year business that people make money off of.
Actually it's been going on for more than 250,000 years.
Their were "homeless" Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but that's beside the point.
Thanks to you and people like you, namely liberals, the only thing we can do at this point is to throw money at a problem.
Before people found out how profitable the "homeless" could be, they were called vagrants.
When we define the "unemployed" we use an established criteria which is a three-prong test:
1] You must be available to work
2] You must want to be employed
3] You must be actively be seeking employment
When we define the "homeless" we also use an established criteria which is also a three-prong test:
1] You must be available for permanent housing
2] You must want permanent housing
3] You must actively be seeking permanent housing
The "homeless" fail the test, so they aren't really homeless.
If you want to help the "homeless," then stop interfering. It is your interference and the interference of others like you that has exasperated the problem.
Of the people you erroneously claim to be "homeless"
1] About 1%-2% truly are. These persons are "homeless" by circumstance, however, they are not "homeless" very long because they meet criteria of the objective three-prong test. Here's an example: A veteran has a good paying job and a nice apartment. He get's busted for DUI and during the process takes a swing at a Boone County police officer. He's in lock-up. For about 6 months. He lost his job. He was evicted from his apartment. His car was seized and the repossessed. Once he was released, he was effectively "homeless." He stayed at the Drop-In Center in Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati, then went to Mount Airy Men's Shelter, a "homeless" shelter paid for by the tax-payers of Hamilton County. During that time he attended drug and alcohol classes at the VA Hospital (where I met him) and he eventually got another job, saved up money living at the shelter and then moved into another shelter sponsored by Goodwill Industries, and then eventually had enough money saved up to purchase furniture and house-hold goods and move into an apartment.
2] About 10%-12% of the "homeless" are nutters. These people are whacked. When I came to the US back 2001 I used to work at the Potter Stewart Federal Courthouse in the city and would see a lot of these people wandering around or pan-handling at lunch. Even today I still see these people, the guy with the dreds, they guy that walks around with his hands over his ears (he hears voices), the lady with all of her bags she drags around etc etc.
Thanks to you and people like you and especially the ACLU, there is nothing we can do for those people, because you have used the courts to tie our hands behind our backs.
So congratulations for dicking them over.
Thanks to court actions by you and people like you, we cannot confine them, nor can we force them to take their medication which would allow them to function somewhat normally and possibly hold a real job.
Then you have the gall to sit there smugly and demand that we throw money at those people. There's no way to help those people. They are mental, and they need psychiatric help, and they need medication, and they need supervision, and you have done everything in your power to ensure that we cannot get them the psychiatric help they need, or the medication they need or the supervision they need.
I hope you feel really good about that.
3] The remainder of the "homeless" are not "homeless" they are street people: vagrants. They love living on the street. It is exciting to them as each day brings something new and different and a challenge to get enough money to buy beer, drugs or sex. Those people have no desire to live in any permanent form of housing. We can look at the St Petersburg Times for an instructive article about these people. The tax payers of St Petersburg built an $8 Million state-of-the-art "homeless" shelter and it is unused.
The "homeless" didn't want to stay there because there are, um, "rules" like they have to be in the shelter by 11:00 PM, they can't leave once they're inside, they can't sleep all day either as they have to be out of bed by 8:00 AM so they can participate in activities that lead to a job and permanent housing, which is exactly what they don't want.
We see the same thing here in Cincinnati. The city tells the Drop-In Center it's funding is being cut unless it does something, so the Drop-In creates some new rules, like you have to a state-issued ID card to stay there, you have to be in by 9:00 PM to get a bed, you have to be out by 8:00 AM etc etc and they revolt and now they have this "Homeless Congress" where they are fighting for their god given unalienable right to sleep of their drug/alcohol/sex-fest all day at tax-payer expense.
And of course they are fighting for their god given unalienable right to urinate, defecate and sleep in Washington Park to the exclusion of all other residents of the city and that problem has been exasperated because about 2 months ago a police cruiser drove over and killed an "homeless" woman sleeping in the park while chasing a suspect.
The overwhelming vast majority of those people have drug and/or alcohol addictions. A 30-day program is not going to help them. Such a program is only marginally successful for those who have been substance abusers for less than 6 months.
When you have people who have been substance abusers for years and years and years, it's going to take more than a 30-day "feel good" program.
You need intense behavior modification, and that requires some form of confinement and restriction, as well as supervision by psychologists.
In Eastern Europe we just round up street people and send them off to a farm or coal-mine/salt-mine to work like a dog for the next 12-15 years and maybe when they finally "get it" they'll ask the world to stop so they can get back on it.
That's what you need to do in the US. Round up the "homeless" and put them in an environment that is highly supervised and extremely regimented where a typical day consists of 8-10 hours of hard labor and another 4-6 hours of intense workshops and group therapy in drug and alcohol abuse, anger management, personal financial responsibility, emotional wellness and so on. It will take about 7 to 12 years to break their addiction and modify their behavior to the extent that they no longer have the desire to live on the streets.
We can't do that here in the US, because pan-handling on the streets and urinating, defecating, sleeping, drinking and doing drugs in public parks is protected speech under the 1st Amendment thanks to you and people like you.
So yet again you have tied everyone's hands behind their backs and now you're going to attempt to shout everyone down who doesn't want to waste several $Billion in tax payer dollars doing absolutely nothing to solve the problem.
And before you start spouting off at the mouth about "families" in "homeless" shelters, there are none.
Well there's a women and her children in a homeless shelter..... Yeah, I'm sure there is and I'm also equally certain that she is either the non-custodial parent and has illegally taken the children and is in hiding, or she is fleeing an arrest warrant, or she has been convicted of a drug or other offense and fled to avoid the sentencing hearing or something similar to that. Police and private investigators will tell you that's the first place they look when there are missing children and custody is possibly an issue. You'll typically find them there are find they were there and moved on.
You also don't seem to understand that the "homeless" is a $60 Billion a year business. It spans various groups like "homeless coalitions and homeless congresses and other homeless advocacy groups who get lots and lots of money from the federal, state, county and city governments as well as private philanthropic organizations, religions organizations and groups, businesses and other private groups.
They have a vested interest in perpetuating the plight of the "homeless" because they make money off of it. It is a career. The director of the Drop-In Center is not driving around in a beat-up Ford Pinto. The staff drives Acuras and Lexus and BMWs and Mercedes.
There's also the "politics of power." Those people are nobodies, but because they perpetuate "homelessness" they are constantly in the spot-light doing interviews with local television, cable access, local newspapers and magazines, press conferences, lobbying, news letters, their internet web-site and blogs and twits, demonstrations and marches and candle-light vigils and such.
Holycrap you nailed it. Really, you just crushed that one. Sweet, but the sad thing is people don't get it and you'll just get some sort of inane whining in response. Congrats Mam or Sir, you smashed that one.
[quote=theunbrainwashed;16771595]We could start by beating back the drum of radical rabid "I'm a womyn not a wo-man" feminism
Yeah, we're all scum until they need the mayonnaise jar opened.
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