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Yes that's would have been the Christian thing to do wouldn't it dew? Some 'christians' however just like to push their morals on people,demand people adhere to their belief system, and go to church every sunday,because isn't that was jesus really wanted ?
What? You don't believe he was paying for all of that on $8 per hour?
I mean it's possible if the guy lived in the most rural of areas. But i mean like here the avg 2 bedroom is around 800 a month, without utilities. So yes it is possible, but you can't also assume the living situation country wide is the same in regards to costs.
At 23, I was living on my own (with roommates) paying for stage IV cancer treatment on my own, having just gotten myself through undergrad debt free. And yet I'm able to muster a whole lot of sympathy for the homeless because what I have been through - while incredibly difficult - was done with a roof over my head and at least something in my belly every night. Boo hoo - you worked for minimum wage at 19. Good for you. If a person isn't too proud to pick cans out of your recycling for 5 cents a pop, they are sure as hell not too proud to work for minimum wage.
Many homeless people live in urban areas because that is where services are to help them get off of the streets. I live with 2 roommates in a very cheap area of Boston. It would take 70 hours of minimum wage work at $8 an hour just to pay for my share of the apartment a month, plus almost 20 more hours to pay for utilities (no tv, cheapest internet package, and hoping that it will be a warm winter so we don't have to use more oil heat). Even rooming houses around here don't get much cheaper.
Most service jobs do not guarantee a certain number of hours a week. So a homeless person has several challenges:
1. Find multiple jobs to work up to 60 or 70 hours (in an economy where it is difficult to find even 1 job).
2. While finding these jobs, make sure to be in line at the shelter so they are sure to get a bed for the night. Right now, it's only dipping to the high 50s at night, but within a month or two, it will go below freezing.
3. In between these first two priorities, find time and resources to address mental illness and substance abuse issues.
4. Once they get these jobs, they need to balance saving for 1st, last, and security (which is typically a requirement in Boston - often over $2000 just to move into an apartment with roommates), getting appropriate clothing for their workplace, and still make sure they are in the shelter each night.
And if you want further training in tech school or college, or even getting a GED, forget about it. Where would you have time when balancing 2 or 3 jobs?
As I said before, my boyfriend was on the streets for awhile after aging out of foster care. He had been abused physically, emotionally, and sexually both by his biological parents, foster parents, and in group homes. He worked while he was a teenager but didn't have enough saved to live on his own - and there were NO resources for him. So he managed to work in a pizza place and sleep in an alley a few storefronts down through the summer, and in a church in the winter. His meals would be whatever the pizza place gave him.
Now, he's years beyond that point but still is not financially where a 28 year old should be - but he tries. Meanwhile, he lives is a rather cheap apartment and specifically goes to shelters to find people to live with him who need a hand up. One of his current roommates is a 20 year old who was beat up at home because he is "effeminate". He's quite straight, but he enjoys costuming and puppetry so you can understand where that would be an issue. He had been couch surfing and intermittently homeless until he moved in with my boyfriend. He's been there a year and still does not have even a mattress - he sleeps on blankets from Goodwill on the floor and still sometimes struggles to make rent while working 2 jobs that sometimes forget to give him hours.
This world is tough. Just because you've gone through hardship to get where you are does not mean that anyone else's hardship is devalued. I wish I could say I was shocked by some of the comments in this thread, but that's America today - everyone out for themselves and screw those who fall behind.
At 23, I was living on my own (with roommates) paying for stage IV cancer treatment on my own, having just gotten myself through undergrad debt free. And yet I'm able to muster a whole lot of sympathy for the homeless because what I have been through - while incredibly difficult - was done with a roof over my head and at least something in my belly every night. Boo hoo - you worked for minimum wage at 19. Good for you. If a person isn't too proud to pick cans out of your recycling for 5 cents a pop, they are sure as hell not too proud to work for minimum wage.
Many homeless people live in urban areas because that is where services are to help them get off of the streets. I live with 2 roommates in a very cheap area of Boston. It would take 70 hours of minimum wage work at $8 an hour just to pay for my share of the apartment a month, plus almost 20 more hours to pay for utilities (no tv, cheapest internet package, and hoping that it will be a warm winter so we don't have to use more oil heat). Even rooming houses around here don't get much cheaper.
Most service jobs do not guarantee a certain number of hours a week. So a homeless person has several challenges:
1. Find multiple jobs to work up to 60 or 70 hours (in an economy where it is difficult to find even 1 job).
2. While finding these jobs, make sure to be in line at the shelter so they are sure to get a bed for the night. Right now, it's only dipping to the high 50s at night, but within a month or two, it will go below freezing.
3. In between these first two priorities, find time and resources to address mental illness and substance abuse issues.
4. Once they get these jobs, they need to balance saving for 1st, last, and security (which is typically a requirement in Boston - often over $2000 just to move into an apartment with roommates), getting appropriate clothing for their workplace, and still make sure they are in the shelter each night.
And if you want further training in tech school or college, or even getting a GED, forget about it. Where would you have time when balancing 2 or 3 jobs?
As I said before, my boyfriend was on the streets for awhile after aging out of foster care. He had been abused physically, emotionally, and sexually both by his biological parents, foster parents, and in group homes. He worked while he was a teenager but didn't have enough saved to live on his own - and there were NO resources for him. So he managed to work in a pizza place and sleep in an alley a few storefronts down through the summer, and in a church in the winter. His meals would be whatever the pizza place gave him.
Now, he's years beyond that point but still is not financially where a 28 year old should be - but he tries. Meanwhile, he lives is a rather cheap apartment and specifically goes to shelters to find people to live with him who need a hand up. One of his current roommates is a 20 year old who was beat up at home because he is "effeminate". He's quite straight, but he enjoys costuming and puppetry so you can understand where that would be an issue. He had been couch surfing and intermittently homeless until he moved in with my boyfriend. He's been there a year and still does not have even a mattress - he sleeps on blankets from Goodwill on the floor and still sometimes struggles to make rent while working 2 jobs that sometimes forget to give him hours.
This world is tough. Just because you've gone through hardship to get where you are does not mean that anyone else's hardship is devalued. I wish I could say I was shocked by some of the comments in this thread, but that's America today - everyone out for themselves and screw those who fall behind.
You also hit a good point there twice one being the hour situation. Since many jobs do not actually consider full time to be 40 hours they will often *for various reasons* short their employees. I have a friend who works at vitamin cottage and their idea of full time is 27 hours a week. She just now managed to get a second job after trying for 2 years because the place varies her schedule and most jobs don't want to work with you if you don't have a set schedule. The other good point is the fact that not everyone grew up in middle class suburbia, and has a network to rely on, or an understanding on how to take care of themselves. There are simply no resources in this country for most single people. Single men even less so, because there are still some resources for women. Even worse if you are a foster kid because often they are dumped on the street at 18 with little resources. It's also very hard to get food stamps as a student so it makes going to school harder to better yourself even further.
This world is tough. Just because you've gone through hardship to get where you are does not mean that anyone else's hardship is devalued. I wish I could say I was shocked by some of the comments in this thread, but that's America today - everyone out for themselves and screw those who fall behind.
I live in a rural area with some tremendously kind people who will give you the shirt off of their backs, but even here the nasty mindset you reference is present and I think it is getting worse. I wish there was more focus on the Randite philosophy that Mr. Ryan now tried to pretend was never at the center of his life. We should talk about the obligations we have as Americans vs. ourselves. It's important.
You also hit a good point there twice one being the hour situation. Since many jobs do not actually consider full time to be 40 hours they will often *for various reasons* short their employees. I have a friend who works at vitamin cottage and their idea of full time is 27 hours a week. She just now managed to get a second job after trying for 2 years because the place varies her schedule and most jobs don't want to work with you if you don't have a set schedule. The other good point is the fact that not everyone grew up in middle class suburbia, and has a network to rely on, or an understanding on how to take care of themselves. There are simply no resources in this country for most single people. Single men even less so, because there are still some resources for women. Even worse if you are a foster kid because often they are dumped on the street at 18 with little resources. It's also very hard to get food stamps as a student so it makes going to school harder to better yourself even further.
That foster kid should have picked better parents, so she/he has no one to blame but him/herself. We all have to learn how to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Kind of like Paul Ryan.
That foster kid should have picked better parents, so she/he has no one to blame but him/herself. We all have to learn how to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Kind of like Paul Ryan.
hehehehe why yes it's cleary your fault when you get crappy parents of course!
I don't know where the OP has been but the homeless have been in CA since Reagan was governor and demolished the mental health care system. (And yes, people WERE put out on the streets.)
Sorry, but since I'm old I know the dumping of mental patients out on the street happened country-wide long before Reagan was in office.
"President John F. Kennedy's 1963 Community Mental Health Centers Act accelerated the trend toward deinstitutionalization with the establishment of a network of community mental health centers."
"The national deinstitutionalization movement was launched in 1965 through the community mental health centers program. The movement was further fueled by concerns over civil rights and the conditions in institutions. That led to the courts limiting involuntary institutionalization and setting minimum standards for care in institutions."
"Deinstitutionalization was based on the principle that severe mental illness should be treated in the least restrictive setting. As further defined by President Jimmy Carter's Commission on Mental Health, this ideology rested on "the objective of maintaining the greatest degree of freedom, self-determination, autonomy, dignity, and integrity of body, mind, and spirit for the individual while he or she participates in treatment or receives services."8 This is a laudable goal and for many, perhaps for the majority of those who are deinstitutionalized, it has been at least partially realized. For a substantial minority, however, deinstitutionalization has been a psychiatric Titanic. Their lives are virtually devoid of "dignity" or "integrity of body, mind, and spirit." "Self-determination" often means merely that the person has a choice of soup kitchens. The "least restrictive setting" frequently turns out to be a cardboard box, a jail cell, or a terror-filled existence plagued by both real and imaginary enemies.
"
LoL i always love the people who at 19 "was on my own, with a car payment, rent, and going to school all on 8 dollars an hour". I mean seriously get more creative in your stories .
That's the way it was before the fed discovered a way to increase inflation in order to minimise the effect of government deficit spending policies. It's good for the political class that uses public monies to benefit those demographics that vote for them but bad for the guy "just trying to make a living."
Sorry, but since I'm old I know the dumping of mental patients out on the street happened country-wide long before Reagan was in office.
"President John F. Kennedy's 1963 Community Mental Health Centers Act accelerated the trend toward deinstitutionalization with the establishment of a network of community mental health centers."
"The national deinstitutionalization movement was launched in 1965 through the community mental health centers program. The movement was further fueled by concerns over civil rights and the conditions in institutions. That led to the courts limiting involuntary institutionalization and setting minimum standards for care in institutions."
"Deinstitutionalization was based on the principle that severe mental illness should be treated in the least restrictive setting. As further defined by President Jimmy Carter's Commission on Mental Health, this ideology rested on "the objective of maintaining the greatest degree of freedom, self-determination, autonomy, dignity, and integrity of body, mind, and spirit for the individual while he or she participates in treatment or receives services."8 This is a laudable goal and for many, perhaps for the majority of those who are deinstitutionalized, it has been at least partially realized. For a substantial minority, however, deinstitutionalization has been a psychiatric Titanic. Their lives are virtually devoid of "dignity" or "integrity of body, mind, and spirit." "Self-determination" often means merely that the person has a choice of soup kitchens. The "least restrictive setting" frequently turns out to be a cardboard box, a jail cell, or a terror-filled existence plagued by both real and imaginary enemies.
"
The poster you are replying to was referring to Reagan's time as governor, not as president.
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