Do you believe that everyone deserves housing?

:) With respect: Of course everyone deserves. Everyone deserves a Maserati too, if they want one. Anything else is just wrong. But the question is 'Who owes it to them?' Everyone talks about 'deserve', no-one talks about 'who pays'. And please remember that we all die, some younger than others, and that there is injustice everywhere, like pain, and lack of love, and that our National Debt is pushing $35 trillion. First should come the children, then the helpless, and last in line EVER should be the able-bodied, my opinion.
 

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gruntlabor said:
:) With respect: Of course everyone deserves. Everyone deserves a Maserati too, if they want one. Anything else is just wrong. But the question is 'Who owes it to them?' Everyone talks about 'deserve', no-one talks about 'who pays'. And please remember that we all die, some younger than others, and that there is injustice everywhere, like pain, and lack of love. First should come the children, then the helpless, and last in line EVER should be the able-bodied, my opinion.
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I truly believe we are our brother's keeper. No, I'm not covering up for the lazy. I mean, in general.
 
Pepper said:
I truly believe we are our brother's keeper. No, I'm not covering up for the lazy. I mean, in general.
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Yes, but you speak for me as well as yourself. I don't want to be my brother's keeper. I want him to keep himself, if he can.
 

I heard an interview a few months ago with a lady who was living in a tent in a public park. She had been offered shelter in a former hotel building that was bought by the county. She refused it because she did not want to follow rules regarding alcohol and the use of street drugs. She did not want to go to drug counseling and she definitely did not want help finding a job. IMO, she does not deserve housing at other people’s expense. One of the problems we have today, is that many of the so-called homeless want help but only on their terms. The idea of “beggers can’t be choosers” offends them. There is a difference between the truly homeless and street people.
 
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chic said:
In the U.S. some of the money spent funding foreign wars could be used instead to house the homeless. This is just one of many novel ideas of mine.
;)
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In my county depending on how you do the account we, as a community private and public, spend at least $40,000 a year on each homeless person. IOW, we could rent them a $2000 a month apartment and still have $16,000 a year left over for food, etc. If that is not enough, I can’t see what spending more will do.
 
Brookswood said:
I heard an interview a few months ago with a lady who was living in a tent in a public park. She had been offered shelter in a former hotel building that was bought by the county. She refused it because she did not want to follow rules regarding alcohol and the use of street drugs. She did not want to go to drug counseling and she definitely did not want help finding a job. IMO, she does not deserve housing at other people’s expense. One of the problems we have today, is that many of the so-called homeless want help but only on their terms. The idea of “beggars can’t be choosers” offends them. There is a difference between the truly homeless and street people.
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this week... and this is a common occurrence... a family of immigrants who have never worked and paid into the system yet claim dole, and have been given a home at the expense of the taxpayer.. and their rent paid by the taxpayer.. complained that the home they were given wasn't big enough.. they wanted more bedrooms because she was pregnant again.. .

There is a waiting list in this country of 1.9 million people...some who have been waiting upwards of 10 years.. and many of those waiting have worked and paid their taxes all their lives.. but are in low paying jobs so can't afford to buy or pay High private rents.. Public housing is like hens teeth for the majority of those in need

...but as always it seems these immigrants get things given to them long before the indigenous folks... ...and so the council offered this immigrant family.. another home with more bedrooms, in a different part of the city .. and they refused it.. why ?.. because they believe they have the right to be housed next to their friends.... and in fact they're demanding to be housed in the area of their choice

It's no wonder people get furious about immigrants and their so called rights in this country..
 
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hollydolly said:
this week... and this is a common occurrence... a family of immigrants who have never worked and paid into the system yet claim dole, and have been given a home at the expense of the taxpayer.. and their rent paid by the taxpayer.. complained that the home they were given wasn't big enough.. they wanted more bedrooms because she was pregnant again.. .

There is a waiting list in this country of 1.9 million people...some who have been waiting upwards of 10 years.. and many of those waiting have worked and paid their taxes all their lives.. but are in low paying jobs so can't afford to buy or pay High private rents.. Public housing is like hens teeth for the majority of those in need

...but as always it seems there immigrants get things given to them long before the indigenous folks... ...and so the council offered this immigrant family.. another home with more bedrooms, in a different part of the city .. and they refused it.. why ?.. because they believe they have the right to be housed next to their friends.... and in fact they're demanding to be housed in the area of their choice

It's no wonder people get furious about immigrants and their so called rights in this country..
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This is really an awful story! They interviewed some migrants at our border who said that if they knew how conditions were going to be they wouldn’t have come. I was wondering what they expected?

All these people coming aren’t fleeing for their lives. Many think that all of these countries are rich and they will have easy lives. People need to apply to come and we need better border security as it appears that Europe also does too keep out the illegal migrants. I’m a democrat and believe in helping people but not at the expense of our own citizens.
 
Brookswood said:
There is a difference between the truly homeless and street people.
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C50 said:
Yes.
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In my observations in one small city & one mid-size city (250 thousand), the tent-city residents are mainly "street people". Habitual drug use and actual drug addiction are common. Age ranges seem to be late 20s to mid 60s.

At the same time, I wouldn't suppose that all of these people arrived in the tent-city circumstance coming through the same background experience. For instance, I'd imagine that some were employed during their lives, possibly even skilled in some way.
 
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Brookswood said:
In my county depending on how you do the account we, as a community private and public, spend at least $40,000 a year on each homeless person. IOW, we could rent them a $2000 a month apartment and still have $16,000 a year left over for food, etc. If that is not enough, I can’t see what spending more will do.
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Your county may spend $40,000 per year on each homeless person and you COULD rent them a $2,000 a month apt. but you don't do you. The homeless never see any of that money I'll wager which is why homelessness remains such a problem in America.
 
Homeless housing sounds nice, but does it work? California at one time had a series of “hospitals” for the mentally ill and addicted. After a series of lawsuits they were closed and Halfway Houses established in the cities to give former inmates a place to live and adapt to an independent life. Didn’t work. Wouldn’t accept reasonable rules, but preferred life on the street, park, or alleys. My now deceased son in law was a San Francisco cop. He was frustrated by his inability to give out free housing voutures to the homeless, who preferred a rule free alley.

Bottom line, this call for free housing is ultimately aimed at the millions of illegal aliens flooding across the border. Do we have a legal or moral obligation to provide them with free food and housing? I hope not.
 
My feelings are quite mixed. On the one hand having grown up with the ideas of tithing, charity to the poor, leaving the corners of our fields unharvested so that the poor can have food (i.e. tax to pay for poor people), I feel like I should feel that everyone deserves a home. There but for the grace of God go I, etc. Especially since we are much more aware now of mental and psychological problems being physical ailments not choices or morals.

But then on the other hand, having known 'takers' and entitled people over my lifetime, plus the general icky feeling about people like my low IQ thieving cousin (thankfully long decreased now), it is hard to want to spend any money on them.

Most of all I want the places I live (the cities, neighborhoods, etc) to be nice, pretty, clean, and empty of weird people. Therefore for my own sake to get what I want, I am willing to pay taxes toward housing people.
 
ElCastor said:
Homeless housing sounds nice, but does it work? California at one time had a series of “hospitals” for the mentally ill and addicted. After a series of lawsuits they were closed and Halfway Houses established in the cities to give former inmates a place to live and adapt to an independent life. Didn’t work. Wouldn’t accept reasonable rules, but preferred life on the street, park, or alleys. My now deceased son in law was a San Francisco cop. He was frustrated by his inability to give out free housing voutures to the homeless, who preferred a rule free alley.

Bottom line, this call for free housing is ultimately aimed at the millions of illegal aliens flooding across the border. Do we have a legal or moral obligation to provide them with free food and housing? I hope not.
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The halfway houses that I am familiar with for inmates that are released on probation have rules such as you must get a job within a few weeks so you can pay your rent, go to AA meetings, get drug tested, etc. For the inmates that are motivated it’s lifesaving and for the ones that just want to do drugs they end up violating their probation and go back to prison.
 
gruntlabor said:
Unfortunately you only encourage the corrupt, I mean the corrupt in government, ngo's, charities, illegal immigration, etc etc.
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But I feel I'm worth it! Life is short and I can't take money with me when I go, so I might as well spend it to have a nice life here. I'd rather walk down a clean street eating a Dunkin donut than wind my way through odd homeless people while eating a fancy French pastry.

Plus, I feel like some of the poor are not capable of anything better (like my cousin), and others are just at a hard spot in their lives, and others may leave behind children that do better. Didn't England send their yucky people off to Australia, but somehow that country turned out okay.

I guess for full disclosure, I was myself homeless for a few days when I was young, and stayed at the beach and picked through the trash for food for the stray puppies (or maybe it was one puppy, I forget now!) I had with me. I was helped by very kind strangers who got homes for the puppies (or puppy), found someone for me to stay with, and when it turned out she wanted money for me to stay there, one of the kind strangers found another person I could stay with for free, and then they also found me government housing and a job.
 
HoneyNut said:
But I feel I'm worth it! Life is short and I can't take money with me when I go, so I might as well spend it to have a nice life here. I'd rather walk down a clean street eating a Dunkin donut than wind my way through odd homeless people while eating a fancy French pastry.

Plus, I feel like some of the poor are not capable of anything better (like my cousin), and others are just at a hard spot in their lives, and others may leave behind children that do better. Didn't England send their yucky people off to Australia, but somehow that country turned out okay.

I guess for full disclosure, I was myself homeless for a few days when I was young, and stayed at the beach and picked through the trash for food for the stray puppies (or maybe it was one puppy, I forget now!) I had with me. I was helped by very kind strangers who got homes for the puppies (or puppy), found someone for me to stay with, and when it turned out she wanted money for me to stay there, one of the kind strangers found another person I could stay with for free, and then they also found me government housing and a job.
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some of those ''yucky people'' had committed crimes that were so small they wouldn't be arrested for it today much less shipped off to the colonies.. plus Australia, beautiful country that it is.. also has a Huge criminal fraternity too..
 
Much as I'd like to simply say "I feel everyone in my society has a right to a conventional home, not a tent" I can't quite imagine how it could be managed. The "rules-free people" aspect has me stumped. Maybe Canada will get "close but no cigar" on this one?

I'll say there have been some intelligent opinions and some good ideas in this discussion. I keep being drawn back to Paco Dennis's current signiture/slogan: "It's a complex/nuanced issue without perfect solutions."
 
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JBR said:
Much as I'd like to simply say "I feel everyone in my society has a right to a conventional home, not a tent" I can't quite imagine how it could be managed. The "rules-free people" aspect has me stumped. Maybe Canada will get "close but no cigar" on this one?

I'll say there have been some intelligent opinions and some good ideas in this discussion. I keep being drawn back to Paco Dennis's current signiture/slogan: "It's a complex/nuanced issue without perfect solutions."
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Yes, but to be 'stumped' or do nothing because it's an 'issue without perfect solutions' is neglecting our duty. We should have a plan. But I do know that will not happen, not today.
 
All of our rights under the constitution come with responsibilities. So it makes sense that, if housing becomes a constitutional right, each person will have certain responsibilities in order to benefit from that right.
 
gruntlabor said:
Yes, but to be 'stumped' or do nothing because it's an 'issue without perfect solutions' is neglecting our duty. We should have a plan. But I do know that will not happen, not today.
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Unfortunately, in the US, lawmakers have made it impossible for individuals with great ideas to solve the problem of homelessness, so we're forced to rely on our governors and legislators to solve the problem.

They're terrible at it. Many millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on every one of their failed "solutions".
 


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