The Homeless....

charry said:
NO Way rgp......These people are travellers....they dont want to stay put anywhere, thats why they dont choose to live like Normal (what is normal ) i ask you.....lol
Google Brighton Sussex UK
then you will understand ....
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Well ... we all have our opinions.
 

ElCastor said:
Those homeless need more than a free bed. They don‘t like the reasonable rules that go with free. As I‘ve said before, my son-in-law, a San Francisco cop, always carried a supply of free housing vouchers and was frustrated by his inability to give them away. But the homeless do have a source of support. In 2021 San Francisco experienced more than 20,000 car break-ins, and the homeless openly buy, sell, and consume drugs on the city streets. Between a third and a half of homeless are believed to be mentally ill. Maybe California should open its mental hospitals, not its churches.
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Opening mental hospitals would cost money they'd rather not spend.
 

JaniceM said:
I'll probably need to "duck and cover" after saying this- but how much of the 'mental illnesses' are due to individuals putting drugs into their systems? I don't think anyone would be 'mentally healthy' when they're shooting up meth, heroin, etc.

For the most part I agree with your post.. but I believe longterm rehab would be a better approach than mental institutions.
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When California closed its mental hospitals it opened Halfway Houses which provided free housing, counseling, and treatment to the former inmates. Those inmates bailed out and chose to live in alleys where there were no watching eyes and rules.
 
ElCastor said:
When California closed its mental hospitals it opened Halfway Houses which provided free housing, counseling, and treatment to the former inmates. Those inmates bailed out and chose to live in alleys where there were no watching eyes and rules.
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That's what 'the powers that be' should be focusing on.
When people are offered help, and have access to it, "no I don't wanna" shouldn't be an option.
 
JaniceM said:
That's what 'the powers that be' should be focusing on.
When people are offered help, and have access to it, "no I don't wanna" shouldn't be an option.
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There were no options in the mental hospitals, but one purpose behind the release was to eliminate compulsory confinement. In retrospect the haphazard release was probably a huge mistake, and by the way was not just limited to California. Here is a link to a 1984 NY Times article that explains it in agonizing detail.
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-mental-patients-began.html
 
as a church janitor let me say: sounds good, and our little church helps many who are struggling but opening up the church each night, someone would have to be there, and fix up and clean up. my wife and I work about 12 hours a week keeping our church fixed up and cleaned up. the church of about 120 could not afford much more. I do not know the answer, and not we have no pot of money.
 
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Our parish ministries have always been active in supporting needs of poor and homeless. Each Thursday many use our food program. There were times when the pandemic began when they took a few known people in. However the county logistics are much better suited for housing issues. As for solutions, I've posted how I view solutions here and elsewhere. IMO solutions are not intractable or impossible, just not for those with powers to act.

Much homelessness is being driven by a lack of low cost housing, and lack of low end jobs. That will never end as long as Wall Street financial and real estate corps with their dominant media and politicians continue to allow open borders that puts enormous pressures on low end housing and jobs. The desperate immigrants take low end housing away from our many native born poor that pushes many of them into working class housing, that pushes skewered working class folks into more expensive housing, that is the only new housing being built, than they would otherwise choose because they have no choice. Also a glut of poor people seeking low end low skilled jobs keeps wages low because of excessive demand. (We need more housing, is just a diversionary canned political lie.) Just the way our wealthy masters want it for cheap labor in a world economy, high demand for housing they are selling, and more likely voters for one political party. Of course ever increasing real estate residential costs have been the worst element driving inflation.
 
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My friend lives in a small community. One of the churches opened the lower level for the nights. It didn’t go well. The mess in the morning. The refusal to leave in the morning. Doors had to be removed from all the bathroom stalls and finally other rooms. They couldn’t keep the place clean enough to deal with the odours that lingered. The drug dealers hung around outside. The clubs that rented spaces quit. It finally was going to be terminated but I never asked how that went.
 
Jules said:
My friend lives in a small community. One of the churches opened the lower level for the nights. It didn’t go well. The mess in the morning. The refusal to leave in the morning. Doors had to be removed from all the bathroom stalls and finally other rooms. They couldn’t keep the place clean enough to deal with the odours that lingered. The drug dealers hung around outside. The clubs that rented spaces quit. It finally was going to be terminated but I never asked how that went.
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Yeah, the missions have it pretty well figured out
At least they did back in the '60s-'70s
Pretty regulated

Churches seem good with hot meals, clothing.....not a whole lot more
 
NorthernLight said:
Depends on the setup. I stayed in a Salvation Army shelter as a teenager. (I was a paying customer.) We had to attend prayers, etc. I remember one woman complaining about the people's attitudes.
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As did I-Salavation Army Home for young woman in Los Angeles. Breakfast, no lunch, and dinner. Shared a room and there was a jack and Jill bathroom between the rooms or you could use a large army style bathroom.

Was 80 dollars a month and almost all of the money I earned at my full time job paid for my room. Never got to eat lunch, never had enough money for lunch, or the bus. It was hard times, but so grateful for a safe place to live
 
Reagan emptied the mental institutions to save money. Community programs were supposed to be a replacement but weren’t adequately funded. As a former social worker it’s a complicated problem.

They estimate up to 75% of the homeless have a mental illness that they self medicate with alcohol and drugs. In HCOL areas both seniors and the working poor are becoming homeless. This latter group is easy to help. Opening churches won’t work as someone already mentioned was tried and failed.
 
A church I attended in college BUILT a permanent homeless shelter where they offered food, warmth and counseling. I helped to fund the building of it and it still exists helping the homeless in the inner city. I think this is a good idea, but it requires a lot of work and community support. ☺️
 
On the other hand. I had an old friend that I grew up with. In school he was an above average student with good parents a good home and plenty of friends. As he grew older and after many attempts at employment he became disillusioned with the system that had since birth pretty much laid out his path in life as a member of the workforce . Having none it he chose to spend his entire adult life as a happy wanderer. In winter he went to Florida to beat the cold weather and in the summer he went to Virginia where he had friends and relatives. As he journeyed back and forth and in between he had special wooded areas that he built reusable shelters as base camps.

He new all the eating establishment along the way that did not mind giving him food that they were going to toss after closing so he was able to keep food in his stomach. Usually he would set up camp within walking distance of these establishments. As a matter of fact "camping" was what he called these journeys. He worked for the labor pools along the way to get enough money to by the alcoholic beverage of his choice, Thunderbird Red Label. You could hardly pay the guy to set on a box all day but somehow he would occasionally get hired for some type of menial labor. More to the point. This friend was one of the most easy going, genuinely happy , carefree individuals I had the pleasure to have met. He had no steady address so some would say he was homeless and destitute. In his mind he was just a happy camper beating the system.

I had to respect his decision. He knew how to survive out of the box per say. He died in Virginia close to his friends and relatives. They spread his ashes over the Dismal Swamp where he had enjoyed hunting and fishing with his dad and two brothers when a youngster. He made me realize that some people are just not cut out for the path modern society has laid out in front of them. If he had been born one hundred and fifty to two hundred years ago he would have fit right in with the mountain men and frontiersman. These days I suppose many would call him a homeless person. Either way I sincerely miss him and his tales. Just my take.
 
oldpop said:
On the other hand. I had an old friend that I grew up with. In school he was an above average student with good parents a good home and plenty of friends. As he grew older and after many attempts at employment he became disillusioned with the system that had since birth pretty much laid out his path in life as a member of the workforce . Having none it he chose to spend his entire adult life as a happy wanderer. In winter he went to Florida to beat the cold weather and in the summer he went to Virginia where he had friends and relatives. As he journeyed back and forth and in between he had special wooded areas that he built reusable shelters as base camps.

He new all the eating establishment along the way that did not mind giving him food that they were going to toss after closing so he was able to keep food in his stomach. Usually he would set up camp within walking distance of these establishments. As a matter of fact "camping" was what he called these journeys. He worked for the labor pools along the way to get enough money to by the alcoholic beverage of his choice, Thunderbird Red Label. You could hardly pay the guy to set on a box all day but somehow he would occasionally get hired for some type of menial labor. More to the point. This friend was one of the most easy going, genuinely happy , carefree individuals I had the pleasure to have met. He had no steady address so some would say he was homeless and destitute. In his mind he was just a happy camper beating the system.

I had to respect his decision. He knew how to survive out of the box per say. He died in Virginia close to his friends and relatives. They spread his ashes over the Dismal Swamp where he had enjoyed hunting and fishing with his dad and two brothers when a youngster. He made me realize that some people are just not cut out for the path modern society has laid out in front of them. If he had been born one hundred and fifty to two hundred years ago he would have fit right in with the mountain men and frontiersman. These days I suppose many would call him a homeless person. Either way I sincerely miss him and his tales. Just my take.
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That describes my ex-brother-in-law's lifestyle perfectly, except his beverage of choice was beer and the Veteran's Administration disposed of his cremated remains however the VA does it. Every other detail is Jim to a "T".
 

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