I’ve never figure out how these people are expected to pull themselves out of their situation. Drug use is merely a symptom, the cause is living conditions and an existence that makes being sober untenable.
“Get a job”? Find a job that will hire anyone on the spot, AND that can pay for an actual place to live.
The problem with homelessness is that each person’s situation is a bit different, now to you it might sound like a massive lump of excuses when heard all together, but to an individual the one or multiple things that prevents them from having personal stability is a massive barrier.
anecdoteI once helped a homeless stranger get a bus back to Alberta because he hitchhiked to Vancouver over 3 months but couldn’t find the opportunity he wanted to (plus the rents here are upwards of 1500USD equivalent for a small studio), so he wanted to go back. He used to work in construction but he got fired and his wife left him. He wasn’t drunk or high, he was just bumming cigs from people and begging for money. Spending a day with him, I found that little things made him nervous and stressed him out, he couldn’t really advocate for himself well, had nothing but a broken android tablet with his expired health card and birth certificate, and he couldn’t read 24 hour time. The intercity bus operator wouldn’t let him on the bus bc he looked too dirty, even though he was a paying customer. I get him cleaned up at the community shower, a new pair of pants, and I book a flight for him (which ended up being around the same as the bus) gave him 50USD equivalent spending money and the addresses of libraries, charities, employment centres in Lethbridge (this is where he came from). At the airport, they were bugging him that he had only 1 valid ID and 1 expired photo ID, I had to escalate for him 3 times for them to allow him through and get accomodations to guide him through the airport. Something that’s normally so easy to get through if you have a ticket and a phone and whatever is a nightmare for someone so disadvantaged.
Trying to apply for work, not get scammed and advocate for yourself throughout a process is honestly a challenge that is tougher than the actual labour. I’d been taking those things for granted myself. Fines and fees for being poor just worsens the problem.
My brother said the same thing. “He can go get a job at McDonalds.”
Ok, do you think McDs wants to hire someone who hasn’t bathed recently? How will he eat after work if he hasn’t been panhandling during the day? What happens between now and his first paycheck? What if he doesn’t have a bank account when that arrives?
It’s as if getting a job doesn’t immediately cure your problems. My brother sorta seemed to be persuaded in that he didn’t push the idea any further.
There are super shady jobs that pay in cash daily. Hang around a Home Depot parking lot before opening and get a gig with a contractor looking for manual labor.
Oh, it’s going to fucking suck, and you’ll feel like you’re going to die on day 1. But work is there for the willing.
I’m sorry my lived experience conflicts with your preconceved notions of reality. Both of those stories are 100% true. I could go on, but it’s clear you aren’t interested.
Sure, so the first homeless guy I talked to was when I was in college at the University of Oregon. This would have been, oh, 1990? 1991? Something like that.
He stopped me because he had a DEEP Southern accent and I gave him some change, but I wanted to know…
“Clearly, you’re not from around here… What’s your deal?”
Most honest response I’ve had…
“I’m addicted to heroin, my sister’s a lawyer and got sick of dealing with me and told me she’d buy me a bus ticket to anywhere provided it was one way.”
“And you picked…” (gestures) “Here? I mean, I’m biased, I love Eugene, I grew up here, but I can’t wait to leave.”
He just kind of shrugged. Eugene is kind of special in that the clock stopped there somewhere around 1972. If you’re scrounging for drugs, Oregon is a general destination, but Eugene SPECIFICALLY. At least, back in the day. It’s Portland now.
Down the street from this guy was the U of O’s resident “Homeless” guy, Frog. Frog was a character and wasn’t TECHNICALLY homeless. He made a “living”, if you could call it that, selling home made joke books to the student population. Wow, he’s still alive…
The polar opposite of Frog was this guy everyone called “Zeus”. I don’t think anyone knew his real name. There was lots of urban legends about Zeus… scary looking dude who walked around in a pink house coat with a string of Barbie doll heads tied around his waist.
You did not talk to Zeus. Had all the earmarks of a paranoid schizophrenic. I never heard of him actually hurting anyone, but he sure looked the part.
Looks like he died in 1998, tuberculosis, he was 39.
What contractor wants to smell a homeless guy? How are they going to work? How does the contractor know he's not a psychopath murderer? Do you even listen to yourself?
I had an interesting thought while riding a train in Tokyo a few weeks ago: the sign of a highly functioning society isn’t that poor people can afford cars, its that wealthy people take public transportation.
But hey, American shareholders sure are making a killing!
Apparently Japan also has a homeless problem, I don’t recall how bad. But they have a culture that shames them so bad that they go to extreme lengths to mask their homelessness.
It shows that you have public services that work so well that they are worth using to someone for whom money is no object.
I’ve seen this personally. Locally, the bus system runs so slowly that only the most desperate people take it. I don’t feel safe riding that bus. It took multiple hours to get to work.
Meanwhile, I used to live in a college town where the bus hits the stops every five minutes. Everyone uses the bus because it’s so convenient, and there’s no reason to feel uncomfortable riding one because the people who ride the bus are just regular people.
Why do they ride it? Because the city has functioning public transportation. Build services that are worth using.
Boy, I bet many people are going to comment on this that either A) don’t live in an affected city, or B) didn’t bother reading the article and seeing the nuance in the situation.
Okay big boy, please share the nuance of how homeless people chose that condition in life, and how a ban does ANYTHING other than try to export "undesirables" ala the GOP sending migrants to Martha's Vineyard?
I think you are projecting a viewpoint on to my words that I didn’t assert. Did I say, or even imply, that I am for or against these bans? I stated I believe that people that comment on this will probably have less information than necessary to make a reasonable argument.
You are implying that you’re for the bans, or at the very least, that they’re reasonable because of some nuance. You literally do that again here in this comment:
people that comment on this will probably have less information than necessary to make a reasonable argument.
The default conclusion that most will have is that banning homeless people is a really shitty thing to do. What extra info do we need to reasonably come to the conclusion? Where’s the nuance? I even went and read the first half or so and skimmed the rest(because it seemed repetitive and is more lengthy than I wanted to read) but there’s nothing there that even attempted to change my mind.
The nuance is that there is more to it than, “really shitty.” I’m not going to bring out the yellow legal pad and start up a Pros and Cons list for or against the bans, because there is no point to it. Banning them or not banning them has ramifications that extend so far beyond “really shitty” that it’s a fucking insult to anyone involved that you even typed it out. So, please, save your virtue signalling, I don’t want to hear how “lame”, or “whack” the housing crisis and the homeless problems are. I bet they do over on TikTok, though, so why don’t you waste your time over there so I don’t have to read your bullshit here.
The nuance is that if they built the homeless shelters that are needed, there wouldn’t be “needles in the park and angry homeless people shouting” problems as the article states, because they wouldn’t be in the park where kids play. I get that you’re saying “some people don’t understand what it’s like to live with the burden, danger, and discomfort of homeless people,” but there is no argument for these bans that will ever be just imo.
If it’s like the Midwest, I’m sure there’s a fucking empty ass mall or warehouse or dealership somewhere they can turn into a homeless shelter if one fucking capitalist would just hand it over to the public instead of holding on to it to owe less taxes.
The nuance is that if they built the homeless shelters that are needed, there wouldn’t be “needles in the park and angry homeless people shouting” problems as the article states, because they wouldn’t be in the park where kids play.
I live in a city dealing with this right now, and while I have never been directly involved, I did date someone who was and dealt with their emotional distress every day when they would come home from the shelter they worked at. There isn’t a lack of shelters, at least in my city. What there is is a wealth of people that have been kicked out of the shelters for violence, drug use, and other law breaking offenses.
So, now your argument is “We need to get these people the help they need, then.”
Yep. Doing that, too. Turns out the problem people, the ones that are screaming at kids and leaving the needles around, are the ones that don’t accept the mental health help they need. And, it’s a human rights violation to force them into treatment against their will, so now what do we do?
Well, one option is arresting them. However, that just clogs up an already over burdened legal system (they don’t just “go to jail”, they have to be tried, too, and that means judges, state appointed lawyers, etc.)
Another is fining them, but if they could afford those fines, they would probably not be in as harsh a state as they are now, so that’s off the table.
We can’t outlaw the drugs they are taking because that’s fucking stupid and Reagan was a cunt for trying, so that’s out of the question.
Do you see now why I responded the way I did? It isn’t because I am for the bans or against them. There are nuances to each side. I responded the way I did because all of this is completely fucking worthless to talk about with fucking strangers on a fucking web forum where nothing will fucking happen. It’s a waste of fucking time.
So, yeah, let’s go with your idea and cram all of the homeless into an abandoned strip mall, because that will solve the problems. Who is going to work there? Who is going to cover the cost of construction to get it fit to live in (bathrooms, kitchens, privacy, etc.)? N U A N C E. Nothing is as simple as everyone wants to think it is. We aren’t 1 step away from solving this problem. We aren’t even 100 steps away.
Oh, and before you say “that’s what our taxes should be going towards” when I ask about who is going to pay for all this shit, just shut up now, because I don’t have the breath to waste explaining tax law to someone who thinks that homelessness can be fixed with a fucking vacant strip mall.
Yep. You got me. I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. Just, please, shut the fuck up, I can’t deal with whatever it is you think you mean.
Jesus would despise most modern Christians. I don’t even think he’d be happy seeing all of the churches built “in his name”. He’d probably tell them to sell the buildings and land and give it all away to the poor.
16Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18“Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “ ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19honor your father and mother,’ c and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ d ”
20“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
The bible is pretty clear. But most people don’t follow it, or follow some heretical nonsense version of it.
I’ve thrown this in my (rich) family members’ faces before, thanks for the quote.
Another favorite of mine to say to my family is that Jesus was “just a progressive Jew”, and that his main message was you didn’t need to go to the priests/rabbis/temple, everyone can have a direct connection to God. They hate that lol
It’s funny because I thought that’s the group of people that says you can’t just ban something because people will just do it anyway. But they banned homelessness and pretend the problem is solved.
The irony that they talk so much about their rights while they are obsessed with taking mine away.
Between migrant workers needing to go anywhere else (namely Florida to Martha's Vinyard), college protersters needing to be sent to Gaza, and now homeless (its not unhoused, thats newspeak. Its Sexual Assault not SA, its Murder/Suicide not Unaliving, its homeless, not unhoused) needing to be sent anywhere else, all I can fixate on is how obsessed The Party is with making people move (you can say "Its Republicans doing that!" but its not. Its the entirety of the Federal government advancing these narratives).
The modern strategy of the rich and the taint-lickers (government officials) is forced nomad lifestyle.
This is NOTHING new.
Strikes a nerve for me because I'm a quarter Gypsy (hailing from Bohemia, the region now called the Czech Republic). Gypsy is an EXTREMELY offensive term. In the Holocaust, "Jews" took the brunt, "Gypsies" took most of the rest, "Gays" and "Colored" took the rest.
Gypsies are kind of like Jews.
"Jews" in the largest sense, are those who were expelled from their homes and settled in a new home, all the adversity endured, as is depicted by Moses moving the Jews from Egypt to Bethlehem.
"Gypsies" are those who were expelled from their homes, and were met with gun-barrels wherever they went, so they were kept moving. Forced nomads.
Which makes me look at the news today. "Anti-Zionist" as in "against Israel displacing Palestinians with plans of luxury condos" is now called "Antisemitic". But if we go to the historical root of the words, Israel is acting like Egypt, and Palestinians are being made Jews, if you remove the religion "Judaism" from the mix.
And here in America, as the people identify as Anti-Zionist, but Palestinians are being displaced from their homes by Israel, arguably making them "Palestinian Jews" or "Palestinian Gypsies" depending on how the world treats their refugees, one of the big things the Supreme Court decided was that Homeless are Gypsies.
Send em packing. Shoot one of em dead, and that's cool as long as they keep moving. Over time, we will have shot all of em dead.
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