It’s time we as a society end homelessness. We have sufficient wealth, sufficient resources, to end homelessness. What we lack is the will.
Allow homelessnes to continue is a grievous moral sin, a stain upon the soul of America, a cancer which eats away at our humanity, a compassion, ourselves. It is time to muster the will to bring the extremely minimal resources required to bear and provide permanent housing for the homeless.
148.87.63.2#1 by Frank Staheli on November 14, 2007 - 10:09 am
I’m in San Fran this week for a computer conference. San Fran is a fairly clean city–at least the part that I’ve seen (although I missed being at a murder scene by about 45 minutes two evenings ago). It’s interesting that every night, the same homeless men (I haven’t seen any women) set up camp in their same storefronts or against their same lightposts for the night. Usually they are doing something repetitive, like quickly looking through a stack of magazines or newspapers, or talking to themselves. I’m sure some (a lot of?) homeless people are homeless because they are lazy or because they have an addiction. But the ones I’ve seen here have mental disorders that it doesn’t appear they can overcome without some help.
205.134.201.214#2 by glenn on November 14, 2007 - 10:26 am
Homelessness will end when real estate becomes what it was originally intended, a place to live, not a means to earn money for nothing, and the resultant consumption.
We can only hope that the ridiculous run up in housing reverses itself, so as to enable people to own homes without the sacrifice of the other portions of their lives.
166.70.54.52#3 by Allie on November 14, 2007 - 10:31 am
I can’t imagine anyone being homeless because they are lazy.
Last year at a city youth council leadership training, Palmer DePaulis spoke to us about his experiences with a new housing development to help homeless people. Someone can be going along doing okay, and have some crisis, over which they lose their housing.
Once someone becomes homeless it’s very difficult to get out of. It’s hard to get (or keep) a job when you don’t have a place to shower, or a phone number for potential employers to reach you.
It is shameful that we, as a society, do not care more for each other. I know it’s become a bit of an obsession for me, but health care is a similar issue. Why can’t we make sure that everyone is taken care of? Most people don’t want hand outs, but as Mr. DePaulis said, many need a hand up. Take care of people, and give them opportunities to take care of themselves, and soon they’ll be in a position to reciprocate.
Sure some people are lazy and want hand outs, but I really believe they are the minority, and that we should be capable of helping people while at the same time encouraging them to help themselves.
166.70.54.52#4 by Allie on November 14, 2007 - 10:33 am
Glenn, it’s nice to agree with something you say!
69.88.68.218#5 by WP on November 14, 2007 - 11:06 am
Think what our society could do with the $1.2 trillion the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost Americans. Good thing the Chinese keep buying our T-bills and propping up our economy.
206.81.134.3#6 by Glenden Brown on November 14, 2007 - 11:40 am
I’ve heard from friends in the nonprofit sector that the majority of homeless families are homeless for a two year period following a crisis of health of employment. With assistance they are able to regain housing and their financial footing. The lack of guaranteed, affordable healthcare causes a great deal of homelessness.
A majority of what are sometimes referred to as the hardcore homeless – the men on the street talking to themselves – suffer mental illness. With assistance – housing, some supervision, medical care, these people can become functioning members of society. Veterans make a disproportionate number of the homeless. The mentally ill make up disproportionate number of the homeless. Both groups can be helped.
The homeless are treated like throwaway people, disposable persons who don’t matter – that to me is a form of evil that must be named and confronted. Real people in our cities, suffering needlessly because we as a society cannot seem to muster the political will to take action. The resources needed to help the homeless are miniscule compared to the unbelievable costs of blowing up Iraq.
Homeless men and women (the term bag lady makes it sound almost pretty) wander our streets, delusional, prisons of their minds. We turn away because they’re dirty or scary. It’s long past time to take action.
We call ourselves the wealthiest society in history and yet we permit people in society to sleep under viaducts, to barely survive living on the scraps they can find in dumpsters, preyed upon by those meaner and more violent, tormented and ignored.
205.134.201.214#7 by glenn on November 14, 2007 - 12:44 pm
Fundamentally the reason we don’t care for one another is that we are diverse with no common culture, and soon no common language. Diversity leads to perversity. Iraq is a classic example, as are the Balkans, and the currently balkanizing United States.
Europe manages as a culture with a common language, English. Most everyone speaks it.
Caring for your own is primary, and I don’t see anyone that owns a home and space from being barred from taking the homeless in. It is always someone elses’ program. The shame is only window dressing, I don’t believe it serious, but for show only.
Great to agree Allie, for the future, point to the facts and show me where I am factually wrong. Most of the time I am writing for the benefit of those that would display their arguments and facts in the arena of ideas, but they rarely come. It is why the left gets nowhere, the ideas are weak, and live only in conviction and less in practicality.
166.70.9.208#8 by Larry Bergan on November 18, 2007 - 2:30 am
This administration wants to make it easy for people to make money WITH their money, (or the money of their parents), without lifting a finger to actually contribute something to society. I’m talking about the stock market.
Making money with money produces nothing. No goods, no services, NOTHING. How can it? If your plumber was sitting on his lazy ass raking in stock market profits, your toilet wouldn’t work. A rich man could hire a thousand plumbers and pay them, but in the end, it’s the plumber who provides the service and it is he who should make the money in a sane world. Anything else is a scam.
Money means nothing unless it represents an honest payoff for a job well done. What else could it possibly be for.
So what’s worse? A beggar, or somebody who never had to beg? Who worked harder?
166.70.54.52#9 by Allie on November 18, 2007 - 9:14 am
Of course, working is preferable to begging, but I think you’re looking at it based on your own history and experiences. Not everyone has a history or the experience that prepares them to know how to work. Some people need help being taught how to work.
166.70.9.254#10 by Anonymous on November 19, 2007 - 5:43 pm
Allie:
Maybe I didn’t make my question clear enough. Let me recant.
So what’s worse? A beggar, or a stockholder who never had to beg? Who worked harder?
205.134.201.214#11 by glenn on November 19, 2007 - 6:31 pm
Some societies have to be taught how to work.
166.70.54.52#12 by Allie on November 19, 2007 - 6:35 pm
I’d say a beggar worked harder. Maybe instead of saying some people need to be taught to work, I should say that some people need to be taught to work in jobs other than begging (or being stockholders?).