How do the homeless become homeful? What do you think?

[Deja Q]

No money, no home, no education, no clean smell.

With the corporate bureaucracy and the need to have an address amongst everything else, it appears that once you become homeless, there's no way out.

If there is a way out, how do these people live? Multiple low-wage paying jobs as some mass-produced menial material?!

Assuming they pass the pre-employment psychiatric evaluation many corporations are resorting to these days to screen out possible riff-raff?

And don't bother mentioning self-employment, the big corporations are doing the same types of work and kicking the small businesses in the teeth while digging their graves. Naturally, big businesses want all the money, power, and control. Small businesses are a threat to that.

All of that doesn't sound like living to me. Indeed, as stressful as jobs are these days, having more than one can be quite difficult.

I see where corporate society is headed. Society should at least have the dignity to allow people who don't fit their definition of a productive citizen to die peacefully and without pain.

Disagree with my controversial statement? Then YOU tell me a better way for our society's people to work, and I'll help you change society to be a better place. Until there's a plan to better the system and a way to actually make the changes, there is no other way out for some people than death.

[Devoir]

1. What a positive outlook!

Basically you are saying "since the homeless are incapable of escaping their plight, let's just discard them and be done with it"

I am terribly sorry, but I have a lot more faith in the ability of people than that. Let's help free those that have them, of their addictions. Let's feed them, train them, educate them where possible.
Let's value them as people who have possibilities and not just give up on them. People have enormous potential. Sadly, there are some who cannot be helped. But killing them? No. Unfortunately, the easy way out, is rarely the best way.

[Deja Q]

7. Not in the slightest!

I am pinning a sinister society trying to keep what they think are undesireable people out of their system.

Re-read my post with that in mind.

I am blaming the system as it stands and where it is heading.

While they say people need to stand on their own feet, they have no intention of helping people who go down. Even with my current employer, I have seen examples of how the repukes want things to be. "Sinister" doesn't even begin to describe it, it's so repulsive - another word that doesn't even begin to describe the situation either.

The system I want is much like yours; where people are trained and can be put to positive use, for the betterment of society and themselves.

What the heck did you think I was thinking?! That I am SUPPORTIVE of the society as it is being made for us?! Certainly not!!! x( But that is how life is. That is how people must want it to be because people keep voting for the scum. (that's another word that doesn't even begin to describe those people...)

I also speak of myself, from personal experience. If I lose my job, I see little future for myself. I would greatly prefer death than a bunch of shit jobs paying minimum wage (or less if uncompassionatefascistbastard* and his repuke/corporate bastards have their way.)

[FloridaJudy]

13. Some folks are incapable of living on their own

I'm a flaming Liberal from way back when, but this is hard truth.

I have at least two family members who couldn't be trusted to make a cup of tea without burning the house down. I have many, many clients who make me shudder when I see them walk back out the front door of my clinic; all I can think of is "Dear Goddess, keep them safe!" They're all sick, crazy, retarded, or addicted.

A decent society would find a way of taking care of these people. There would be assisted housing, meaningful work, and needed medication and medical care for them. Almost all other developped nations provide this. It's a scandal that the richest nation on earth has written off its most vulnerable citizens.

The old proverb is that "it takes a village to raise a child". It also takes a village to care for an idiot.

We flunk both ways.

[JanMichael]

2. Kill the people of the abyss? Ouch.

But since that's what we do by not providing National Healthcare for All, and various other bad policy choices, I guess it's not too far a stretch.

I'm guessing that you're think of a Logan's Run sort of dismissal?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

4. Fish, plankton, sea greens... protein from the sea!

There... is... no... sanctuary.

[Deja Q]

8. Read this then post #7...

That's what the pukes are aiming for, except for the nice painless death for those they see as as misfits or nonconformists.

I want life to be vastly different.

But I am one man. All of us who want progresive change are simply people. We are unorganized and most of the people in political power don't give a fuck either. Wellstone was arguably the type of person that should be in power. Kucinich definitely so, make no argument aganst him.

Until society is back in the hands of the people and out of the wealthy elite, what I have said (except for the cozy death bit) will become reality, make no mistake. What you've said also fills in the gaps to the puzzle they want us to solve.

And conventional methods will not give us power, especially when THEY are using unconventional methods to keep it. Also expect the 2004 elections to be delayed or cancelled.

And apart from knowing "Logan's Run" is a movie, I know nothing about it.

[camero]

17. Logan's Run

It's a movie about a society that didn't let you live past 30 because they thought anyone who lived longer than that drained the system.

The repugs are working toward that form, except it's based on income and not age. Notice the "euthanasia" and "eugenics" movement within the Bush family.

[htuttle]

3. I got out (or is it 'back in')...but I hadn't stayed 'out' for long

There's an alternate economy out there. Barter, contraband, etc... Hell, there were alternate economies in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin. It's historically been a part of human civilizations far longer than corporate-life have been.

It's more or less developed in different regions, and is more or less illegal in different regions. Then again, the state of being homeless is more or less illegal in different regions, so I suppose it's part of the game.

In any case, many (most) people decide that existence under these conditions is worth living. Especially since those conditions are shared by probably 2/3 of humanity.

And in the US, if one wants it badly enough, you can decide to get 'back in' to the above board economy...or a perhaps a mixture thereof...ain't easy, though. In my case, I 'got by with a little help from my friends'.

Just saying...'the box' (of human life) is a bit bigger than you describe in your post.

[Don_G]

5. Anybody Can Become Homeless

And at any time.

You just see the end result of Regan's policies of turning out the mentally ill and Vet's out on the street.

There are no fancy words nor a philosophy that can describe the circumstances of what many people are going through right now and to lump everyone in similar circumstances not only lessens their chances to climb out but adds to their current despair.

They do their best with what they have. Most escape but a few can't see their way out.

Remember that.

[SiobhanClancy]

6. Thank you...

every case is different,you are right. With so many of out of work(including me) and unable to find work that pays a living wage,I think more people are just a paycheck or two away and barely keeping the wolf away from the door.

[Deja Q]

10. Ah

A pity Reagan doesn't get treated how he's treated the mentally ill then. x(

I apologize if I've added to their despair.

But what can I do to change the system, to progress it out of the pigshit it's descended into thanks to the neo-cons? Voting Dem and signing enough petitions to give me carpal tunnel goes only so far.

I'll give my life if it means a better life for all people. Remember that.

[Don_G]

12. If You Think Of Something

Tell me.

I'm sure that if we think about the situation, we can come up with something.

As for myself, I volunteer at a Day Care center for the homeless. I listen and drag out my Notebook and i70 printer when the occassion calls for it which is pretty much an everyday thing.

I've also helped out a few DUers going through a rough time.

Just don't cut anybody down and do what you can, when you can....

[Deja Q]

15. I didn't realize I was cutting anyone down

Understanding humanity is one of my weak points, you see... I tend to upset people without realizing it.

[Don_G]

16. We All Do Sometimes

I guess I like you because you're capable of both listening and learning. Besides, I used to run several construction crews and their major concern wasn't the same as mine: avoiding the Parole Officer vs the care and well being of my elderly Mom.

We all have our different experiences and opinions on a lot of things, but I will respect your opinion if you respect mine.

'Nuff Said.

[Philostopher]

9. "What to the guys at the top think the homeless are going to do?

Just conveniently crawl off somewhere and die? Oh, wait -- that's exactly what they hope they'll do."

I wish I had a dollar for every time these words came outta my late father's mouth back during the Reagan years. If I had one, I could probably make at least one homeless person 'homeful' for a while.

I saw it two decades ago, I'd have to be blind not to see it now -- they do seem to hope the old, the dispossessed, the homeless and the otherwise inconvenient will just crawl off and die somewhere out of sight.

I don't have an answer, either -- but yeah, this stuff's been hanging around in my head for twenty years. It's the same as 'if everybody in the world is working for ninety cents an hour, who the hell is going to buy a Chevy Blazer?' Dad used to say that, too.

[Nikia]

11. We need to work on this

People are homeless for a variety of reasons. Some need to get help for their addictions or mental illness. Some didn't have a loving, supporting family to help them when they lost their job and had some bad luck. Even if they would be able to work, the homeless are discriminated against when it comes to finding employment among other things. We need to support programs to get people back on their feet again. I think this is a good investment. We incarcerate people who break the law and give them varying levels of support when they are let go by way of parole officers. Let's give people that support before they find themselves in a situation where crime is their only alternative. For people even less hard on their luck, that's why gangs and drug dealing are popular ways of making money in some neighborhoods. There are people capable of working and doing a good job but society does not do a good job of tapping many people's potential and compensating them accordingly.

[grannylib]

14. Stop the charade of the drug war; funnel the funding to a war on

homelessness; renovate existing empty structures into residential units; employ people to assist those who need assistance in maintaining daily life and allow those who are simply too poor to afford housing a place to live in exchange for maintenance/assistance to others/community service. Maybe tax breaks to companies for doing something positive like building affordable housing/providing housing for lowest wage earners, instead of tax breaks for polluting/lining the pockets of the richest...
Yeah, I know, a pipe dream...but just my initial thoughts...

[Bucky]

18. I've worked in a homeless shelter. Transitional housing takes more than $

Money is a good way to solve the homeless problem. However money alone won't do it. People without homes have real big problems and they tend to lack the personal or community support network that it takes to get over those problems.

Money is nice, but the homeless tend to need spiritual, employment, educational, and psychological guidance. Most need 12-step programs and a large minority of them need medication of some sort. It's an extremely complicated problem that won't be improved on with simplistic platitudes.

Obviously I disagree with the original poster who says they should be allowed to just die. The problem seems unsolveable, but giving up on life is never a good answer.

[Interrobang]

19. Bucky, that's not what he said at all!

He didn't say he thought that people should be "allowed to die," he was positing a society (which I think we're rapidly heading for) where the "useless" are encouraged to die, somehow. If you didn't catch how disgusted HypnoToad is with the whole state of affairs, you need reading comprehension remediation.

Personally, HypnoToad, I think the *pressure*'s already there. I'm currently *sans* job, and if it goes on much past March, I'm going to be *sans* fixed address for a while, again. I managed to get out of that one because I never wound up on the street -- I had friends and parents who would let me couch-surf, but I was definitely "at liberty," for quite a while. I got out because I have the skills and the smarts to keep looking for jobs, and had the wherewithal to get showers and stuff. I also don't have (severe) mental illness (I will cop to some situational depression) or addiction to deal with.

However, I will say that my current situation has me feeling like I pretty much want to crawl away and die -- if not now, then at some point in the future. *That's* cultural pressure, and it sucks. It exists, though.