5 ms·

Society doesn't look at homeless men the same way. There's far more shelters for women and children, a big reason why most of the visible homeless are male.

by slackingoff2017 9y ago

astrodust 9y ago
Every shelter is for men by default. Women-only shelters are the exception and are far fewer in numbers. Shelters can be ugly, violent places, especially if there's a cold-weather snap and they have to open their doors to those with severe behavioural issues. The big reason why most of the homeless are male is because as rough an existence as that is, they can survive out there. Women simply do not last as long. They're pressured into sex work, they're dragged into abusive relationships, or they die. Women are also more likely to be homeless with kids, a nightmare scenario. They have significantly more motivation to get off the street by any means necessary if they're in that situation. By comparison a homeless old male can just stumble along at rock bottom for decades. Survivorship bias. Be careful how you observe things.
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  > Every shelter is for men by default. Women-only shelters are the exception and are far fewer in numbers You're presenting that as comparing the situation for men and women, but it's not doing that. You're comparing shelters that let in men (i.e. including both men-only and mixed shelters) vs shelters that only let in women. You could just as equivalently switched the genders in the quote and it's be just as much true "Every shelter is for women by default. Men-only shelters are the exception and are far fewer in numbers" EDIT: to all the people downvoting this, care to say what you think the problem is with what I've said?
  - astrodust 9y ago
    > You could just as equivalently switched the genders in the quote and it's be just as much true... Except that's not true. In most cities there's a handful of women-only shelters, even fewer for women with children, and yet there's a multitude of other options not gender-specific. Here there's maybe six women-specific shelters, yet there's dozens of Salvation Army locations alone. On top of that there's other organizations that offer shelter services. They do their best to cater to everyone that abides by the rules, but there's an inherent risk in those places. It's not that women are weak any more than men are drug addicts, but shelters don't represent society as a whole. They're heavily skewed towards certain portions of the population, and that portion tends to have problems with mental illness, substance abuse, and a multitude of other issues. It's not the environment you'd want to be in under any circumstances, especially not as a woman.
    - jamesrcole 9y ago
      Pointing out that "In most cities there's a handful of women-only shelters, even fewer for women with children, and yet there's a multitude of other options not gender-specific" does not make what I said wrong! It's just making the same error I was talking about my original comment. Read it again carefully.
      - astrodust 9y ago
        If I said "there are fewer billionaires in the country than millionaires" would you insist that "you could just as equivalently switched the two and it's be just as much true..."? Logic doesn't work that way.
        jamesrcole 9y ago
        Go and read the two sentences in question, and what I said about them. It's completely different to that. #(X or Y) > #(Y-only) vs #(Y or X) > #(X-only) See how these can both be true? (See how meaningless the comparison in either one of those statements actually is? That was the point I was making). It seems to me that people are so ideologically driven in their thinking that they could only see what I was saying as "taking one side, to the exclusion of the other". That is, people treating my statement as like #X > #Y is equivalent to #Y > #X like you did in your millionaires/billionaires attempt at an analogy. Even though if you take the ideological blinkers off it is plainly obvious that I'm not saying anything at all like that. My original comment would be really greyed out if not for also having received a lot of upvotes along with all the downvotes (the points count on it has swung up and down over time).
- slackingoff2017 9y ago
  How on Earth is a homeless shelter for males by default? Just because it's a shitty place to be you're saying it's for men and that women should have their own shelters where men are not allowed, that are presumably less shitty. How does this make any sense? It's the sexist "women are weak" argument without any obsfucation. This is the exact reason why there's more shelters for women than men, broken sexist logic like this.
  - astrodust 9y ago
    > This is the exact reason why there's more shelters for women than men... There's more "women-only" shelters than there are men-only ones, but it's patently false to state there's more women-only shelters than there are non-specific shelters.
    - jamesrcole 9y ago
      > it's patently false to state there's more women-only shelters than there are non-specific shelters. show me who tried to state that

Society doesn't look at homeless men the same way. There's far more shelters for women and children, a big reason why most of the visible homeless are male.

astrodust 9y ago

Every shelter is for men by default. Women-only shelters are the exception and are far fewer in numbers. Shelters can be ugly, violent places, especially if there's a cold-weather snap and they have to open their doors to those with severe behavioural issues. The big reason why most of the homeless are male is because as rough an existence as that is, they can survive out there. Women simply do not last as long. They're pressured into sex work, they're dragged into abusive relationships, or they die. Women are also more likely to be homeless with kids, a nightmare scenario. They have significantly more motivation to get off the street by any means necessary if they're in that situation. By comparison a homeless old male can just stumble along at rock bottom for decades. Survivorship bias. Be careful how you observe things.

jamesrcole 9y ago
> Every shelter is for men by default. Women-only shelters are the exception and are far fewer in numbers You're presenting that as comparing the situation for men and women, but it's not doing that. You're comparing shelters that let in men (i.e. including both men-only and mixed shelters) vs shelters that only let in women. You could just as equivalently switched the genders in the quote and it's be just as much true "Every shelter is for women by default. Men-only shelters are the exception and are far fewer in numbers" EDIT: to all the people downvoting this, care to say what you think the problem is with what I've said?
- astrodust 9y ago
  > You could just as equivalently switched the genders in the quote and it's be just as much true... Except that's not true. In most cities there's a handful of women-only shelters, even fewer for women with children, and yet there's a multitude of other options not gender-specific. Here there's maybe six women-specific shelters, yet there's dozens of Salvation Army locations alone. On top of that there's other organizations that offer shelter services. They do their best to cater to everyone that abides by the rules, but there's an inherent risk in those places. It's not that women are weak any more than men are drug addicts, but shelters don't represent society as a whole. They're heavily skewed towards certain portions of the population, and that portion tends to have problems with mental illness, substance abuse, and a multitude of other issues. It's not the environment you'd want to be in under any circumstances, especially not as a woman.
  - jamesrcole 9y ago
    Pointing out that "In most cities there's a handful of women-only shelters, even fewer for women with children, and yet there's a multitude of other options not gender-specific" does not make what I said wrong! It's just making the same error I was talking about my original comment. Read it again carefully.
    - astrodust 9y ago
      If I said "there are fewer billionaires in the country than millionaires" would you insist that "you could just as equivalently switched the two and it's be just as much true..."? Logic doesn't work that way.
      - jamesrcole 9y ago
        Go and read the two sentences in question, and what I said about them. It's completely different to that. #(X or Y) > #(Y-only) vs #(Y or X) > #(X-only) See how these can both be true? (See how meaningless the comparison in either one of those statements actually is? That was the point I was making). It seems to me that people are so ideologically driven in their thinking that they could only see what I was saying as "taking one side, to the exclusion of the other". That is, people treating my statement as like #X > #Y is equivalent to #Y > #X like you did in your millionaires/billionaires attempt at an analogy. Even though if you take the ideological blinkers off it is plainly obvious that I'm not saying anything at all like that. My original comment would be really greyed out if not for also having received a lot of upvotes along with all the downvotes (the points count on it has swung up and down over time).
slackingoff2017 9y ago
How on Earth is a homeless shelter for males by default? Just because it's a shitty place to be you're saying it's for men and that women should have their own shelters where men are not allowed, that are presumably less shitty. How does this make any sense? It's the sexist "women are weak" argument without any obsfucation. This is the exact reason why there's more shelters for women than men, broken sexist logic like this.
- astrodust 9y ago
  > This is the exact reason why there's more shelters for women than men... There's more "women-only" shelters than there are men-only ones, but it's patently false to state there's more women-only shelters than there are non-specific shelters.
  - jamesrcole 9y ago
    > it's patently false to state there's more women-only shelters than there are non-specific shelters. show me who tried to state that