4 ms·

How d'you know what most people's experience with the homeless is? Also, distinguishing between "homeless" and "chronically homeless" (which makes it sound like

How d'you know what most people's experience with the homeless is? Also, distinguishing between "homeless" and "chronically homeless" (which makes it sound like an extreme sport) by your definition can only happen once you've been stabbed, stabbed another, or squeezed one out on the sidewalk. So until one of these things happen you don't really know. Forgive me, but it sounds to me like an easy way to justify hating on the homeless. Chronic or otherwise.

darawk 8y ago
There's a pretty reasonable distinction to be drawn here. The real problem here is that the homeless that most people experience really are what they seem like: drug addicted, mentally incapacitated, or completely irresponsible and unaccountable. These people are not good candidates for jobs, and it would indeed be surprising to see them successful in a role like this. However, there's a large class of people that are not out there panhandling, not making themselves visible to regular people who are homeless, and are perfectly responsible and capable. These people can and are benefiting from programs like this. Let's not blur this distinction for some misguided sense of social justice.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  One also has to wonder how many of the homeless who use drugs, or have mental issues came to do so because of their situational homelessness. It really isn't difficult to imagine becoming homeless, which then leads to depression and other mental issues and then using drugs to escape that. So some proportion of the "problem group" are going to be redeemable too.
  - pmiller2 8y ago
    This is the theory behind "housing first" programs, and it works. Literally getting people off the street provides stability that helps them get other things in their life right.
  - darawk 8y ago
    Ya, I don't mean to suggest that they're all irredeemable. They're definitely not. But the problem group is a lot riskier and takes a lot more investment to help.
  - bojackstorkman 8y ago
    In my experience of living in multiple shelters/streets/camps in multiple cities is that there is a lot of truth to this idea. For example, I knew a man that was incredibly ornery, almost always drunk, and prone to occasional violent outbursts. Everybody (including the rest of us in the camp) avoided him. About a year after I left the camp, I ran into his daughter and learned that he had been a normal, successful eletrician that had sustained a severe brain injury at work, and his employer managed to avoid paying for workman's compensation or helping with his medical bills, leaving him permanently disabled and with no safety net. I knew another man that also received a brain injury during a car crash in which he also lost the only extant copy of his masters' thesis in anthropology (the crash occurred in the 80s), and was in a similar position. I knew a man that actually managed to get a section 8 apartment, but lost it because he opted to move back to the riverbottom and let a pregnant homeless woman stay in it in his stead. He was then also cut off from ALL social programs. I saw a man get banned for life from an entire network of shelters spanning a huge chunk of the state for taking three (3!) single-use packets of Tide laundry detergent out of the facility. I have also met a (very) small handful of genuinely odd people that just preferred to live mostly off the grid but still wanted to be near their families/veterinary clinic/spouse's grave/etc. but they are very much the exception and not the rule. I think that for some people with limited experience with the homeless, people that are chronically homeless might appear to all fall into this category. I do 't think this happens all the time, or even to a majority of the population, but it is an idea that I have heard repeated numerous times. From my experience, the details are almost always surprising, and the search for simple explanations or solutions is frustratingly unsatisfying.
  - jhayward 8y ago
    You have the causality backwards. Homelessness doesn't cause depression, which is a biological illness. Depression, uncontrollable anxiety, addiction, etc. are the root cause of the vast, vast majority of homelessness.
    - ada1981 8y ago
      Citation, please?
      - jhayward 8y ago
        Two thirds of homeless people reported alcohol or drug abuse led to their homelessness [1]. 20 to 25% of the homeless have severe mental health issues. [2] [1] http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/addiction.pdf http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/addiction.pdf [2] http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pdf http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pd...
  - usrusr 8y ago
    The links seems so obvious to me with the often mentioned "mental health" symptom of shouting at random strangers: in a high density environment, our universal gut reaction to seeing a stranger in misery is to pretend that we did not notice, that we did not see them. I've never been on the receiving end of this, but I imagine that it can only be a matter of time until a healthy human mind will try anything to break that invisible barrier (even if it only makes things worse).
pmiller2 8y ago
Regardless of what "most peoples' experience" is, people tend to remember things that are extreme. So, the smelly, ranting, alcoholic sticks in one's head. The person sitting quietly at the BART station with a sign, not so much. Someone shooting up in the middle of the station, hell yeah. Who remembers anyone who's simply camping for the day at the public library and using it to try and search for jobs? I can tell you, I've seen all of those and more. I worked with homeless people long term in a shelter for 2 years, and, of the folks I came into direct contact with every day, I don't think 95% of them could survive contact with the real world of employment, paying rent, etc. due to disability (mental or physical), addictions, and/or general lack of a support system. Granted, I worked with people who were not in the shelter's higher tier programs (where housing was provided for a set period, and job assistance provided, in exchange for attending training and religious sessions). The more vulnerable ones, the ones I worked with, were the ones you'd see out on the street, collecting cans and bottles or panhandling. People "hate" the homeless because the ones they come into contact with who are visibly homeless are often not functional members of society. Simply put, they violate social norms in a way that disgusts most people. Nobody "hates" someone who's couch surfing or living in a car, but who's clean, not an addict, and is trying to get out of the situation the best they can.
- usrusr 8y ago
  > in exchange for attending training and religious sessions That just leaves me speechless

darawk 8y ago

There's a pretty reasonable distinction to be drawn here. The real problem here is that the homeless that most people experience really are what they seem like: drug addicted, mentally incapacitated, or completely irresponsible and unaccountable. These people are not good candidates for jobs, and it would indeed be surprising to see them successful in a role like this. However, there's a large class of people that are not out there panhandling, not making themselves visible to regular people who are homeless, and are perfectly responsible and capable. These people can and are benefiting from programs like this. Let's not blur this distinction for some misguided sense of social justice.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
One also has to wonder how many of the homeless who use drugs, or have mental issues came to do so because of their situational homelessness. It really isn't difficult to imagine becoming homeless, which then leads to depression and other mental issues and then using drugs to escape that. So some proportion of the "problem group" are going to be redeemable too.
- pmiller2 8y ago
  This is the theory behind "housing first" programs, and it works. Literally getting people off the street provides stability that helps them get other things in their life right.
- darawk 8y ago
  Ya, I don't mean to suggest that they're all irredeemable. They're definitely not. But the problem group is a lot riskier and takes a lot more investment to help.
- bojackstorkman 8y ago
  In my experience of living in multiple shelters/streets/camps in multiple cities is that there is a lot of truth to this idea. For example, I knew a man that was incredibly ornery, almost always drunk, and prone to occasional violent outbursts. Everybody (including the rest of us in the camp) avoided him. About a year after I left the camp, I ran into his daughter and learned that he had been a normal, successful eletrician that had sustained a severe brain injury at work, and his employer managed to avoid paying for workman's compensation or helping with his medical bills, leaving him permanently disabled and with no safety net. I knew another man that also received a brain injury during a car crash in which he also lost the only extant copy of his masters' thesis in anthropology (the crash occurred in the 80s), and was in a similar position. I knew a man that actually managed to get a section 8 apartment, but lost it because he opted to move back to the riverbottom and let a pregnant homeless woman stay in it in his stead. He was then also cut off from ALL social programs. I saw a man get banned for life from an entire network of shelters spanning a huge chunk of the state for taking three (3!) single-use packets of Tide laundry detergent out of the facility. I have also met a (very) small handful of genuinely odd people that just preferred to live mostly off the grid but still wanted to be near their families/veterinary clinic/spouse's grave/etc. but they are very much the exception and not the rule. I think that for some people with limited experience with the homeless, people that are chronically homeless might appear to all fall into this category. I do 't think this happens all the time, or even to a majority of the population, but it is an idea that I have heard repeated numerous times. From my experience, the details are almost always surprising, and the search for simple explanations or solutions is frustratingly unsatisfying.
- jhayward 8y ago
  You have the causality backwards. Homelessness doesn't cause depression, which is a biological illness. Depression, uncontrollable anxiety, addiction, etc. are the root cause of the vast, vast majority of homelessness.
  - ada1981 8y ago
    Citation, please?
    - jhayward 8y ago
      Two thirds of homeless people reported alcohol or drug abuse led to their homelessness [1]. 20 to 25% of the homeless have severe mental health issues. [2] [1] http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/addiction.pdf http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/addiction.pdf [2] http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pdf http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pd...
- usrusr 8y ago
  The links seems so obvious to me with the often mentioned "mental health" symptom of shouting at random strangers: in a high density environment, our universal gut reaction to seeing a stranger in misery is to pretend that we did not notice, that we did not see them. I've never been on the receiving end of this, but I imagine that it can only be a matter of time until a healthy human mind will try anything to break that invisible barrier (even if it only makes things worse).

pmiller2 8y ago

Regardless of what "most peoples' experience" is, people tend to remember things that are extreme. So, the smelly, ranting, alcoholic sticks in one's head. The person sitting quietly at the BART station with a sign, not so much. Someone shooting up in the middle of the station, hell yeah. Who remembers anyone who's simply camping for the day at the public library and using it to try and search for jobs? I can tell you, I've seen all of those and more. I worked with homeless people long term in a shelter for 2 years, and, of the folks I came into direct contact with every day, I don't think 95% of them could survive contact with the real world of employment, paying rent, etc. due to disability (mental or physical), addictions, and/or general lack of a support system. Granted, I worked with people who were not in the shelter's higher tier programs (where housing was provided for a set period, and job assistance provided, in exchange for attending training and religious sessions). The more vulnerable ones, the ones I worked with, were the ones you'd see out on the street, collecting cans and bottles or panhandling. People "hate" the homeless because the ones they come into contact with who are visibly homeless are often not functional members of society. Simply put, they violate social norms in a way that disgusts most people. Nobody "hates" someone who's couch surfing or living in a car, but who's clean, not an addict, and is trying to get out of the situation the best they can.

usrusr 8y ago
> in exchange for attending training and religious sessions That just leaves me speechless