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I'm from a small town in Oregon that sees a lot of nomadic traveling folk, either homeless or lifestyle (the PCT comes through the area, for instance), and the
by dgzl 8y ago
I'm from a small town in Oregon that sees a lot of nomadic traveling folk, either homeless or lifestyle (the PCT comes through the area, for instance), and the town is generally pretty receptive of these people. Growing up I would hang out and spend time with them, just chatting and playing music and enjoying the area. I carried that to adulthood and I now live in Portland, where the homeless problem is quite severe.
Last weekend, looking at food carts downtown, a man who looked quite disheveled and in shock starts trying to talk with me. He tells me he just got off the bus from the hospital, and that morning he had been attacked with a knife by a homeless woman with gang affiliation. He showed me his wounds and hospital bracelet, and I decided to spend some time with him and try calming him down.
Before long he tells me that he's only been homeless a few months, and before that he was collecting enough SSI to sustain himself. He says a while back he had spent time in jail and been released, but the jail never put that in the manifest. Apparently (someone) looked into his record and it looked like he had escaped, causing him grief that suspended his SSI payments, in turn putting him on the street. He was expecting payments to continue soon.
We talked about things like honor, culture, respect, family. Eventually I let slip that I was a software engineer and he started telling me that he used to really be into Linux, and his old work had him using BSD and Unix, and we eventually started talking about physics which he was much more knowledgeable than I. After I thought his shock was gone and feeling a little better, I bought him some food to help him through the evening.
That same night I had conversation with a different homeless man, who was more rude and rather creepy. He talked a lot about how the homeless are being fed human meat, and how addictive it is.
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A friend who's from a wealthy Asian-dominated town in California tells me there's a service where people will drive around and pick up homeless people and give them a free ride to the neighboring town. The first gentleman in my story above told me a similar thing: Las Vegas was apparently giving free bus tickets to the homeless to come to Oregon, because our homeless services are top-tier.
- berberous 8y agoOn the last bit, that was all over the news for a while. CA and NV had a big fight over it: http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-reaches-400k-settlement-proposal-in-nevada-patient-dumping-case/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-reaches-400k-settlement-proposa...
- justboxing 8y agoCorrect. This was literally nuts. Nevada bused in and dumped over 50 mentally ill patients onto the streets of San Francisco, and the consequence was that you couldn't walk in downtown San Francisco without encountering 1 of these patients acting crazy on the streets. It's somewhat lame that the City settled for a measly compensation of 400K. They should've all been rounded up and send back to Nevada, to the hospitals that they belonged to.
- rboyd 8y agoHow do you determine what hospitals (or city) they belonged to? Just that they were checked in there first? That they had legal residence in some city at some time?
- justboxing 8y agoYou may inspect the "case-by-case nevada patient dumping" document[1] on the SF City Attorney's site to get your answers. [1] sfcityattorney.org - Nevada Patient Dumping => https://www.sfcityattorney.org/category/news/nevada-patient-dumping/ https://www.sfcityattorney.org/category/news/nevada-patient-...
- jdavis703 8y agoSorry, but rounding up American citizens who didn’t commit any crime and shipping them somewhere else seems extremely un-American. This is the kind of thinking that has lead to some of the worst human rights abuses in the 20th century in countries like Germany with concentration camps, and in the US with internment camps.
- barbecue_sauce 8y agoThe term "concentration camp" can be applied to the US camps as well.
- crumpets 8y ago
- robocat 8y ago> Las Vegas was apparently giving free bus tickets to the homeless to come to Oregon, because our homeless services are top-tier. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/... If you send someone half way across the country, it will be difficult to return. They also mention Key West contractually bans anyone who returns from using their homeless services.
- dgzl 8y ago> If you send someone half way across the country, it will be difficult to return. Nevada is actually very close to Oregon, and transportation to LV is quite cheap.
- fiblye 8y agoThe distance between Portland and Las Vegas is roughly the same as the distance between Atlanta and Boston. Not very close, and the ones sending homeless out of Las Vegas know that.
- dgzl 8y agoI suppose you're right, however there are much less interesting stops between PDX and LV. So if you're say, hitchhiking, the chances of finding someone going your direction might be better than someone traveling on the East Coast. On the other hand, the overall population on the Western half of the states is nearly logarithmic of the Eastern side.
- PopeDotNinja 8y agoWhen I was homeless in San Francisco and applying for services, they made sure to mention I could get a one way bus ticket to pretty much anywhere I wanted to go.
- patcon 8y agoNot sure if you're saying this is good or bad, but fwiw: Personal social support networks are important :) This is a great offering. If someone can get to family or a place where they have a supportive network of folks, that is a billion times better than the system on its own trying to take care of them with only institutional compassion I say this as a socialist, not a libertarian or whatever :)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- joebadmo 8y agoPortlander here, I used to work right by the food carts downtown on 10th and Alder. The hospital bracelet guy is one of regulars, he's been running that schtick for literally years. There's a cast off characters like him who are fixtures there. I'm not against compassion for the homeless, but after running into a few of these repeatedly, I tend to refrain from supporting them directly and give to local charities instead. I'm not even arguing that you made a bad decision, just sharing my own experience.
- wallace_f 8y agoReminds me of a guy who went to my school. He lives in Williamsburg as an artist. His family is very wealthy. He is always manufacturing crises (mostly health) to get (more) cash. Once I went over there to see my friend (his roommate at the time) and he'd dressed up a wound and setup a photo of himself "passed out" in front of his art work. People are so weird. I guess he's doing the same gig just a bit more fortunate about his circumstances.
- dgzl 8y agoI wouldn't be surprised if this was a scam, but I'm not convinced. Between my own experiences interacting with the homeless and scammers, seeing his fresh physical wounds (including staples in his head), and the weird amount of knowledge he had about physics and obscure computer operating systems, I just don't see it. If anything, he deserves my help just for being so thorough.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoWhy would society want to reward people who go to great lengths to defraud others?
- gscott 8y agoSomeone needs to tell the homeless guy that with the right doctored up resume he'd be perfect for a Fortune 500 CEO position. The skills are the same.
- chrissnell 8y agoI think your homeless BSD guy could have worked for me. I had a guy on my team in the mid 00's. Ended up getting fired for repeated creepy and bad behavior towards people in the office. I heard that he later he did some time in jail. He has a connection to the Portland area and was a brilliant guy but had serious mental health issues. Did you get this guy's first name?
- dgzl 8y agoI can't remember, but he says he grew up in Beaverton. He looked maybe 40-50 years old. In fact he did say his SSI was given due to some kind of illness he has.
- chrissnell 8y agoI just googled my guy. He is homeless but he's in Salt Lake and apparently in jail, unable to post the $200 he'd need for a $2000 bail for assault on a police officer and illegal camping in a public park. Crazy to think that this guy was tuning PF firewall rules thirteen years ago. Mental illness is a bitch. We need to make it easier to get conservatorships.
- dgzl 8y agoOnce you're on the street, life becomes incredibly more difficult. Physical security, shelter, food, good hygiene, human relationships- everyone needs these things, yet a person's options absolutely dissolve when they're forced onto the street. The best opportunities available are now illegal, making them rethink their moral and ethical responsibilities, further turning the crank of depression, anxiety, suffering. This man I talked with, one of our conversations was about the daily offerings of free food in Portland for essentially anyone willing to show up. He listed off several places, praising the eggs and waffles at one place, but dismissing the bland oatmeal of another. It gave me hope to see him happily reminiscing the generous efforts of those willing to offer their time, skill and supply. I think it's important to understand that the homeless are more like regular people than we want to admit. There are some sweet and kind people who try really hard to maintain, and there are some bastards who are fine, or even excited, to ruin it for everyone. The question is, how do we identify those willing to work hard at rehabilitation, against those who are happy to commit real crimes against people? How can we offer them cheap housing and meaningful work?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]