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Profiles of people living in homeless encampments, rarely what you’d expect
- rdubs333 4y agoI lost everything due to Covid in 2020. I have been on and off homeless since. Not able to find affordable or stable housing. I wrote three books, one of which is top ten on Apple Books for "design system", while living in parking lots at the library. I get continually harassed and fired for things I cant help. Americans are cruel to the homeless. Its quite disturbing. I have met so many that quite literally will never get out of their situation. No facilities, no showers. One lost a leg due to infection. Never trust your eyes only and most humans these days dont even use theirs very good.
- changoplatanero 4y agoOur government collects a lot of taxes for helping people like you. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that that’s not working but do you have any insight into why none of the homeless assistance projects aren’t capable of bringing you back to a stable situation?
- cvccvroomvroom 4y agoIt's a haphazard, inconsistent, bureaucratic, unkind, demeaning patchwork that isn't funded enough to meet the needs of people left-out in the actual cold. It's not meant to help people improve their situation because it treats people consistently like lazy criminals who don't want help and can't be helped. - Section 8 housing takes forever. - Work programs are for menial jobs that don't pay anywhere close to livable wages. - Cash assistance amounts to $5 per day. - Food assistance amounts to $7 per day (without a means of refrigeration). - Medic-aid is barely accepted by any doctors except random ones. Medicare with SSDI takes years to get. - Make just enough to try to get ahead, then you can't afford medications. Working severely penalizes the destitute into even more impossible situations. - Everything takes longer and is more difficult and more expensive: laundry, showering, and transportation. - Social workers don't go outdoors in most of America. They sit at desks, fill out paperwork, and randomly stop benefits based on errors, assumptions, and their lack of communication.
- ceeplusplus 4y ago> Medic-aid is barely accepted by any doctors except random ones What makes you think any sort of government intervention will solve this? If you implement universal healthcare these doctors will still have revenue streams from rich people and won't need to take poor patients. You can't force doctors to treat people they don't want to.
- the_only_law 4y agoThey never said that. All they did was describe why the current American system sucks.
- vladvasiliu 4y agoAn even more absurd form of this is happening in France. There used to be some "abuse" (according to the national health insurance administration) where people would, supposedly, try to see specialists for no reason. So they figured that everyone should have a "family doctor" and, with a few exceptions (dentist, eyes, maybe others) you always have to go through this doctor first. Now most of these doctors are "full" and won't take any new clients. You don't need to be poor, they don't even ask your situation. If you call them up, they'll ask you if the doc knows you. If not, they hang up. And even if they're your family doctor, you better hope your cough isn't anything too urgent, 'cause they're in no hurry to see you. Of course, there are doctors who will see you, but usually they charge extra, so they're not fully covered by the "free" healthcare, if at all.
- baby 4y agoThat’s mostly a problem in small towns, not that it makes the problem OK
- vladvasiliu 4y agoFrom what I hear it's brutal in small towns. My post above came from my own experience, living in Paris proper.
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- rdubs333 4y agourban campgrounds. even Rome had showers. people like me. i am a web developer and artist. i never took no help from any of your tax dollars. i paid my way or asked permission. very rarely broke laws. racially discriminated, income discriminated. people like me is part of the problem
- soared 4y agoSeems weird to complain about a bad situation and then refuse the help that exists.
- rdubs333 4y agoI wouldn't say refuse, I was accepted to a program but got mugged and had to move to new location only to get mugged again. I think you are grossly over estimating the help there is or the strings tied to that help. I do still have legs and a brain and I work as much as I can, give back but I also dont sell out my work or myself or my goals or freedom.
- Avicebron 4y agowhy do you refer to yourself on your website in third person? genuinely curious, as marketing goes, thats a red flag. also the load time is wack, and the stats aren't backed up, im confused
- rdubs333 4y agored flag for what? ask me anything. good feedback but i guess i been so many roles over years i rather be objective about my accomplishments. the man, the myth, the legend!!!
- ham-sandwich 4y agoYou should seek therapy, there’s a few red flags here
- Avicebron 4y ago
- lupire 4y agoOne of the major problems is that inexpensive housing is illegal. India has slums, and Brazil has favelas. They aren't good but they are better than the street. US used to have rooming houses. Now, if you cant afford an apartment, and can't get an expensive one gifted from the state, you have to live in the street. (Not in your car; that's usually illegal too.)
- rdubs333 4y agorussia has house shares that work good for them
- kingcharles 4y agoIf you're an immigrant like me, then a lot of these services are not available to you in the USA. Or, if you do take advantage of any of them you are permanently excluded for applying for citizenship.
- hattmall 4y agoI don't understand how is this possible exactly? A minimum wage job will get you at least $900 a month. You can get an apartment for $500. Health Insurance is $30, utilities $200. You can get a minimum of $50 per week in food stamps. You will get about $1000 in EITC each year. That is with bare-bones, $7.25 an hour minimum wage and the lowest level of assistance. With a tiny bit of advancement you can afford much more.
- rhacker 4y agoI agree with you. But I think some people are so sick of hearing about $400k salaries and those people complaining of a pay cut since inflation outpaced their $15k raise in 2022 that they might be "fighting the system" by living in tents next to rich people making $415k.
- hattmall 4y agoThat may be, but I didn't get that from the OP.
- me_me_mu_mu 4y agoAre you trolling, not in the US, or from the past?
- hattmall 4y agoNo, I'm not trolling and I live in the US. What part of the specifics do you take issue with?
- objectivetruth 4y agoI'll bite! >>You can get an apartment for $500. Health Insurance is $30, utilities $200 Right off the bat, you're not "getting an apartment for $500." MAYBE you can find someone trustworthy who can rent you a bedroom for $500/month in some cities but: As of 2020, monthly rent averaged $1,164 nationwide; median rent is $1,104. -- https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/renting-statistics https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/renting-statistics Only 7% of US counties have 1-bedroom apartments affordable on the prevailing minimum wage. -- https://reports.nlihc.org/oor https://reports.nlihc.org/oor Also, you need first month's rent ($500), security deposit ($500-$1000), utility deposit ($50 - $500), and sometimes last month's rent ($500). So now we're talking a few grand. Better hope you spent the past three months working that guaranteed-40-hours/week minimum wage job without spending a single penny of your wages! I also hope that your job is very close to your new apartment because you're going to need to spend a LOT of time chasing all the benefits that you seem to think are easily handed out and you don't have money for transit. Nope, you can't afford to take a whole day off work to wait in line for a free transit pass -- after all, you're going to spend $700 of this month's $900 income on housing and utilities! At least make up numbers from this century if you're going to pull this Horatio Alger stuff :-)
- AussieWog93 4y agoJust an offhand comment, but looking through your personal site[1] makes it seems like you're living this amazing life and smashing goals. One of those real "Instagram vs. Reality" contrasts. [1]https://rwoodall.com/ https://rwoodall.com/
- rdubs333 4y agothanks for viewing my portfolio i worked really hard for those pieces and accomplishments. not trying to be anything its got its ups m downs
- weakfish 4y agoFantastic read. I loved David’s story, especially.
- drc500free 4y agoThese are touching portraits of people's backgrounds. However, they are exactly the archetypes I expect in the Venice homeless encampments. The first person is an addict who chops up stolen bikes. The second person has untreated mental health issues. The third person came to LA with no money or employment because the weather was nicer. They've all had struggles and we need better support for all of them, but nothing surprising here. It is nice to get a more individualized and personal background on each, it's easy to dehumanize when you're walking by and afraid of who is the 1-in-100 that's dangerous.
- throw93232 4y ago
- Stevvo 4y agoIf I was homeless, I'd probably end up doing drugs. Shitty circumstances make you do shitty things.
- jvanderbot 4y agoThat's probably true for you. It's also true for many others that drug addiction causes these issues
- temp8964 4y agoHow do you do drugs when you don’t have money to buy drugs?
- simonh 4y agoYou survive off food banks and soup kitchens, and beg for drug and booze money.
- winphone1974 4y agoThis is the PG version that Disney would use. The reality is a lot more scary and dangerous.
- Stevvo 4y agoI recommend the YouTube channel 'Invisible People' if you are interested in hearing homeless people's stories. Each video is unedited; you get it as they tell it.
- outside1234 4y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20220530163626/https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-05-29/venice-library-homeless-encampment-interviews https://web.archive.org/web/20220530163626/https://www.latim...
- outside1234 4y agoPeople fall on hard times in Texas and Colorado and move to California. Homelessness is a national problem that manifests itself in places where we take care of the homeless.
- bigmattystyles 4y agoThe worst part of that are the demagogues who then paint California as some post-apocalyptic hell-hole. There's no doubt cities have problems with homeless, encampments, etc... but for many good old boys to paint this as a blue state, liberal city problem is such a bad faith argument.
- outside1234 4y agoYes - that was the point of my comment. Homelessness is a national problem that manifests itself in the places that are trying to take care of people.
- teakettle42 4y agoOr perhaps it manifests itself in the places that most enable self-destructive behaviors.
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- bigmattystyles 4y agoI don't think so - there are huge meth and oxy problems in the middle of the country and the people who can sustain it either have money or are leveraging relationships. Those that make it out to the coasts are no different in their abuse, they just have no one else to turn to.
- gamblor956 4y ago
- xt00 4y agoI wonder if there are some folks within the city council or whatever governmental group that essentially allows people to camp / live in this area that want this to be a public eye sore to get public support to do something about it? Because if you take at face value what these folks say, they like the fact that the location is beautiful and it’s convenient for them in various ways. The same reasons members of the public would also enjoy coming to the same area but are not able to enjoy it because the area is an eye sore / does not feel safe. Caring about the homeless and allowing them to live in a gorgeous public park seems like really the only goal to allow it is to want to generate public discussion since it is so obviously unfair to people who live nearby, people who want to visit it and enjoy it, and businesses in the area that are impacted by the homeless needing bathrooms / leaving trash / causing problems (likely a small minority who cause problems but still the problems do exist let’s be real).
- id 4y agoYou know what's even more unfair than you having to deal with this "eye sore"? That these people are homeless. Have some empathy. They are people, too.
- mechanical_bear 4y agoWhy is no one ever told to have empathy for the people whose livelihoods and homes are impacted by this problem?
- PartiallyTyped 4y agoRelative impact of issues?
- saagarjha 4y agoBecause one group has a roof over their heads and one doesn't?
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- guerrilla 4y agoIf you like this kind of thing, then you'll love Soft White Underbelly [1][2] which is a collection of hundreds of intimate, colorful and brutal interviews done by Mark Laita with people from Skid Row (and elsewhere.) Then there's also Invisible People which has been interviewing homeless people for even longer. [3][4][5] 1. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCvcd0FYi58LwyTQP9LITpA/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCvcd0FYi58LwyTQP9LITpA/vid... 2. https://www.softwhiteunderbelly.com/ https://www.softwhiteunderbelly.com/ 3. https://www.youtube.com/c/InvisiblePeople https://www.youtube.com/c/InvisiblePeople 4. https://invisiblepeople.tv/ https://invisiblepeople.tv/ 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_People_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_People_(organization...
- moralestapia 4y ago>https://www.softwhiteunderbelly.com/ https://www.softwhiteunderbelly.com/ >$197.95 a month after 7-day free trial Holy cr*p! I mean, it's a free market, but that's steep. Edit: Oh, it's $197.95 on the local currency, thought it was USD. Thanks to others who pointed out it's $10USD.
- guerrilla 4y agoThe content is free on YouTube. It's only 10USD though.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y agosays 10/mo on the homepage
- kmonsen 4y agoIt says $10/month for me
- DougMellon 4y agoI’m seeing the following: > $10 a month after 7-day free trial
- wydfre 4y agoI would rather help the homeless than 'connected' people any day of the week.
- gruez 4y ago>rarely what you’d expect Is this a representative sample? The article/title certainly suggests this, but the cynic in me thinks that only the interesting stories get published.
- kleer001 4y agoThat's the real question. I want to see a real survey, not a pile of picked cherries.
- guerrilla 4y agoHere's a few thousand more stories[1], but yes. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31561597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31561597
- gruez 4y ago
- stevesearer 4y agoMy dad works with people to help them find housing and while peoples’ stories are similar with a broad brush, each one is uniquely complex. There are many steps involved to qualify for housing or to apply for disability benefits and it can be pretty overwhelming to navigate. One person needed a birth certificate to get ID, they born in a state on the other side of the country, you had to mail forms to apply for the new birth certificate and then you needed an address where it could be sent, and there was a fee for a new one. My dad’s approach is to not worry about solving Homelessness, but instead to partner with someone and help them solve homelessness in their situation.
- CivBase 4y agoHas he had a high success rate with this approach? If so, maybe we should considering employing a few people with the city or state government to do this professionally.
- stevesearer 4y agoI want to say he’s helped ~ 30 people over the past few years, but can only work with a few clients at a time. Another example was someone who wasn’t homeless (friend of friend), but was facing thousands in monthly medical treatment bills. He came to meet with the person and noticed a military bumper sticker and it ended up that the person was a veteran and likely qualified for VA benefits meaning it would basically be covered. They had some bad VA experiences in the past and had written them off. But that person very well could have ended up on the street with such large medical bills piling up.
- clairity 4y agothere was a homeless woman living in a cocoon of bushes/trees in one of the yards of an apartment building in my neighborhood. she was very tidy, quiet, and had a pet cat. friendly but not quite put together, she was nevertheless a normal part of our neighborhood. one day, some contractors for the owner came and kicked her out of her makeshift home, and put a fence up to keep her out. she was then forced onto the sidewalk/parkway area where she was less safe and secure. about a year later, she was found dead there.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- the_only_law 4y ago> about a year later, she was found dead there. Oh god think of the property values /s
- oh_sigh 4y agoWhy didn't you offer to let her sleep in your house?
- techsupporter 4y agoI have the assumption you think that this is a witty retort meant to "own the" person you're replying to, but how about this for a genuine answer: Because there are often laws or rules against that sort of thing. Taking in a long-term boarding guest who is unrelated to you is against city ordinance in many smaller jurisdictions, and if someone rents (like many do) their leases often prohibit such arrangements. So now instead of one person looking for housing, you have two or more. (Note that my reply omits all of the other arguments about how individual action for collective problems is very unlikely to solve the problem in a meaningful way and this is why we have societies and governments, and so on.)
- oh_sigh 4y agoIt's not a gotcha statement. I believe in individual action, even for global problems. And I believe you're a hypocrite if you accuse others of lacking empathy for the problem while both parties external behavior is exactly the same. It's literally thinking "thoughts and prayers" for homeless people will help them, and deriving some kind of smug moral superiority for that. You say there are "often" laws against what I proposed, which is having someone sleep in a spare bedroom. What percent of Americans do you think are subject to those laws? What is the homeless population? Something like 0.1% of Americans. How many Americans have bleeding hearts when thinking about the homeless? I dunno, maybe 5%? So even if 50% of people lived in restrictive housing locations where they couldn't implement it, you'd still only need 4% of the remaining bleeding hearts to take in a single homeless person to solve the problem.
- bigmattystyles 4y agoAre these profiles or just a reporter transcribing people pitching the best version of themselves? I don't mean any snark, I have a huge amount of sympathy and empathy for the plight of the homeless and more should be done for them, a lot more. However, these 'profiles' seems to smooth out a lot of the complexities involved. To boot, there are only 3 people profiled.
- guerrilla 4y agoMaybe it would help if you could see people, their facial expressions and body language. I linked some collections of video interviews here [1]. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31561597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31561597
- coeneedell 4y agoSeeing the faces of three people doesn’t change the fact that it’s only three people.
- guerrilla 4y agoThere are thousands of interviews on those channels.
- ng12 4y agoYou hit the nail on the head I think. You meet a lot of these types when you spend time doing volunteer work. Eloquent, relatively intelligent, very street smart, and pathologically unable to take accountability for anything in their lives. I suspect it comes from years of taking advantage of the kindness of others, usually due to a history of drug addiction. I don't mean to paint with broad strokes here: there are many kind, honest homeless people who really just need help finding a way to live. There are also a lot of shucksters who will tell you exactly what you want to hear.
- entwife 4y agoI read these stories with skepticism. It does not appear that the reporter investigated any of the facts asserted by the people profiled.
- swgamer 4y ago
- cvccvroomvroom 4y agoThere's a law school dropout/hippie/merchant mariner/retired writer with the NY Daily News and The Village Voice who lives in Los Gatos, Campbell, and Los Gatos. His memory is sharp enough that he could win at Jeopardy.
- firefoxd 4y agoI've been working in Venice Beach for the past 4 years. 2 blocks from that library. Right across the street, someone camped on the empty lot at the intersection. They chose this spot because of the outlet that powered the christmas lights. Few days later, the whole thing caught on fire, including the tent. Few weeks later, the city cleaned it up and installed plants and a fence so no one could live there. Well, someone moved on the other side of the road and ran a daisy chained outlet that went over the intersection and into the plug... It also caught on fire. I was there when the police came in the middle of covid and destroyed all the tents and kicked everyone out. It took a long time, but eventually someone installed a single tent by the library. Then someone else joined. Now there is an entire community that lives there. Venice is the most confusing place in the world, it has million dollar homes with homeless people tents surrounding them. It's really hard to decide what is the right thing to do. There was a man that slept right in front of the door of our building. Sometimes when I'm leaving work in a hurry, I'd stumble on him. I got used to it and didn't report him or anything. But then, he started pooping on the stairs. As terrible as that is, it's not my building. But, the owners have found a cruel and effective solution. They installed sprinklers on the stairs and in the parking lot. These stories resonate with me because those are the people I see outside right now. When you struck a conversation, this is what you hear. Someone who has lived a whole life just to end up here. Young men that look like surfers living the life, they are stuck here. Young ladies wearing fancy clothe and make up, but live in a honda fit. You don't need a mental illness to be homeless here. You can't afford anything anyway.
- kleer001 4y agoThese seem cherry picked and it smells of propaganda. Now, don't get me wrong, it looks awful and I don't want unnecessary suffering. And most of all I bet a lot of those people could slot into housed productive lives if there was a smart and well funded platform for them. That's what I'd love... But I want to see a survey of : Criminal status. Health issues. Drug use. Mental Health. Education. Age. Sex. Gender. Marital Status. And then aptitude tests in English and Math. Maybe even an IQ test. But most of all a Big 5 personality test. Many of those answers could lead towards to matching a person with substitutes or hopefully even a job. My fear is that a majority can never be self sufficient. Who would that be? Low intelligence and low agreeableness. With or without attendant health issues those two dimensions make for a life of pure misery without a rich support network.
- avgcorrection 4y ago[flagged]
- kleer001 4y agoNobody is arguing that. Just because someone's not self sufficient doesn't mean they have to be homeless. Nobody has to be homeless. It's called falling through the cracks. It's a tragedy.
- kleer001 4y agoSorry, your comment got in my craw. But maybe that was your intention. Are you willing to work with someone that's stupid and mean? Are you willing to employ them? Leave them with delicate equipment? Are you willing to live with them while they don't pay rent, don't clean up after themselves, don't do any errands or chores, and watch them slowly self destruct and set flame to the rest of their relationships? I'm not. Most people aren't. The fate of those with low intelligence and low agreeableness makes me weep if I think about it too much. It's awful and there's almost nothing save continual heroic sacrifices from others that can keep them in the same comfort, safety, and dignity that most of us take for granted. They need a strong support network. Be that friends, family, or culture. Show me a modern and productive culture without homelessness and I'll sign up. We should all sign up.
- miralize 4y agoI can't recommend the 99% spinoff podcast "According To Need" enough, really illustrates the situation well & humanizes the problem in a way that isnt done enough. https://99percentinvisible.org/need/ https://99percentinvisible.org/need/
- drc500free 4y agoThis is a fantastic episode, great recommendation.
- gamblor956 4y agoNot a great podcast. It cherry picks the stories to highlight the 1% of homeless who people can empathize with, and leaves out the drug addicts, alcoholics, and dangerously mentally ill that they can't.
- dymk 4y agoI'm reminded of the article the Seattle Times did on a local homeless encampment that was in the Ballard Commons park for over a year. They did their best to make it sympathetic to the people living in the park, but it was hard to take it too seriously when the cover picture chosen had a visible crack pipe in it. Even in the linked article, "Coconut" has a crack pipe in his hand. It's a complex issue, and people tend to talk about different things when discussing the homeless problem. As far as I can tell, there are two groups of people - able people who have been displaced due to financial, medical, job-related reasons and are now homeless, who need social support (in the form of cash) to get out of the poverty hole and not fall back in. And then there's the second group, for whom living on the streets is preferable to entering shelters or rehab facilities due to a crippling drug dependency. This is the group that makes the headlines, mainly because they're the ones making public spaces unsafe (there's a headline every day about an assault in Seattle where somebody gets attacked unprovoked by someone in this second group of people). What do you do with the repeat offenders who refuse to go to rehab and stay clean? Public spaces should be usable by all.
- hackerfromthefu 4y ago"unable to take accountability for anything in their lives" "Public spaces should be usable by all."
- lostmsu 4y agoThat implies proper use man, which for a public street includes not peeing on it and not mugging people.
- photochemsyn 4y agoThese narrative approaches are maybe designed to 'humanize' the homeless for the benefit of the readers of the LA Times and I suppose that's fine, but a more statistical approach is what you'd want if you actually wanted to solve the problem. As far as solutions: 1. Triage first. There's a small fraction of the homeless population incapable of caring for themselves because they've got serious mental issues, and probably need institutional care. Mixing these people in with everyone else is a recipe for disaster. 2. Housing second. Putting people in even minimal housing, like tiny homes, where they can keep their pets too, and have a little bit of privacy and access to bathrooms (shower, toilet) and kitchens (sink, stove, fridge), means they can start getting their lives in order. 3. Jobs third. Once you've got a place to live, you can likely get a job of some kind. This really improves mental well-being, you're part of something else. Doesn't really matter what it is: you have a place to show up to and something useful to do and if you can keep that together, that's a huge help. Now, even with this there will be failures. Some people will be drug addicts and alcoholics (same thing, really) and won't be able to keep down jobs or keep their places in a livable condition. They probably need health care intervention of some kind. As far as the plausibility of all this, well, look at every other country will this kind of basic safety net for their citizens which prevents them from falling below a certain line. They don't have the homeless encampments in every city in their country, do they? But sure, keep on with the tax cuts for the wealthy and the CEOs who make 50X what the entry level workers do and the expensive private health care, and the situation will stay as bad as it is or even get worse. It'll look a lot like Cuba under Batista in the early 1950s, or like Germany's Weimar Republic, and then you'll get either fascist or communist authoritarianism, fun times.
- ilamont 4y agoSteve Lopez (LA Times columnist who also wrote The Soloist) talked with local homeless people in Hollywood a few years ago. I can't find the links now, but some were similar to TFA - local people who ended up on the street owing to a confluence of factors including eviction, injury, addiction, and bad luck. But there were a number of profiles involving people, usually outsiders, who made decision to come to southern California because they wanted to live near the beach (on a $600/month social security check) or they wanted to break into show business or the music industry. One young couple from Detroit had a friend of a friend of a friend who was a producer, bought a one-way ticket to LA and when that connection didn't pan out were stuck on the street. Even Lopez, who has done a lot to document the human tragedy on the streets of LA, seemed a little exasperated by these cases which had their origins in unrealistic assumptions about making it big or leading some sort of dream life in LA ... and the burden put on the already overwhelmed system to help people in need. I also recommend viewing some of the "Invisible People" interviews all over North America and sometimes Europe: https://www.youtube.com/c/InvisiblePeople/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/InvisiblePeople/videos
- mmckelvy 4y agoI live in West Los Angeles and have been by this encampment, as well as many others throughout West LA. The article portrays the encampment as some sort of "community" where people who have made a few bad decisions or caught a few bad breaks have come to "get back on their feet". The reality is this encampment, like many others, is pretty close to hell on earth. It's a site of abject misery, squalor, and violence. People regularly get stabbed, beaten, and raped there. The people in the camp set fires, scream wildly at all hours of the day and night, fight with the fire department, consume hard drugs openly (i.e. meth and fentanyl), and destroy the surrounding environment with an astounding amount of trash and human waste. The park they occupy as well as the nearby library are now unusable by the general public.
- quacked 4y agoThe response to these types of articles always reminds me of that video about the purported ex-KGB agent talking about "demoralization"--even when shown "facts" in front of their very eyes, the demoralized are unwilling to believe. An example of similar journalism--here's a cover story from the Madison, WI local paper "painting a picture" of the "troubled" life of a "local activist" after his arrest went semi-viral a few years ago: https://isthmus.com/news/cover-story/in-his-name/ https://isthmus.com/news/cover-story/in-his-name/ For some reason, "empathy for the unfortunate" has turned into "a complete inability to prescribe moral judgements against anyone who meets a certain set of criteria".
- stmfreak 4y agoStories are exactly what I’d expect: Drugs. They don’t say it directly, but woven throughout all these sad stories is a lifetime of abuse.
- zephrx1111 4y agoI saw many comments are talking about "empathy" here. Does anybody agree that too much empathy is actually part of the problem?
- mbrodersen 4y agoWhat I have learned from watching lots of interviews with drug addicts and homeless is that some people are so broken by life that it is impossible to fix them. No amount of resources spent on “fixing” them will work. All we can do is to minimise the number of kids who get broken in early childhood by parents/family/neighbourhood, giving them a chance to avoid the same destiny. Having said that, helping does work for the maybe 80% who hasn’t yet become completely broken.