The Homeless.

Diana_a7x:

Does anyone agree that the country should help homeless people or do they?

Even if the person supposibly DESERVED it ((though no one, no matter how stupid etc, should be living on the streets starving to death in the cold and contemplating harming themselfs in one way or another)) I think the country should do something about it. More homeless shelters or something. I honestly don't think even if someone deserved it that it is a way to live.

I do not give money to the homeless. It's nothing personal, it's just the area I live in. I do not feel safe carrying more than a few dollars for tolls. If I am out and I see someone asking for help, I will buy them food. I will go to the nearest fast-food restaurant and get them a meal. They will either take it gratefully and be glad to have a hot meal, or they will get angry and tell me I should have given them money.

The first group, I sympathize with. They have fallen on hard times and need a hand. They will accept a meal gratefully because they have nothing else. I will give them what I have. I gave a guy a Lunchables and a juice box that I didn't eat at lunch one day and he blessed me twice for it. For the ones who are truly in need, I have no problem going without a little, so that I can give them what I have to spare. I am so blessed in my life, I have all that I need and more, it would be selfish of me to keep it all for myself.

The second group, well. If I hand food to someone with a sign asking for help, and they throw it at me or yell at me, they are either a) faking/taking advantage or b) a drunk who wants money for liquor. I don't feel that I need to support anyone's alcohol habit. There is a lot of help here for the homeless so I will usually call and try to alert proper authorities to where they are so they can get help. Alcoholism is a terrible disease, only made worse by homelessness and despair. I can only hope that they are found and helped and find their way back to society.

Something about the people on the very edge of society, feeding off our scraps in what one might call a throwback to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, invokes great romantic interest in me. Sad truth is that once you spend a couple of hours drinking with bums you realise that there most probably isn't any way back for them and even if they get off the streets the damage to their health, both physical and mental caused by years of substance abuse and malnourishment will most probably mean they'll never be able to life a normal life.

I feel bad for homeless people. They don't deserve to live like that even if they are choosing to.
I gave a homeless guy all the change I had when I went to the mall the other day and I felt good about it.

ignore.

i feel bad and its kind of awkward cause i dont know what to do
adults say just to ignore them but if i just walk right by a starving person i get feeling bad
i know some really really try to get jobs and there are others who dont
my uncle took one in and then they said that they rather just live on the street and they didnt want a job

I'm always a little bit wary of the homeless when I go downtown. A lot of them are mentally ill, which is why they're homeless in the first place. A mental hospital was shut down about ten years ago because of lack of money and a lot of the patients where just turned out onto the streets. I feel bad for them but I almost never try to help, because really I'm scared. Some of them can be pretty violent cuz they're sick. There is one guy though, he's a musician who's always on the street corner playing a sax and I always try to give him a few dollars.

tear:

But the thing that disgusts me the most is that there's people who actually LOUGH at people for begging,being drug addicted or just being Homeless !!!!
that really makes me wanna give them a good kick up their ar**e.
and i'm not gonna take that back.

Maybe this is just me, but I REFUSE to give change in order to fund another persons drug addiction, homeless or not.

I would refuse too.

Most homeless people are there for a reason, they have been evicted, they can't afford to pay bills.
A lot of the time this is because all their money goes towards addictions.

^^^ that is not always the case, but most homeless people have become homeless through their own bad choices

^I don't think the majority of homeless people 'do it to themselves'. Especially now in America, I know several families where both the parents have been laid off and they are being threatened with eviction. There are kids at my school who are homeless. Not because their parents are addicts but because they just don't have enough money. Not to mention the number of homeless who are mentally ill; they are sick but have no where and no one to care for them. I think the biggest reason for homelessness in America is that the cost of housing and just living has risen while the minimum wage has stayed the same.

While I don't want to give money the a homeless person who I believe will only spend it on drugs I agree with tear that it is still cruel to laugh at them. That's just heartless. Whether they 'deserve' it or not that's no reason to mock them and laugh at them.

Well...I personally don't think it matters all that much why or how a person has become homeless - the end result is the same; they're still sleeping outside, freezing, starving, alone. Addiction is not something a person wants to have, it's a disease. A person doesn't prefer to be homeless, they just don't know how to integrate into society anymore - they need help; more help than is usually available to them.

I understand what Tabs is saying about having an offer of food thrown back in your face because the person preferred the cash - that does hurt, and it's happened to everyone I know, but the disease is just that strong. The addict doesn't mean to be ungrateful - they just need their drug too much and it's all they can focus on.

By the way, a dangerously insane person is usually wandering around and rambling to themselves or yelling at the air, not politely asking you if you can spare some change, so there is really no reason to be afraid of that person.

I give whenever I can, I would really like to volunteer this year; I've always wanted to and this year I really have nowhere else to go anyway. Sometimes company and understanding along with the hot meal go a long way for someone who is feeling so disconnected from society.

we're pretty. odd.:

I personally don't feel bad for the homeless; I had a huge chat with a mate and my Nan about this.

The homeless get money (In Australia, at least) every week. It's called "the doll" and they get enough to sustain three meals a day and rent a flat. But no, they'd rather spend it on a) drugs, b) alchohol or c) whatever else there is to spend money on.

It's their own damn fault they live in the gutter. Apart from kids. With kids, it's different, because they don't get compo or anything like that.

Wrong. Wrong. WRONG.
Yes, in Australia, people in need are entitled to Centrelink payments - but to collect them, you must have a residential address and a back account. HOMELESS people DON'T HAVE A HOME, therefore an address, and as such are unable to receive money from the government, 'dole' or otherwise. Thus, the cycle continues. Do you think for a minute that these people would be out on the street if they had money being deposited in their account every fortnight? Hell no. These people can't get money given to them because Centrelink needs an address to send them certain documents. Besides that, the process of actually getting started on benefits requires 100 points of ID, which usually entails a birth certificate, driver's licence, phone/electricity bill with their name on it, and a Medicare card (sometimes other stuff is needed to make up the 100 points). How many homeless people do you think have a current, valid driver's licence, or carry a copy of their birth certificate around with them (bearing in mind that a replacement copy costs around $60 and takes six weeks to be mailed out - oh, but there's nowhere to MAIL IT TO)? How many homeless people do you see getting around with a manila folder carrying all their important paperwork so they can do things like apply for Newstart or Youth Allowance?
Your statements are incredibly narrow-minded and uneducated. I suggest you do a little more research before condemning the victims of circumstance.

I could go into more detail about how little money a person receiving welfare gets (ie not enough to pay private rent, and waiting lists for government housing are 4, 5, in some places even 8 years long), but I won't bother because you are obviously not interested in facts, just interested in kicking people while they're down. Can you even begin to imagine what it would feel like to not have anywhere to sleep at night? To have nowhere to shower, no money or place to get some food in your belly?
And you wonder why a huge percentage of homeless people turn to drugs and alcohol in order to try and numb their pain and be able to sleep comfortably in a doorway or a disused carpark.

It completely sickens me that our government is so set on handing billions of dollars to corrupt governments in other countries in a pathetic attempt to help the citizens of that country (not that the people themselves see much of that money, the government just keeps it and distributes it amongst themselves) - but they can't even start helping those in our own country who need the help. They need to stop giving away billions of taxpayer dollars to foreign countries, and start building more homeless shelters, spend more money on programs to aid homeless people get rehabilitated and back into 'normal' society, counselling, therapy and medical treatment for those who are mentally ill... there is so much that the government MUST start doing before they can say things are so good here that we can afford to be helping out other countries...
Sorry, but that's the way I see it.

As far as whether to give money to a homeless person or not, well, I think some of you are naive, some are overly cynical, and the majority of you just don't understand what homeless people are going through.
I used to be one of those people who would go buy a Big Mac and give it to a homeless person, but I realise now that it's probably not the best course of action.
My husband's father was homeless for a good many years, so he knows how homeless people think - and he pointed out to me that if a person is going to give them anything, then just give them money for booze or drugs or food or whatever *they* want to spend it on.
Seriously, I agree with him now that I can see that point of view - think about how a homeless person feels. Think about how they survive, day to day. They barely manage. Why do you think so many of them turn to drugs and alcohol to escape reality? I would now seriously rather give a homeless person a $20 bill so they could just go get drunk for the rest of the week, or get high for a couple of days, or whatever. Being high/drunk is what gets them through the day, it's the one small pleasure they have in a life that is otherwise filled to the brim with despair.
I'd rather know that I made a person happy by allowing them to go get some cheap cask wine, than know I haven't helped at all by buying them greasy fast food (and I still lose money anyway). I know I'd rather be high or drunk and maybe be able to get a decent night's sleep, rather than feeling the concrete beneath my back and the cold air in the middle of winter.

One thing that worries me with the whole economy and all the crap thats going on, is the homeless problem is just getting worse. In Michigan here in the states due to how many thousands of people had to get laid off by the declining car industeries, just means the more evictions and people just being so screwed over.

It seems to me like whenever you think of the Great Depression I think of all those people who lived in shacks just trying to scrap enough together to feed their families for that day, and many went to bed hungry. To the person who was almost mocking people in miss fortune earlier on here, but theres alot of college graduates with families who if they get lucky can get like a paper route while debt collectors are calling at all hours. That could so easily be you.

^ Australia also has numerous branches of the 'Salvos' who do the same job here. There are plenty of other charities and organisations who do similar things like providing shelter, food and counselling to homeless or underprivileged people.
A big charity drive throughout the Christmas period is the 'Smith Family Appeal', which I'm pretty sure helps out the homeless as well as underprivileged families who do have a roof over their heads, but very little else. They and similar charities do things like have the 'adopt-a-family' scheme, where they list several families in the local newspaper and ask the public to contact the charity if they'd like to 'adopt' one of the families - you basically just help them out by buying gifts for the kids, hampers of food or donating whatever you can, and they pass it on to the family you've picked. No, they don't identify names, just 'Family #20 - Mum 27, Dad 29, Girl 10, Boy 9, Girl 2' (the numbers are ages) and you can pick a family based on what your budget is so you can choose age and gender-appropriate toys and stuff like that.
I think it's a great idea, but obviously more needs to be done to help homeless people, including those who are out on their own, not just those with kids waiting for Santa.

America has the Salvation Army and we also have soup kitchens (usually run by churches.) I was referring to soup kitchens when I said I wanted to volunteer this year. I had applied for one of these, but never heard back from them You can't even help when you want to - the other soup kitchens I looked into were "filled." I have some issues with the Salvation Army since I learned that the items you donate wind up getting resold in one of their stores rather than actually given away.

My parents do "Letters to Santa" every year - wherein they take a few of those that the post office receives and try and fill the kids' wish list up. I can't afford to do that this year - I wish that I could. I may be able to come up with an inexpensive board game for our drop box at work, however.

we're pretty. odd.:

I personally don't feel bad for the homeless; they'd rather spend (government money) on a) drugs, b) alchohol or c) whatever else there is to spend money on. It's their own damn fault they live in the gutter.

Wow, that was heartless of you. You know, my husband used to be very fond of the saying "There but for the grace of God goes you." Do you think that I, as a working woman since I am 17 years of age, ever anticipated that the day would come when I would require assistance? Well, it did - never overlook the possibility of circumstances beyond your control, and always remember that karma is a bitch.

Deb:

we're pretty. odd.:

I personally don't feel bad for the homeless; they'd rather spend (government money) on a) drugs, b) alchohol or c) whatever else there is to spend money on. It's their own damn fault they live in the gutter.

Wow, that was heartless of you. You know, my husband used to be very fond of the saying "There but for the grace of God goes you." Do you think that I, as a working woman since I am 17 years of age, ever anticipated that the day would come when I would require assistance? Well, it did - never overlook the possibility of circumstances beyond your control, and always remember that karma is a bitch.

Agreed.
I give money to Shelter (UK Homeless charity) and I buy The Big Issue which gives money to homeless people. I don't give money in general to people begging on the streets. (although I dont see many now, in Manchester, my city, it is illegal to beg on the city streets so many homeless people get moved on) I do, like Tabs, often buy food or hot drinks for people. In Manchester there are charity boxes on the city walls for you to put money in for homeless people and that is collected and used to pay for shelters/hostels for the homeless.

There is a wonderful book by Robert Swindells called "Stone Cold" all about a young lad who ends up living on the streets. It's really good. I teach it in school. Some of you should check it out, it might open your eyes.

I hate the attitude that some people have about homelessness. Who cares if they are homeless due to an addiction or whether they have mental health issues or whether they are running away from home? The fact remains that they are without a roof over their heads and need our help and support.