Homelessness

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

^True and agreed, but there are the exceptions of people down on their luck with the legit “will work for food” signs. My blood father (who’s on the the other side of the country from me) has been homeless but he got a job and home and still has them now.

I also have some Christian friends who’ve on multiple occasions taken in homeless people and gotten them jobs and/or into rehab programs. When one particular gentleman’s (who’s actually politically quite conservative) wife died I heard a couple such testimonies about the couple from mourners who attended and later found out from his son (my friend) that there were a bunch of such casdes. Had a seminary professor who would do that too.

Some people just need the leg up.

[Big Blue Lantern Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Big Blue Lantern]

A while back, before Covid appeared, I saw a hand-written cardboard sign discarded on the ground on which someone had written a note asking for money because he had rabies.

I'm not kidding. Some panhandler claimed he had rabies.

It amazes me how many of these people there are, and what a psychological condition they're in. It's no use demanding that they work, because they're unemployable. They just need to be given rooms and gotten off the streets.

These are the kind of cases that need ongoing, systematic support. They often need education and service planning in even the most basic areas. Even the ones who respond well to treatment, and perhaps manage to improve, can sometimes have an external circumstance or a biological complication that leads to another hospitalization. Then the process of recovery starts from ground zero again.

Salute to you for being part of the solution, Trey.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

These are the kind of cases that need ongoing, systematic support. They often need education and service planning in even the most basic areas. Even the ones who respond well to treatment, and perhaps manage to improve, can sometimes have an external circumstance or a biological complication that leads to another hospitalization. Then the process of recovery starts from ground zero again.

Salute to you for being part of the solution, Trey.

I appreciate that. It's rewarding to see those tents disappear.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

A team came out to a convenience story today that I had pointed them to and interviewed five homeless people. One is an especially sad case. He is filthy, shockingly scrawny, and covered with sores. He grunts gibberish and twitches. I hope to God they can get him indoors.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Correction. The number of homeless people in the city of Los Angeles, which is where I live, is 41K. The estimated number in LA County (which includes the city) is 66K.

I suspect that those estimates are low. But I don't agree that there are more of them now than there were ten years ago, which is what I keep hearing. In fact there seem to be a good deal fewer. Van Nuys used to be overrun with them, and it's visually obvious that there aren't nearly as many now. Also I'm getting panhandled much less than I did then.

I think the estimates might have extremely low back then. They're probably still low but more accurate now.

[Mister Ed Horse of a Different Color Find all posts View Profile Close Mister Ed]

Well, here in Portland, there do seem to be a lot more homeless than there were a few years ago. I don't know what the figures are, but the visible presence of homeless people all over the city is FAR greater than it was even 5 years ago.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Well, here in Portland, there do seem to be a lot more homeless than there were a few years ago. I don't know what the figures are, but the visible presence of homeless people all over the city is FAR greater than it was even 5 years ago.

I don't know why homeless people would stay in Portland, with all that rain.

And let me revise those numbers a bit more. Of the 41K homeless people in LA, about 15K are considered chronically homeless. Most of the others will be out there only until someone takes them in.

[Mister Ed Horse of a Different Color Find all posts View Profile Close Mister Ed]

I don't know why homeless people would stay in Portland, with all that rain.

And let me revise those numbers a bit more. Of the 41K homeless people in LA, about 15K are considered chronically homeless. Most of the others will be out there only until someone takes them in.

Technically it rains less than half the year here. Winters are wet, Summers are dry. But yeah, I'd hate to be out on the street during the worst weather here (though while the winters are wet, they are not THAT cold. We get less than 3 inches of snow here a year on average).

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

This morning I had to call the fire department on one who was trespassing in a vacant lot and had started a fire. I didn't want to escalate it to the police. The firemen just told him to leave the lot.

Some of them start fires on lots or in vacant buildings to keep warm, and of course they have no idea how to control a fire, so it gets out of hand.

I read the other day that some politicians want to try to push them into the workforce. But that's a fool's errand. Who is going to hire them, and what jobs are they going to do? A few of them can become successfully employed, but damned few. That money would be much better spent on the working poor. Homeless people just need rooms.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Right now I'm watching firemen knock down a fire in a vacant business on Sepulveda Boulevard. Several vacant businesses nearby are going to suffer major smoke damage.

I'm told that a homeless woman started it. It's a warm day, so she was probably smoking tobacco or something worse.

They've got to be taken off the streets. It's not even cheaper to leave them out there, let alone is it humane.

[Big Blue Lantern Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Big Blue Lantern]

Right now I'm watching firemen knock down a fire in a vacant business on Sepulveda Boulevard. Several vacant businesses nearby are going to suffer major smoke damage.

I'm told that a homeless woman started it. It's a warm day, so she was probably smoking tobacco or something worse.

They've got to be taken off the streets. It's not even cheaper to leave them out there, let alone is it humane.

That's an aspect that doesn't get the attention that it should. Yes, it sounds cold and calculating, but for onlookers who might be very individualistic, it could strike a chord that the altruistic aspect doesn't. The facts are that when humans are left to the elements, they'll engage in behaviors that inevitably cost society more than those same individuals getting supportive services.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

That's an aspect that doesn't get the attention that it should. Yes, it sounds cold and calculating, but for onlookers who might be very individualistic, it could strike a chord that the altruistic aspect doesn't. The facts are that when humans are left to the elements, they'll engage in behaviors that inevitably cost society more than those same individuals getting supportive services.

If it's costing you more money to be a jerk than it would to behave decently, then it's difficult to defend your attitude.

Some of the costs imposed by the homeless are indirect. Their presence harms everyone's quality of life and wrecks property values.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Should a person have to live outdoors because he's a moron?

An awful lot of people think so, but I disagree with that.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

BTW, I've gotten jobs for a couple of those people, who were obviously not morons and who seemed like nice guys. They've done well in them.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

I don't know how I became a do-gooder. This is what usually happens to such people. It's called The Do-Badder and written by the only person who could have written it, John Meston. Check it out before CBS takes it down.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7zgmo8