How Bad is the Homeless Problem in Your City?

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by mhays

I give money to housing providers but wouldn't give to a beggar if my life depended on it. It doesn't help them, and it damages the city.

Let me clarify. I generally won't give change to any panhandler who looks healthy and capable of being able to work. I generally don't give at any intersection where they are impeding traffic, as at freeway offramps and onramps. That is dangerous. I only give if the person is not aggressively panhandling, and looks like a true basket case--aged, infirm, clearly hungry. I offer words of encouragement along with a small cash donation, and tell them where there might be a shelter nearby.

It is tough to be homeless without some uncaring stranger barking at them "get a job, bum!" or "get away from me you smelly lice-infested hobo!" etc. That is cruel. Treat them like individuals, not pariahs. Imagine yourself in their sad situation. Maybe bad choices got them there, as well as sky high rents, job loss, medical issues and substance abuse, but we shouldn't make it more difficult for them to climb out of their pit of despair and degradation.

[Leo the Dog]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Most of the panhandlers seem to hang around poor and middle class neighborhoods. Maybe we should tell them to go beg in Beverly Hills, Newport Beach and the Hamptons, where the money is. Of course the police and security guards there would probably move them out. Every time I'm in a rich area, I see very few if any panhandlers, and no homeless encampments. The rich pay to have no blemishes of human misery in their midst. I doubt Beverly Hills will ever have a homeless shelter.

Less access to easily available drugs in these neighborhoods. Drugs exist of course, but the transaction is different. They're not buying it from a hustler on the corner that blends-in in the city.

[Ryanrule]

Originally Posted by aaron38

I keep seeing young healthy men, backs unbowed, standing around the interstate exits with their cardboard signs. Well, UPS is hiring. There's no free lunch for those who are able to work and simply refuse to.

As for handouts, I'm done with that. A bum once asked me for change, so I gave him what I had, eighty cents or so. He looked at it in disgust, I thought he was going to hit me before screaming at me that I'd insulted him. Then he flung the change to the ground. After he stormed off I used my time to pick up every single coin to put back in my pocket.

As for camping facilities and such, how long will they last? Where I grew up, the public housing project had to be shuttered because the residents had ripped every scrap of copper pipe and wiring out of the walls.

And my worthless brother-in-law is living the dream life of Cannery Row. He and his friends are currently trashing the house his father gave him. But they don't even have to go to the cannery to work in order to eat. They all have Link cards. We pay them to sit around and do nothing. But hey, they're not homeless. Not yet. But that house will be uninhabitable in a few more years. Oh, and his 19 year old girlfriend just got herself pregnant. On purpose. And why not, she doesn't have to work to eat. With a kid, she'll get a bigger handout.

yeah last year i saw a white guy that looked like a mother fucking model on the armitage offramp.

what the fuck.