Some things have been really fucking bothering me lately.
It may be because I've moved to a town that makes my stomach turn regularly. It may be because the homelessness problem here seems much more pronounced than my last stay.
On a purely personal level, I despise the concept of homelessness. I live in a country where a significant number of people own second (Or third, or X) homes. I routinely drive past boarded up and derelict premises. For a living, I tell people how to destroy these buildings. As far as I have been able to establish, there is no actual shortage of living space in the UK. The problem seems to be is that a lot of that potential living space is worth more empty and derelict. Tax breaks, Tax write-off, offsetting profits and all other manner of interesting financial tricks can turn a shit-heap into a goldmine. As long as no humans live there.
Winter started here pretty much overnight. The general temperatures have gone from 7-8C to -1 -3C. Every fucking day I drive past people huddled in shop entrances and less windy spots. The sheer number of them has increased dramatically. I'd like to look further than "Austerity" but this seems to be the answer I keep getting.
Realistically, there is little I can do to help. When I can, I buy a guy a burger and spend some time just talking. I don't do this often. The level of thanks I get seems to be placing me into some unjustified sainthood. I'm just a human that sees another cold and hungry and being ignored and want to show a little fucking compassion for a few seconds. This does not mean I'm Christ reborn.
The reactions(and non-reactions) of others to people in this situation stuns me. It's shows something about the times we live in. It's easier to ignore them than it is to help, regardless of the way. This could say something about how we act as a society at large. Is the problem easy to ignore? Yes? What fucking problem?
I really don't know how to process much of this yet, but all I know is that I'm angry. I'm driving past people who will literally freeze to death in the coming months because the support to prevent this happening simply isn't there. To say this bothers me is an understatement.
I'm acutely aware that there tends to be a "story" with homelessness. The vast majority of these tales could have easily been me for a minor quirk of fate. But I'm inside and warm, looking out on misery and death.
Fuck this place, I should never have returned.
Empty houses with people freezing in the alleys between them is pretty much all you have to know about the joys of capitalism and the free market.
I am in danger of having a thought, here.
It's everywhere. I have a friend in Vancouver who often has to step over people who died in the night when leaving her building. But the US is king of that shit, I think.
Additional to OP:
I mentioned that I occasionally buy a guy a burger and have a conversation. Almost universally, the reaction to when I do this in company is shock and disgust. Most tend to loiter a short distance away making impatient motions.
This is probably part of why I have few friends. What seems to be a normal, somewhat compassionate act gets framed as helping junkies and murderers. "They CHOOSE to do that" I've heard that from people who pride themselves on how fucking liberal they are. I can't understand it. This mental decision to place anyone in that horrifically shitty situation as somehow being a choice that the MAJORITY are making is insane. I guess it's easier for people to carry that bit of dissonance. It means you get to ignore the starving kid. Because fuck that kid, he's choosing to freeze to death.
I can honestly say that in the years of doing this kind of shit, I have never, not fucking once, had the food turned away or not eaten almost immediately. Most get out a "thanks" midway through the first mouthful. I live in a city with countless people and literally tons of food destroyed daily. In the midst of this, people starve.
This is perfectly acceptable, apparently, because they choose this.
Quote from: Junkenstein on November 07, 2013, 09:32:24 PM
This is probably part of why I have few friends. What seems to be a normal, somewhat compassionate act gets framed as helping junkies and murderers. "They CHOOSE to do that" I've heard that from people who pride themselves on how fucking liberal they are. I can't understand it.
At that point, I generally CHOOSE to be fucking horrible.
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on November 07, 2013, 09:51:31 PM
Quote from: Junkenstein on November 07, 2013, 09:32:24 PM
This is probably part of why I have few friends. What seems to be a normal, somewhat compassionate act gets framed as helping junkies and murderers. "They CHOOSE to do that" I've heard that from people who pride themselves on how fucking liberal they are. I can't understand it.
At that point, I generally CHOOSE to be fucking horrible.
Oh yes. I've lost "freinds" literally 5/10 minutes after this kind of shit. It's dangerously close to being some kind of test to determine if a person is a shitbag.
You are so so so so right here that it hurts. It hurts that you are right because these things are true, and these things are horrible and they should not be true. But they ARE.
People forget what a terrible cycle homelessness is. If people weren't mentally ill before they became homeless, they will have issues after being homeless, and the longer they are homeless, the worse those problems will be. Insecurity is devastating for the human psyche. Hopelessness and despair go hand-in-hand with homelessness, as does terrible fear. In the US we have 28 vacant foreclosed homes for every homeless individual.
28 vacant houses. Per homeless person.
A nation that allows its citizens to go homeless or starve or die from preventable or curable diseases because they lack money is not a real nation at all. It's a relic, a remnant from a primitive and barbaric era. It is a nation that isn't ready to join the future.
It's a nation that is already dead, but doesn't know it yet.
I was lucky. I've been homeless a few times but my periods of homelessness never coincided with my periods of batshit, so it wasn't that big of a deal. I've never given a homeless person anything to eat. Suddenly this makes me feel a bit of a dick :sad:
Quote from: Mrs. Nigelson on November 08, 2013, 06:32:49 AM
A nation that allows its citizens to go homeless or starve or die from preventable or curable diseases because they lack money is not a real nation at all. It's a relic, a remnant from a primitive and barbaric era. It is a nation that isn't ready to join the future.
This.
When you want a dog dead, gassing it is generally considered the "humane" way to destroy it, rather than letting it starve or rot to death
You know who gassed humans he didn't like? Hitler - that's who :argh!:
Quote from: Mrs. Nigelson on November 08, 2013, 06:32:49 AM
You are so so so so right here that it hurts. It hurts that you are right because these things are true, and these things are horrible and they should not be true. But they ARE.
People forget what a terrible cycle homelessness is. If people weren't mentally ill before they became homeless, they will have issues after being homeless, and the longer they are homeless, the worse those problems will be. Insecurity is devastating for the human psyche. Hopelessness and despair go hand-in-hand with homelessness, as does terrible fear. In the US we have 28 vacant foreclosed homes for every homeless individual.
28 vacant houses. Per homeless person.
A nation that allows its citizens to go homeless or starve or die from preventable or curable diseases because they lack money is not a real nation at all. It's a relic, a remnant from a primitive and barbaric era. It is a nation that isn't ready to join the future.
It's a nation that is already dead, but doesn't know it yet.
Permission to quote with attribution, and if yes, which name/SN?
Yeah, that's Big Wordy with a couple of tweaks I think. QG?
I have been informed by various people that feeding the homeless is the same as feeding stray animals. It encourages them to loiter, dig through the trash, shit and piss everywhere. It ruins property values and breeds disease.
Once you're homeless, you aren't a person. You're an animal.
I understand your hate on this issue, Junkenstein.
There are a lot of things you can do to end up out of the person category and into to the animal category. Go to prison. Be homeless. Use welfare. If you aren't made of cash, you're trash.
being kind of poor, I give them tobacco, rolling papers, and a few kind words. I have been known to buy a pastie or a scotch egg when I'm feeling flush.
The Big Issue vendor outside Asda particularly likes Scotch Eggs, which is good because they're like, 60p for 2, so I usually get him an apple and a pack of those if it's close to my welfare payments.
I can't afford much, either. I give spare cash because 1)I don't walk around with food 2) Homeless does not necessarily equal raving alkie/drug addict and 3) So what if they buy hooch? They have to sleep on PAVEMENT.
Quote from: Tiddleywomp Cockletit on November 08, 2013, 06:37:12 PM
Quote from: Mrs. Nigelson on November 08, 2013, 06:32:49 AM
You are so so so so right here that it hurts. It hurts that you are right because these things are true, and these things are horrible and they should not be true. But they ARE.
People forget what a terrible cycle homelessness is. If people weren't mentally ill before they became homeless, they will have issues after being homeless, and the longer they are homeless, the worse those problems will be. Insecurity is devastating for the human psyche. Hopelessness and despair go hand-in-hand with homelessness, as does terrible fear. In the US we have 28 vacant foreclosed homes for every homeless individual.
28 vacant houses. Per homeless person.
A nation that allows its citizens to go homeless or starve or die from preventable or curable diseases because they lack money is not a real nation at all. It's a relic, a remnant from a primitive and barbaric era. It is a nation that isn't ready to join the future.
It's a nation that is already dead, but doesn't know it yet.
Permission to quote with attribution, and if yes, which name/SN?
Yes; The Right Reverend Nigel.
The homeless here are almost exclusively native alaskans, kids, or both.
This gets written off as alcohol abuse, which certainly is a large part of it. Much of the homeless in Anchorage are not from here, they're often cast out of their communities and Anchorage is the least shitty place in Alaska to get drunk out in the cold.
People, generally, look at these people as something near subhuman, for sure. The bus I take in and out of my neighborhood has a reputation for being filled with scary people, but they're mostly too stunned by the brutality of their own lives in a wholly unforgiving environment.
Many freeze to death, many more than anyone reports.
There are now a few places, built out of shut down hotels, that provide space, even if you're drunk. This being preferrable to the whole frozen humans problem. And yet, these places are met with such hosility, this one business owner, a bondsman, put up who knows hoe many R&R and Monarch bottles along his fence (near the jail and the only male shelter) saying STOP ENABLING.
As though the moral and physical prowess required to withstand the savage power of alcohol, with practically zero genetic experience doing so takes preferrence to saving lives.
Quote from: Mrs. Nigelson on November 08, 2013, 10:42:36 PM
Quote from: Tiddleywomp Cockletit on November 08, 2013, 06:37:12 PM
Quote from: Mrs. Nigelson on November 08, 2013, 06:32:49 AM
You are so so so so right here that it hurts. It hurts that you are right because these things are true, and these things are horrible and they should not be true. But they ARE.
People forget what a terrible cycle homelessness is. If people weren't mentally ill before they became homeless, they will have issues after being homeless, and the longer they are homeless, the worse those problems will be. Insecurity is devastating for the human psyche. Hopelessness and despair go hand-in-hand with homelessness, as does terrible fear. In the US we have 28 vacant foreclosed homes for every homeless individual.
28 vacant houses. Per homeless person.
A nation that allows its citizens to go homeless or starve or die from preventable or curable diseases because they lack money is not a real nation at all. It's a relic, a remnant from a primitive and barbaric era. It is a nation that isn't ready to join the future.
It's a nation that is already dead, but doesn't know it yet.
Permission to quote with attribution, and if yes, which name/SN?
Yes; The Right Reverend Nigel.
Thank you!
Quote from: Junkenstein on November 08, 2013, 07:30:44 PM
Yeah, that's Big Wordy with a couple of tweaks I think. QG?
If I get permission to rework it a little and shoehorn in Nigel's "not a nation" comment, I think it'd be perfect. Would you both be okay with that? Attribution and draft approval, naturally.
I was thinking more Nigel's bit than mine, but if you think any of mine is useable, feel free.