If they’re not working, bottom line is they don’t want to work

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97guns

97guns

Full time employment: Posting here.
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The Deep South Bay
I see wave after wave of these twenty and thirty somethings on the corner begging for a handout and it’s sickening. In my city there are a ton of jobs available, entry level jobs are everywhere, in the year and a half that my wife has been in the country she has gone through 5 different jobs, she wants to work and jobs come with very little effort and a limited English vocabulary. In my city there’s no excuse for failure and I refuse to help anyone that won’t help themself
 
97guns said:
I see wave after wave of these twenty and thirty somethings on the corner begging for a handout and it’s sickening. In my city there are a ton of jobs available, entry level jobs are everywhere, in the year and a half that my wife has been in the country she has gone through 5 different jobs, she wants to work and jobs come with very little effort and a limited English vocabulary. In my city there’s no excuse for failure and I refuse to help anyone that won’t help themself
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Just think of them as early retirees.
 
One possiblity is that they can't pass a background check and/or a drug test to get a job. Another is that 60 years ago some of these folks would have been institutionalized also due to mental problems.
 
97guns said:
I see wave after wave of these twenty and thirty somethings on the corner begging for a handout and it’s sickening.
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Intersting. I've not witnessed "wave after wave" of this age cohort begging for handouts in my neck of the woods. In fact, up until my E.R. a year ago, I managed such a group of twenty and thirty somethings. Found them to be hard working, street smart, reliable and good with technology.

YMMV
 
As long as they stay off my lawn, I don't care.
 
Kind = enabling in this situation. Drugs, alcohol, untreated mental illness are what you are seeing. Crime inevitably follows. We all suffer the consequences of ignoring this. It's tough love time. We need the laws against vagrancy and begging back. We need to shut down and clean up the homeless encampments. We need to be able to get people that are too mentally ill to function off the streets and into some kind of care facilities against their will. People who are competent that refuse to get off the streets need to go to jail and then some kind of boot camp. Our society is crumbling before our eyes. Soon we will look like India. No thanks!
 
I have noticed it here in the dfw area. Even talk to some because of my job. Their excuse is why work 8 hours for $8 a hour when they can make over $100 in about 4 hours hanging around outside begging. My wife would see them at a local mcdonalds she would go to on her way home begging for money. She would get them a happy meal thru the drive thru and when she hands it to them they still ask her for money.
 
hopefullyoneday said:
I have noticed it here in the dfw area. Even talk to some because of my job. Their excuse is why work 8 hours for $8 a hour when they can make over $100 in about 4 hours hanging around outside begging. My wife would see them at a local mcdonalds she would go to on her way home begging for money. She would get them a happy meal thru the drive thru and when she hands it to them they still ask her for money.
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They have plenty of food. They buy from the takeout restaurants and the donut shops in the shopping centers with their money. Recently saw a lady on a corner with a "Hungry" sign and a $5 drink from Starbucks. The reason they aren't satisfied with McDonald's is they want the money for alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. If you would not enable an addicted sibling or child to buy these things, why would you enable a stranger?
 
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LRDave said:
Are there no prisons? Are there no work houses?
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Many of them are dealing drugs and engaging in petty theft from cars or whatever is an easy target. Prisons would be the appropriate place for them, don't you think?
 
There are many homeless in our area who would likely be thrilled to have even a work house. The police come and clear out the camps and throw away all their belongings and medication and they have nowhere else to go. It is hard for people who are malnourished, mentally ill, have no address and maybe a criminal record to find a job. And it is hard to treat mental illness and addiction for people when they have no housing or a place to make meals and store groceries. Many mental health issues have been traced to nutritional deficiencies. Utah seems to have had some success with their housing first program in aiding the homeless.

Even working full time it is hard to find housing in the Bay Area that is affordable. I know because I was helping a young person who had been kicked out by the parents, had multiple jobs, still had been homeless for a time and was always living on the edge. Kids from dysfunctional families like that aren't exactly coached on interviewing skills and FICO scores and may have mental issues of their own like PTSD. It is estimated 20% of foster kids end up homeless when they age out of the foster system.
 
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Jeebus. Sure a bunch of people who want to spend $50,000+/annum to jail a bunch of people who have their own problems. Frankly I haven't seen Biff or Mindy out there bagging, instead people who haven't been blessed with a normal IQ or personality or undamaged psyche.
 
Prisons cost too much. Euthanize the homeless.

"If they be like to die, they'd better do it and reduce the surplus population"

Merry Christmas y'all - :)
 
I regularly pass mendicants on my way to and from the office. Often, I give them money, sometimes I don't. It depends on my mood that day. I have no idea how or why they ended up asking for money in the street, and I have no idea what they will do with the money if I give it to them. Nor do I care. Maybe they are lazy, maybe they are mentally ill, maybe they are on drugs, maybe they are just down on their luck. I don't know. All I know is that they are fellow human beings.
 
It's not about jailing them permanently. It's about behavior modification. It's about not pouring an equal amount of money into housing a few and offering "services" that don't change anything.

Step back and ask yourself why this mess did not exist 50 years ago? What's changed? As far as I can tell, it's tolerance of bad behavior and enabling addictions. It's not letting people feel the consequences of their actions. It's NOT writing the check to institutionalize people that cannot function that we used to write.
 
Most of the "street people" around here are pretty old and look like they've had a lot of "hard miles" on them.

I give 'em dough because I want to.
 
Another Reader said:
It's not about jailing them permanently. It's about behavior modification. It's about not pouring an equal amount of money into housing a few and offering "services" that don't change anything.

Step back and ask yourself why this mess did not exist 50 years ago? What's changed? As far as I can tell, it's tolerance of bad behavior and enabling addictions. It's not letting people feel the consequences of their actions. It's NOT writing the check to institutionalize people that cannot function that we used to write.
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50 years ago blue collar wages where higher adjusted for inflation. A lot higher. I wouldn't want to bust my a$$ for <$20K/yr either. Not everyone is college material. Not everyone has the mental ability to make a high income. They shouldn't be jailed or punished in any other way.
 
A few thoughts:

First, being homeless in and of itself is not a crime, and does not warrant either being jailed or involuntarily confined to a mental institution. People do still have rights in this country.

Second, a not inconsequential number of homeless people are veterans who served this country honorably, and either suffer from severe PTSD, or mental illness, or have fallen into addiction, and suffer the lingering effects of the difficulties that can accompany re-integration into civilian society. This is a fact, and a disgraceful one that this country has not adequately addressed.

Third, I am going to stop reading this thread, because I would prefer to maintain my belief that, in general, people hold compassion in their hearts for individuals who face challenges they cannot even imagine.

There but for the grace of god go any one of us, if life had dealt us a different hand.
 
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