Homelessness

Anyone here who has been homeless want to share insights into it?

Here is a great channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh4pyZUB0mNzieaKv831flA

That channel breaks my heart. I did a paper on the subject. The housing first approach (kind of bottom-up, unconditional housing initiative) is successful and needs more attention. All the social initiatives are likely less expensive than the real costs of homelessness and addiction. UBI too. And fuck hostile architecture. 

I've never been completely homeless but have known people who were.  You get bullied by the cops a lot, but if you have a source of income it isn't terrible.  You have to deal with being smelly and you have to find a secure place to sleep at night, and you also have to get used to taking advantage of opportunities to do laundry and take showers.  Most of the homeless people I knew were my age (early 20s) which is a lot less bad than being homeless at 60.

I do know an old Vietnam vet who's homeless in D.C., which is pretty much the worst it can get.  For a while he was staying in this sketchy building full of strangers half his age who didn't seem like very peaceful folks.  He's an incredibly well mannered man, and it's an unfortunate situation.  A lot of people in better situations than him ask for much more, but he rarely ever asks for anything.  I would try to give him cash and rides when I could, back when I went to the city.

I met another guy from Africa who was homeless in D.C. and was having trouble finding a place to sleep.  He was dozing off on the street because he was afraid of sleeping in the shelters since they all had bedbugs.

The worst part about the Vietnam vet is that when he did finally get an apartment it burned down and he had to go back to the shelter.

what gets on my nerves is freaks/hippies who come from rich families yet they still do this voluntarily as an act of rebellion against the system...

  On 5/24/2020 at 8:13 AM, chim said:

All the social initiatives are likely less expensive than the real costs of homelessness and addiction

  On 5/24/2020 at 4:25 PM, drillkicker said:

I've never been completely homeless but have known people who were. 

same. at one point i was going across the united states on my own and stopped in santa fe new mexico. i was living at this hostel until the owner asked everyone that had been staying there for a while to leave.

one guy became homeless (i actually walked with him to purchase his tent which he planned on pitching on the outskirts of town). i moved to the navajo nation reservation. because i'm not native american, it was a pretty surreal period of my life

There was a guy on here who did the homeless thing and done a blog about it. He was rebelling against the system but there was a lack of sincerity about it. It came across as hipster showboating. 

I almost became homeless once at 27 but I stayed with my parents for 2 weeks instead.

I think this was shown at SIFF back in 2009 or 2010, idr. It broke my heart. I recognized some of these people, had seen them on the same buses in the movie, and even though I had hung out with & talked to many homeless Seattleites in my years there, it wasn't possible to get the ride-along perspective in this documentary. I'm surprised the whole thing is available on vimeo, never been able to find it before. if you have time, it's worth watching.

soft white underbelly interviews residents of skid row in los angeles (the largest population of homeless people in the united states)

One time this random homeless guy popped up out of nowhere when I was walking down the street and started talking to me about various socio-economic issues. He really seemed to know his shit, and not in a crazy hippie homeless guy way either. He was straight spittin 

One of the often overlooked groups is college students in the US. I don't want to go into detail for privacy but i have a close experience with someone who, while attending a full course-load, also worked 3 side jobs,  and showered at the rec center on campus, etc, without a proper home. And from the outside, they appear the same as other college students, but the experience is so different than what people assume is the average, ie partying and having a good time at this point in their life

  On 5/25/2020 at 1:12 AM, Nebraska said:

soft white underbelly interviews residents of skid row in los angeles (the largest population of homeless people in the united states)

the interview with arianna from march 30th shuts it down 

posting in a zeffolia thread

Homelessness and the emergent momentum of revolutionary masses

  On 5/24/2020 at 6:22 PM, Tim_J said:

what gets on my nerves is freaks/hippies who come from rich families yet they still do this voluntarily as an act of rebellion against the system...

Growing up in Miami I've met multiple homeless kids living on the South beach, or Coconut Grove park that turned out were from extremely rich homes.  They would live homeless & dirty for a month then go home to a mansion.  It's like homelessness is a luxury when you are born with everything.  

  On 6/1/2020 at 8:50 PM, cloud capture said:

Growing up in Miami I've met multiple homeless kids living on the South beach, or Coconut Grove park that turned out were from extremely rich homes.  They would live homeless & dirty for a month then go home to a mansion.  It's like homelessness is a luxury when you are born with everything.  

Dumpster diving at Trader Joe’s as a first world experience. 

It depends with what mindset they do it, imo. People at nursing school typically spend a day blindfolded to be able to put themselves into the position of blind people better. The same way you can spend a certain amount of time on the streets to see how it is and how it affects you, how people approach you etc., if it helps you empathise with homeless people. 

Ive slept in my car for a while. Im 6'1. I see people on YouTube that make a life out of that. I dont know how they do it. 

I always try to give money to homeless people but I literally never have coins on me due to how easy it is to pay with card/ apple pay

  On 6/1/2020 at 9:11 PM, dingformung said:

It depends with what mindset they do it, imo. People at nursing school typically spend a day blindfolded to be able to put themselves into the position of blind people better. The same way you can spend a certain amount of time on the streets to see how it is and how it affects you, how people approach you etc., if it helps you empathise with homeless people. 

idk, it's not really the same. I've known some of these kids but haven't ever seen one that became "homeless" out of a desire for empathy. since they can almost certainly go back to comfort when desired, they don't really get close to the sort of hopelessness that would help empathy blossom. if anything i think it can let these kids think "being homeless isn't so bad, i did it and i'm fine"

  On 6/1/2020 at 10:55 PM, brian trageskin said:

 

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There are a lot of people like this in Worcester, MA. They had very comfy upbringings but still, gotta look homeless. 
 

The local term is Worats, I believe. I used to work with a guy from Worcester who always tried to look a bit scummy and wear the tightest everything. I told him one day that he looked like a resident of Worcester and he said “hey man I think I take offense to that.” I stared in disbelief. 
 

You will never hear anyone say they like Worcester, ever. 

despite those types not experiencing the true pain of knowing you're actually homeless, I still support their alternative traveler lifestyle of pseudo-nomadism, no matter how much it's done for the spectacle, because of the pure novelty of it