Homeless and ideas for solutions?

ClaytonBigsby said:

Oh for fuck's sake people! The comparison I was making is that they went so GD far to the socialism side they actually consider pedophiles, pyromaniacs, fetishists, transexuals, etc. disabled and they give them benefits. It is ridiculous. Everyone over there wants a GD hand out and that is what our country has become and is getting worse. I think the US now has a 50% drop out rate and these kids expect a job making six figures and benefits. It's become out of control with the gimme gimmes. THAT is all I am saying. OUT!


and debts are debt! We have major debt to the Chinese and many other countries. The ponzi scheme is heading for a collision course with reality.

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Actually the majority of our nations debt is to itself. Many countries purchase our debt to devalue their own currencies to make their exports cheaper in the American market. Japan for example is running something like 200% debt to GDP shouldn't they be imploding right now using your reasoning?

ok, lets build the homeless people houses. So can I get a free house lol?

i live with my mom in the projects :/ help me

Fungus Gnat said:

Actually the majority of our nations debt is to itself. Many countries purchase our debt to devalue their own currencies to make their exports cheaper in the American market. Japan for example is running something like 200% debt to GDP shouldn't they be imploding right now using your reasoning?

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Truly you have a dizzying intellect!

You keep steering the conversation from the main point. I was talking about people wanting hand outs and you turned it into the GDP of countries. You trolling me?

Padawanbater2 said:

TL;DR: our government should build houses via taxpayer $ for the homeless population (and in fact all American citizens) which would in turn stimulate the economy by freeing up the majority of resources that were originally spent on rent/mortgage, eliminate the homeless population and provide jobs for people building the houses. Please point out where I'm an idiot, gladly appreciated!

This seems to be an increasing issue in the States, especially these days. Have any of you guys heard Obama or Romney say one word about it?

"According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 643,067 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide as of January 2009. Additionally, about 1.56 million people used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program during the 12-month period between October 1, 2008 and September 30, 2009. This number suggests that roughly 1 in every 200 persons in the US used the shelter system at some point in that period."


What are the underlying reasons we have homeless people? Is this an unsolvable problem?

I used to work with a guy who spent a while being homeless in LA, the stories he told me were pretty intense, and I've seen a few documentaries about the homeless way of life, it's difficult to say the least..

Have you ever been homeless? Close to being homeless? What would you do if you were homeless? How would you get back on your feet or develop a solid foundation if it happened?

Living paycheck to paycheck is almost like being homeless, one payday away from the streets, worried about whether you're buying food today so you can eat or paying bills and only drinking water convincing yourself it's just 'another day'.. Shit is tough. I can just imagine how much tougher it would be without the roof.


Imo, it's a crime we let people in our society exist just to occupy the streets, begging for survival. Consider if every able citizen gave $1. Just $1. That would be in the ballpark of $250 million dollars. We couldn't solve the NATION WIDE homeless problem with $250 million dollars?

Unemployment, OK. Give these people a house, how will they pay for it? I don't know, but I do know that paying upwards of 40% of your salary just to have a roof over your head is insane, and some people pay 50%, 60%, 80%... How can normal people be expected to pay their bills on time when the cost of housing is more expensive than weekly earnings?

I'm an idiot when it comes to these things, so forgive the ignorance, but somebody, please explain this to me..

Why doesn't our government just give people houses? Build government funded houses using taxpayer money or use already built houses (plenty of empty houses around the country) and ensure each citizen has one to live in so they don't have to spend that much of their money each month just to exist? I realize this is probably against a lot of your own opinions, as it would increase the power and size of the federal government, but can someone honestly tell me why they haven't decided to do it? Is it because not enough homeless are dying every year to really matter all that much? Is it because that would be an encroachment on the housing industry and would be against some amendment I haven't reviewed?

Seems like that would be a great idea, it would completely eliminate the homeless, automatically inflate every American citizens monthly earnings, stimulating the economy (people with money buy shit), and momentarily create jobs (somebody has to build the houses).. So what the fuck, why don't we take on national projects like this? I would gladly pay for something like this in taxes, would you?

I must be missing a shit ton of the story of how this all works and hopefully somebody can give me a legitimate reason why our government doesn't do stuff like this..

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Well they did, and do...we now call them projects and they are scary.

blazinkill504 said:

i feel if you give it to them they will keep wantin you to give. UNLESS we paid the homeless to build their own public housin then maybe they'd appreciate what workin hard does an that it pays off!. canna is right tho most of them are crazy an really dont need to be around the general public. so what should we do with them....make a island out of empty plastic bottles an put them on it an float em into the ocean?

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That is actually not a bad idea...we could also deal with incurable infectious diseases..So we could deal with 3 problems all at once...We would be using our plastic waste to fix 2 epidemics, AIDS and the homeless...Imagine what a picture of the ocean would look like after a few years...full of bottle rafts full of crazy ailing people. The issue is that everything you do has a future repercussion, and I feel like setting out homeless people on rafts made of plastic bottles into the ocean would probably have a rather large margin for fallout.

missnu said:

That is actually not a bad idea...we could also deal with incurable infectious diseases..So we could deal with 3 problems all at once...We would be using our plastic waste to fix 2 epidemics, AIDS and the homeless...Imagine what a picture of the ocean would look like after a few years...full of bottle rafts full of crazy ailing people. The issue is that everything you do has a future repercussion, and I feel like setting out homeless people on rafts made of plastic bottles into the ocean would probably have a rather large margin for fallout.

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I just had a mental image of salty winos falling out of their Aquafina rafts ... cn

I have been homeless short term, staying with friends and what not, but I haven't had to be homeless homeless yet...I hope I won't have to, but you never really know...my best friend is about to be like living under a bridge homeless if someone can't figure out something for the situation they are in...I have room for her and her alone at my house, but that leaves her boyfriend and dogs in the lurch...
And you know bad things happen and money gets behind, but often as long as you have a good standing places will give you a little leeway through a rough spot...
They were doing poorly before, but had people to help them, but then they decided all at once to move to texas...I don't know why...anyway it all went to shit, and they ended up with no jobs, and no food, and they were living with other people, and I can't stand the idea that someone close to my heart is hungry while I have food. So I sent my husband to go rescue her and her bf and their dogs from texas...which is 17 hours from where we are...so anyway he goes and gets them, and they come back up here and stay with the same person that was helping them out before...So they are living with this guy, and my friend gets 2 jobs, and then her Boyfriend gets one that is better than her 2, so she stops working part time 2 places and starts working full time at the one of the 2 that paid the most...anyway so they were doing awful, but then they were suddenly doing alright...but they started to count on that doing alright continuing..so they went and got a car loan, and then skipped a month on their rent to make the first car payment...They just didn't put the highest priority at the top of the list...so anyway they put off paying the rent to pay the car, and then they got jerked around with the place they were staying, that is a whole nother story, anyway, so they thought they would have to move from the place they are staying now, so they used the car money the next month to pay the people for the place they were going to move into, and then the following night their car got repossessed, so then her boyfriend lost his job, so now they just have her one job that only pays 8.00 an hour...and I am not sure what they do with that money...I know they buy food, because I take them to the grocery store, but after that I just don't know where the money goes, because they aren't paying anything at all to the landlord, and he keeps taking them to court to try and evict them, but he can't figure out how to fill out the paperwork, so he is just wasting money trying to get them out...their rentis only $200 a month, and everytime he takes them to court it costs him $150...So so far he has spent $300 just to get them out...and he will have to spend another $150 at least, and if he gets it wrong yet another time it will be the same again...and so on and so on...anyway... So they are facing eviction if their landlord will ever actually read the packet they give him at the courthouse, and they have nowhere to go, no plan, no car, no money, and the place they were going to move into, before their car got repossessed, those people got evicted from their place, because they didn't use the money that my friends gave them to pay the rent...So they lost their stuff...when they came back to the old house they thought they would be going back out to the new place the next day, so all they had was one back pack of their clothes. All their pots and pans, and well their everything is just gone now, because those people took what they wanted and gave my friends back part of their clothes... So they are now pretty much squatters...they can't even afford to turn the water back on at the place they are staying now...It is just so awful, but this girl has 5 dogs, that she refuses to get rid of, and I'm sorry, but it is hard enough to find a friend or family member that will house you alone, let alone you, your partner, and 5 dogs...
I almost feel like their case is hopeless, because as soon as they have money they stop worrying about the bills and then end up not paying them, and then the things they need to be able to keep paying bills is gone...and then what?

paragraphs, Missnu, paragraphs.....