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The Homeless crisis

Warhead14

Warhead14

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Jul 23, 2011
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At 28 years sober I quit the debating society on some issues. I know I was born and alcoholic, it has nothing to do with drinking and everything to do with my thinking. Drinking is but a symptom of the underlying issues. I can switch addictions and straight to hell engaging them. There is an enormous difference between the homeless now as opposed to the past. Now you have these social drop outs as well. Communists who feel they are owed a living and dont give a shit about contributing to society. Still the mass problem is made up of mental illness and drug addicts, and anyone can be a drug addict. Drug addiction is different than alcoholism, anyone who has spent time using opiates for whatever reason will become addicted. You cant avoid it, your body becomes dependent. But not everyone who drinks jumps on an plane and flies somewhere and then wonders how they got there. I take the first drink and the drink takes me, and there is NO WAY to predict what I will do... I literally go insane. The shit I think is a good idea, totally insane. Though I dont think so... Junkies are easily made, and with the open border and free flow of fentanyl allowed to come over, the weak and slothful will get strung out and die. Where I live these fake percs have people slumped all over the place. Its natural selection. You either get busy living or get busy dying. I will always help those who wanna live, but those are not the ones begging at the intersections. I have really lost patience with a large number of these people, because of those who are just lazy. They know they can sit on their ass, get social services and handouts. You baby them and you bury them.
 

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testboner

testboner

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Oct 10, 2010
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At 28 years sober I quit the debating society on some issues. I know I was born and alcoholic, it has nothing to do with drinking and everything to do with my thinking. Drinking is but a symptom of the underlying issues. I can switch addictions and straight to hell engaging them. There is an enormous difference between the homeless now as opposed to the past. Now you have these social drop outs as well. Communists who feel they are owed a living and dont give a shit about contributing to society. Still the mass problem is made up of mental illness and drug addicts, and anyone can be a drug addict. Drug addiction is different than alcoholism, anyone who has spent time using opiates for whatever reason will become addicted. You cant avoid it, your body becomes dependent. But not everyone who drinks jumps on an plane and flies somewhere and then wonders how they got there. I take the first drink and the drink takes me, and there is NO WAY to predict what I will do... I literally go insane. The shit I think is a good idea, totally insane. Though I dont think so... Junkies are easily made, and with the open border and free flow of fentanyl allowed to come over, the weak and slothful will get strung out and die. Where I live these fake percs have people slumped all over the place. Its natural selection. You either get busy living or get busy dying. I will always help those who wanna live, but those are not the ones begging at the intersections. I have really lost patience with a large number of these people, because of those who are just lazy. They know they can sit on their ass, get social services and handouts. You baby them and you bury them.
There’s a fraction of the homeless that match your description — but there’s no one prominent cause of being homeless. Hell, increasingly, a growing number of people become homeless in relation to an ever strangling economy.
Drug and alcohol abuse, Yes; Mental disorders (broad description) and actual illnesses, Yes; Economic struggle / loss, Yes; Simply “Laziness”…. small faction.
Other causes exist, and all of these add up to the totality of an increasingly overwhelming population.
The point is, causes of homelessness are very diverse and we error (and lose heart / compassion) when we convince ourselves that it’s the result of any one particular factor.
Truth be candid, any one of us could potentially find ourselves in a series of unexpected circumstances that put us on the street.
Imagine having the self convinced mindset we do about why the homeless are homeless, and then suddenly we’re the homeless while cognizant of what all the public walking and driving past us think of us.
 
testboner

testboner

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I want to add, over many years of interacting with / assisting the homeless pop, a common recurring problem was that they wanted to work, but had no verifiable resident address, and often times, expired drivers license (or no drivers license) or state ID, and couldn’t establish replacements — bureaucratic complexities.
Often these technicalities are far more difficult to resolve than we realize.
I have personal experiences however, hiring homeless as day labor (paid cash and fed by the day) and by no means was the effort put in anything on the order of “lazy.” I’ve at times as well allowed some to shower at my residence, and provided a meal. Granted it’s a risk and not a comfortable feeling thing to do — but I did it a handful of times.
As well, there were numerous occasions I paid for some to get a shave and haircut, and got them stable employment through friends and acquaintances that were / are business owners. There are a couple I recall who quit their acquired substance abuses / addictions successfully as well.
 
MR. BMJ

MR. BMJ

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Sep 21, 2011
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This is a really great thread, glad to see a lot of the responses. I need to catch up on a few pages still though.

I think when it comes to homeless, I can see the need to help. For true homeless, whether that's from addiction, loss of income and family, Vets, depression, and many other reasons, I find it admirable that people will help these people. A lot of this population can make-do by themselves without any help. Kind of the old-style hobo/bum population is what I guess i'm describing. I separate these folks from the current turds out there over the past few years.

There is the large group of the homeless population over the past few years, who are milking it for all the wrong reasons. My knee-jerk reaction is for them to all just blow themselves up and rid the earth of their presence. My skin is thin for these losers. Also, I just do not like the way certain cities and states are running things, acting as enablers for the situation to get worse. These drug and syringe centers handing shit out for free is just nonsense to me, as well as all the sanctuary city crap. With all the money they are spending on this crap, they could come up with better alternatives, imo. Most of the major cities out here in Cali look like dump sites with tents. It's so bad, it's ridiculous. People doing it for all the wrong reasons, and at the same time expecting the government to pay for their asses. I just can't get behind all this, or these types of people. Now you have more strongholds by cartels in these areas.

But to the first group I mentioned....man, people can get depressed and just lose everything, and have too much pride to reach out for any help. I can find a place to help this group out....if they want to be helped. At the end of the day though, doing something positive is never a bad thing, so helping and giving to those in need is awesome, imo.

There's a lot that can be said on the situation, for both good and bad.

Feeling all Christmas'y right now though:D
 
Kluso

Kluso

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Oct 30, 2022
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There’s a fraction of the homeless that match your description — but there’s no one prominent cause of being homeless. Hell, increasingly, a growing number of people become homeless in relation to an ever strangling economy.
Drug and alcohol abuse, Yes; Mental disorders (broad description) and actual illnesses, Yes; Economic struggle / loss, Yes; Simply “Laziness”…. small faction.
Other causes exist, and all of these add up to the totality of an increasingly overwhelming population.
The point is, causes of homelessness are very diverse and we error (and lose heart / compassion) when we convince ourselves that it’s the result of any one particular factor.
Truth be candid, any one of us could potentially find ourselves in a series of unexpected circumstances that put us on the street.
Imagine having the self convinced mindset we do about why the homeless are homeless, and then suddenly we’re the homeless while cognizant of what all the public walking and driving past us think of us.
There may be a lot of homeless that aren’t mentally ill or on drugs but they don’t stay homeless very long. The take adherence of the help and do anything they can to not be homeless. Which is exactly what any of us would do. The ones that embrace it are the problem.
 
testboner

testboner

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There may be a lot of homeless that aren’t mentally ill or on drugs but they don’t stay homeless very long. The take adherence of the help and do anything they can to not be homeless. Which is exactly what any of us would do. The ones that embrace it are the problem.
Truth.
But those (a vast majority) who “embrace” it, are extremely seldom right in the head. Even those who do so / those who choose to remain on the street, are in need of some continued level of offers of help.

Clearly, contending with help for the homeless is not for everyone — But just like we ALL pay for US invasions / US imperial dominance all over the world — funding that fucked up shit is not something we all choose to support either, yet we still pay and suffer various consequences.
With a fraction of what bankrolls the imperialism efforts, homelessness could be entirely eradicated..
 
Kluso

Kluso

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Oct 30, 2022
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Truth.
But those (a vast majority) who “embrace” it, are extremely seldom right in the head. Even those who do so / those who choose to remain on the street, are in need of some continued level of offers of help.

Clearly, contending with help for the homeless is not for everyone — But just like we ALL pay for US invasions / US imperial dominance all over the world — funding that fucked up shit is not something we all choose to support either, yet we still pay and suffer various consequences.
With a fraction of what bankrolls the imperialism efforts, homelessness could be entirely eradicated..
100% agree
 
testboner

testboner

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Sorry if no one else finds care in this — I do.
Jacked (“natty or not”? LOL) USC doctor involved with treating Los Angeles homeless. An interesting video with stats and humanitarian uplifting encouragement:

 
C

ceo

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Oct 12, 2010
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Regarding the cost of housing.....

We are landlords. We keep our rents slightly below market. We rarely have vacancies, and when we do, we frequently remodel and upgrade.

The last few years our own costs have risen dramatically, especially insurance and utilities. Over half our units come with all utilities paid.

California now has statewide rent control for many landlords. Some are not subject to these laws, we have couple of those units, but most are rent controlled.

We are limited in increases to 5% plus the consumer price index for cost of living increases each year, up to a maximum of 10%. All of our tenants will be receiving a 10% increase this year, and trust me, it is not keeping up with our own cost increases or inflation.

Do we make a good income? Oh, yeah. But why should we be penalized and have our income lowered to subsidize housing just because we were wise enough to invest in fixers, fix them up and provide rental housing? Few other businesses are limited in what they can charge for something, and why should we be any different? Last time I checked we have a free market economy.

All this having been said.....we are not greedy. We just want a fair return on our investment. We have 5 mortgages (used to have 7). We have a tenant in one unit who has heart failure and can't work. He's paying $750/mo for a one bedroom standalone unit. He has not had any increases for many years because we knew he couldn't afford it. He was also not capable of applying for Social Security Disability on his own. Guess who helped him, completed all the paperwork, and he finally got approved for Disability (around $700/mo)? Yeah, that was me, and that stuff was WAY more complicated and time consuming than it should have been. He told me that he had consulted with an attorney who wanted $7,500 to handle his application, and I just thought that was ridiculous so I told him I would do it for him, no charge. He's a good guy, not the sharpest tool in the shed, but a hard worker, honest, and would much rather be working than sitting on his ass with heart failure. Were it not for our help and generosity, he would be homeless. We could easily be getting around $1,750 for his unit.....but it will remain at $750 for the rest of his life, and that's coming out of our pockets.

It's easy to paint landlords as being greedy, but we don't dictate what the rents are....the market does. Vacancies benefit us because we can raise rents to current market rates, which are usually several hundred dollars a month higher than what we get with the old tenants. It is not our fault that more and more people want to live in southern California, because that is the reason rents are so high here. People are welcome to move to other states where rents and cost of living are lower. Supply and demand is the underlying prime factor in all pricing. Demand grossly exceeds supply here, and that's why there is a "housing crisis". There's no crisis, it's just supply and demand. There is little undeveloped land in So Cal, so the ability to increase the housing supply is quite limited.
Thank you. I have properties from PA to CA and in between. Insurance has risen 40% minimum in the last 2-3 years.

In CA, our lowest Insurance increase this past year alone was over 150%. Yes, well over double. I had to shop around to find a rate that was only 80% higher than the previous year. I moved all our CA properties to that company.

I haven't and couldn't increase rents high enough to cover those increases. Of course property taxes always increase too. Oh yeah...utilities in Cali? LOL! Out-fuckin-rageously high, and increasing constantly.

Of course you don't own anything in this land of the free. Try not paying RE taxes or vehicle licensing. Better yet, Gov't can usurp your rights of ownership by placing an eviction moratorium over the entire country. Tenant decides they don't want to pay, even if they can? Landlords can't do anything about it. If I do? I go to jail.

But the Gov't paid for them, right? First of all, that's just coming out of my pockets anyway. Gov't only gets money by taking from taxpayers. Gov't ended up giving total of 15 months rent over a 22 month moratorium period. If you took that Gov't money, you still couldn't file eviction for 3 months after moratorium ended. Total 25 month moratorium, supposed to be covered by 15 months rent? Fuck off! I had a really bad experience that ruined a 6 unit building in St. Louis, due to that unconstitutional mess.

But the landlords were painted as evil rich. Most landlords are just mom and pops who own a handful of rentals or even 1 or 2. Many got screwed, lost properties, lost savings, went into debt, etc.

So far I am pretty much 100% in agreement with Pig Vomit in this thread. My limited experiences line up with his abundant experiences with homeless.

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk
 
C

ceo

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Oct 12, 2010
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I am an attorney. In my state landlords are not limited to what they can charge. But it is hard to evict tenants. During covid all evictions stopped. They seem to be very hard to achieve even after the stay on evictions was lifted. I had an active eviction practice for years and eventually gave it up. One reason I stopped was the tenants who were destructive and angry, were able to take serious advantage of their landlords without any consequences. It was seriously demoralizing. I also stopped doing evictions because I stopped all litigation....

I often hear stories of tenants who decide to destroy their apartment and fight with their landlord, their neighbors, and seemingly anyone who comes into their sphere of influence. Sometimes these are people on drugs, sometimes they are simply angry people. The tenants file counterclaims against the landlord claiming the apartment they ruined is not habitable, they claim the landlord is discriminating against them, etc. The courts bend over backward to be sure the tenants get the full advantage of the court process . . . dragging the eviction out years, sometimes. The police won't intervene. The landlords, other tenants and neighbors become victims to these monsters.

Thank you for posting this. These stories are not often told.

I keep thinking if the system doesn't provide justice, one of these days the people themselves are going to take matters into their own hands and it isn't going to be pretty.

Oh believe me...I so wanted to. I haven't had thoughts like that probably ever.

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk
 
testboner

testboner

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