Homeless residents brag about makeshift 'mansion' near Seattle's famed Space Needle

You are in Seattle? Ha ha, one of the most liberal cities in the whole country. If people can't afford to live there they should move on. Plenty of cheap digs in other states like Mississippi. But the welfare isn't as generous in those cheaper places is it?

 

What a bunch of whiny meaningless rant. If the unemployment rate is at 4.1% and the population is at about 300 million adults, that would put us at around 12 million people out of work. What "advantage" are you talking about?? what are these 12 million people supposed to do if the job market isn't there?? Math ain't your strong suit and neither is your "logic." Live in the present and either contribute to the solution....or not. I don't give a rat's behind. But to sit there just to whine and place blame makes you sound like a whiny baby.

 

You are right but you are beating a dead horse. Most of these bums don't have any interest in working. They just want to go to area soup kitchens and beg as much as they can off of people by standing at street intersections and holding those cardboard signs which all of them have. They are all over the place but I never saw anybody begging like this and living like bums until Obama became the president.

 

hahahaha...

Tell you what, let us pay a one way bus ticket and ship them to your neck of the wood where things are.....'affordable' and get back to us how things work out.

 

If the job market is strong then why can't more of these people find work? The answer is that after years of doing nothing they don't want to do anything. Or even worse, they are so worthless after years of being on welfare that they can't do anything employable. In either case it is not anybody's problem but theirs. They need to give up the booze and drugs and go to work.

 

Where are your proof that "most of these bums" don't want to work?? Or are you just happy at spewing out nonsensical talking points you heard from the latest episode of the right wing rage merchants??

You send these people to fight your dirty wars then promptly ignore and discard them when they come home:

http://www.greendoors.org/facts/veteran-homelessness.php

 

Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit is it? What is the unemployment rate again? Do you know that there are homeless people that actually have a job? Again, your "booze and drugs" rant come straight out of the rage merchants talking point. Which comes before? being homeless that lead to "booze and drugs" or the other way around. The answer isn't straight forward but do go on with your simplistic understanding of the issue.

Note, you are one of those people that sits there and whine without a suggestion to solve the problem.

 

They wouldn't be there if Colorado hadn't legalized pot.

 

You answered your own question, in part.
Sadly, I suspect some of them are unemployable because they can't pass a drug test.

 

What comes before is ALWAYS personal dysfunction. Functional and non-addicted people, even born into the worst families, will make the effort to make and maintain strong friendships, and so would never find themselves 'homeless'.

Seriously, you have no idea what you're talking about. This is a function of individual human failure, nothing else.

 

No, that isn't always the case, but it sure didn't stop your nonsense talk. Why don't you look at the case of homeless veterans for example. Were they drunkards and drug users before or after they came home and were treated like dirt, not treated for medical issues such as PTSD and depression?

 

The reason places are cheap to live in is because people don't want to live there

 

So these people are building effective tent cities, living on the streets, but can't work on a farm?

And we are talking about their ability to find a job, not their ability to stay with friends. If hundreds of thousands of illegals can come into this country homeless and find a job, these people should be able to as well... that was your claim afterall.

Ill agree that many of these people have addiction and mental issues. Something we have a country have failed to provide services for. Instead, we just give them sustenance and shelter and hope they disappear, not realizing we are compounding the problem of dependency, rather than spending those dollars on treatment.

My initial response was related to the concept that this is a problem of capitalism, which it is not.

 

Keep voting for one of the two horses with the same owner, people.

 

This represents "abundantly generous welfare handouts" to you?



Jeez, I'd had to see what you'd describe as stingy insufficient handouts.

You think?

Tell us, exactly what "abundantly generous welfare handouts" does Fox News tell you Obama created during his administration?

Wait a minute. If these folks are receiving such "abundantly generous" welfare, why are they living in piles of trash, disease, feces, and pools of urine? You really think folks want to live in that kind of squalor? Why aren't they living government housing?

What exactly is your proposal to do with these folks?

Tell us about your interviews with them upon which you've made your conclusions as to the reasons for their behavior.

 

You can tell the state of Washington isn't giving
the "free riders" (as Obama called the people that want free things from a system without putting into that system) enough money based on the squalor they have made for themselves?
You must be some sort of mind reader. At the least you must know all about welfare rates in Washington.

So it's the fault of Washington state's welfare system that people defecate and urinate where they live and exist in squalor?
Washington is ranked the 10th most generous state in the union in terms of welfare. https://www.cnbc.com/2009/07/21/The-Biggest-US-Welfare-States.html

Why don't you do the same? Tell us about your research in this matter.

 

I asked who would choose to live in garbage, feces, and pools of urine if they had "abundantly generous" welfare by which they could live in nice housing.

Why did you dodge that question?

Nope. But I think its a reasonable premise to assume that if a person has a choice between living in garbage, feces, and pools of urine versus nice housing, they'd choose the latter. Unless they have mental problems or something. And even then.

I said no such thing. I asked as question. Again, why did you dodge my questions?

I wasn't the one making assertions about the reasons for their condition. See the posts to which I responded.

Another question you dodged: "What exactly is your proposal to do with these folks?"

 

The welfare, in the forms of unemployment benefits that went on for YEARS, the easy transition to Social Security 'disability' after the unemployment bennies ran out, and all the other government handout programs covering everything from EBT (food stamp) benefits to rent subsidies, to free utilities, to free cell phones, big handouts to people with children, all went to helping people "get on their feet". So why hasn't that done any good for the "homeless campers"...?

You know your economic statistics and economic theory, Iriemon. I've always given you ample credit for that, for years. But I think you're a bit out of your depth in assessing the effect of Democrat Welfare Circus handouts for eight long years under Obama on a population that was all too ready to lay around on their increasingly lazy asses in distracted oblivion. What we are seeing with these people today is the truth of Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs". What we are seeing also is the creation of Orwell's "Proles", much as described in his masterpiece, "1984".

You ask, "What exactly is your proposal to do with these folks?" My answer: We do NOTHING to these people except make them obey the same laws that everyone else in the United States must obey. They have the right to be as diseased, filthy, worthless and useless as they evidently want to be. They've made their decisions, and now they have to live with them. But, they don't have the right to break the laws, spread diseases, and trash the whole country!

My biggest bitch is that cities and counties can't even enforce the laws that the homeless mobs break freely every day because hyperliberal Left-wing organizations like the ACLU come in and use the court systems to forbid the local governments to do anything to STOP this total breakdown of law and order in our cities.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the topic has to do with homelessness, not unemployment.

The fact is that many of the homeless DO have jobs. In fact, some have enough income to afford rent - even in Seattle. The same goes in other cities. Salt Lake City, noticed this fact and have centered one of their programs around this fact. Seattle is incorporating that idea in our list of approaches.

I agree that there are issues of drugs, mental health, unemployment, etc.

But, the fact is that homelessness is about not having a home off the street. And, there are a number of reasons for that.

 

That's not the only war we haven't won since 1964.

 

Yes, there certainly are people who are in need of treatment and could be contributing were they to get it.

Yes, there are those who are working and need places where they can do stuff like wash up to go to work.

There are those who can pay even the high rents of Seattle, but don't have the savings to pay the full costs of moving in.

There are those whose income is wiped out be continuing medical issues.

There is some of just about everything. It's not a one size fits all issue.

Also, it IS an issue with capitalism, in that capitalism doesn't give a hot damn whether there are people who aren't in a position to compete. Capitalism says win enough to survive, or die. I'm not suggesting capitalism is the problem. But, in many cases it absolutely is NOT the solution - or at the very least it takes effort to get problems aligned with a profit motive significant enough to motivate private enterprise. Doing the things that cities need done is simply not always profitable.

 

I suspect many of them squander away their welfare benefits trading them for drugs and alcohol.

As for "abundantly generous", I suppose it is open to interpretation. I think it's pretty generous that a person can sit on their butt all day and refuse to work and still have a roof over their head, food on their table, medical care and a cell phone thanks to welfare.

 

Dodge your question? I haven't dodged anything, Iriemon. Look, there's a cause-and-effect dynamic going on with these 'homeless campers'. As I said, many of them have some kind of hard-luck story -- and, no doubt, some FEW of them should qualify for varying kinds of government benefits -- particularly veterans.

But the majority? They experienced bad things of some kind in the recession, then they went on welfare of a dozen different kinds. Now, NINE YEARS after recession officially ended, they're still pulling in as much welfare as they can get, but the whole quality and outlook of their lives has deteriorated so badly that there's nothing worthwhile left. So, they just bum around from place to place, creating one disgusting, dangerous, and often illegal situation after another, everywhere they go.

Think of it this way --

. 2009 -- "Go look for a job? Why, when Obama's giving me everything for free?!"


. 2018 -- "Just gotta score a '20-bag'... screw everything else."

 

Have you ever been to Seattle? Housing, even when you can find it, is hardly cheap.
Especially "nice" housing. We should all find nice affordable housing. Got any magic acorns or a genie who can make those wishes come true?
While welfare in Washington is relatively generous no one is getting a state hand out that would allow them to live in nice housing.
Not in Seattle, anyway. I suspect Washington legalizing pot has made Seattle a mecca for brain impaired slugs who only want to stay loaded all the time...that's all.

You can see from the photos the state of those homeless encampments. Is there some reason I'm not aware of why being homeless has to mean you live like pigs in a pen? Does homelessness and utter filth necessarily go together? I wasn't aware it must be so.

I hate to resort to cliches and old stereotypes but looking at the filth and squalor these homeless live and you have to conclude they just aren't interested in doing a thing to help themselves. They just want hand outs and welfare money to continue to live their blank worthless lives.

If it were me? I would round all the homeless up. Burn everything not claimed or cleaned up and move them all into a tent city where city health codes are strictly enforced.
Put the drug addicts and drunks in rehab (a difficult task since Washington has made itself a pot mecca) and get the mentally ill
into some sort of treatment program.

The rest can pay for their rent by doing clean up work for the city (graffiti removal, tearing down other homeless camps, etc.)
But that's just me. I doubt city management has that much back bone or sense and as someone who spent lots of time in Seattle
growing up with relatives there, the city has always been kind but now they have lost their minds and their "kindness" now days
means taking people no one wants to deal with and letting them live like stray dogs.

 

I suggested doing the same but were called a liberal bleeding heart. Some people are just about whining with no solutions provided.