More Than Half A Million People: America’s Homelessness Crisis Is Rapidly Exploding On Both Coasts

Anyone not very young or physically disabled, and still homeless after 6 months .. is someone who doesn't want to play by the rules. It's the FIRST WORLD, not Bangladesh.

 

Sounds very rational, but reality can be far more complex. How many employers won't hire someone who has no home address? How many homeless have no means of transportation other than walking? How does lack of transportation limit one's ability to seek jobs? Homeless people seldom have money. How does one find the peace of mind to concentrate on the complex task of finding a job when one is weak from hunger and the mind is focused on where the next meal may come from? It's easy to mentally place the homeless into a single, simple box because after all they are all "homeless." But life is different for each individual, and every one of us comes here with a multitude of challenges to face, and none of those challenges is simple or easy. Giving those in need a modicum of empathy, concern and help is a good thing. Being judgmental and dismissive isn't. We need more Americans with a heart.

 

Or a big 5-year-long gap in their job experience.

 

The "working poor" are rarely homeless for long.

What people keep doing is adding in those who are homeless short term with those that are chronically homeless. Yes, the homeless numbers are huge, I have been there myself a few times. But the difference between people like me and the majority of other is that within a few months we are back on our feet and no longer homeless.

The increasing majority are the highly visible ones, who are not homeless temporarily. For them, it has become their lifestyle. A temporary homeless person takes advantage of the shelters and work themselves out of it. They strive to get a home again so they can get their things out of storage and resume their life as it was before they were homeless.

The chronically homeless, they strive to get a tent so they can live that way long-term rather than in a box. The really upwardly-mobile homeless strive to get a motorhome or trailer, so they can park it on a street and move it around so the police do not impound it. Those that do so and are not homeless actually have jobs so if they get an RV they park it in an RV park (and by having such and a permanent address are no longer homeless).

The majority of homeless are invisible for those reasons above. They stay with a friend or family until they get another home. They work until they can save enough and get another home. They are functional individuals, who have jobs or are out of work short-term. The long term homeless have generally not worked or had a real home in years.

And I do blame them for their plight. They are dysfunctional individuals, and most live like that for years.

 

You must be reading somebody else's responses. I'm not irate about anything. In fact I do pretty well out of my own rental units in SoCal. I'm just passing on my observations that not everything is black and white, liberal/conservative, government/corperate, public/private and we need, at least here in Los Angeles, to be asking more intelligent questions if we are going to solve the problems that come with rapid urban growth and expansion including homelessness which I don't think is simply down to working people supporting $200.00 a day crack habits!

 

We have ample shelters and food kitchens, the homeless rarely go without food. If anything, many of the homeless I met were obese.

And yes, there are ample jobs. When I was living in shelters in Long Beach, the majority hung out downtown in Lincoln Park. Largely doing nothing, or doing petty crimes for the money to get their drugs or booze. And there was lots of food. Breakfast and dinner were served at the shelter, and all day long various organizations came by and gave food to any who where there. I actually ate better as a homeless person in Long Beach than I did a few months earlier when I had my own apartment.

And in many areas (especially in California) they get food stamps. I see them all the time where I work, getting cookies and candy because they get fed real food at the shelter.

And most communities have programs to help the homeless get jobs. I knew of several in LA. They had a free resume service, a job board and placement program, even showers, laundry and free clothing (including suits) for those looking for work or who had jobs. And gave out free buss tokens so they could get to work or interviews.

I have to ask, have you actually ever been homeless? You sound like a typical person begging for us to pity them, but really do not know what you are talking about. I have been there, I have lived in the shelters. I even knew people who did the "Shelter Hop", since the year-round shelters could not house people for more than 30-90 days.

In the LA area there was a transient group that move from shelter to shelter for years. Bell, Long Beach, Van Nuys, San Pedro, Santa Anna, they would stay at one until they met the maximum time, then move on to the next. I met one guy back in 1999 who had been doing that for years. I last saw him in 2008, and he was still doing that.

We even had one character in Long Beach. He had a decent job, but when the cold weather shelter opened (October to May) he would put everything into storage and move into the shelter. Since he was employed he was guaranteed a bed and had no curfew. He would save the money that would have gone to rent, and every summer took a month long vacation. When I first met him in 2000 he had gone to England the year before, and was planning on Alaska that year. I met him again in 2002, and he was already making plans for a trip to Australia that year. He had been doing that for years before I met him, and he is probably still doing that to this day.

 

Maybe people who aren't rich should stop living in the areas of the US that have the highest cost of housing. Other than the totally dysfunctional homeless, most of these people would have homes if they lived in "flyover country". Get in your weight class, or get knocked out.

 

Don't forget higher college tuition rates to pay for the Dreamers.

Many middle class families are sending their children out of state these days, because it's not any more expensive. (i.e. that tells you taxpayers are effectively no longer subsidizing college for normal residents of the state. Where does all that money go?)

 

Nope, but the dems make them voters.

 

Actually, being citizens makes them voters. Heartless capitalism makes them homeless.

 

1) If I look hard enough, I can find a million reasons why I'm not a successful novelist. We all have our journeys. If you keep making allowances for 'reasons', people will keep finding them.

2) Empathy and concern are best and most effectively provided (and both are a commodity, make no mistake) in the vast array of opportunities available to First Worlders to get ahead in life. None of these homeless people are being prevented from accessing those opportunities, so they are already in receipt of maximum empathy and concern.

3) No, you need less 'heart'. Nutting this out via emotions won't help anyone.

 

Capitalism has nothing to do with making them homeless. No one is born owning a home is any economical political system. Homelessness is the default state in which everyone starts. Capitalism has been the best economical system that has risen more people from poverty than any other system in history. In capitalist America, we have the fattest poor people in the world. In socialist Venezuela, they have the hungriest and starving "classless society" where only the government officials can eat.