How much do you donate and volunteer annually?

[Phatscotty]

i don't give a cent to bums, or those guys that hit you up at the gas pump who got lost, car broke down, someone stole their wallet, and they just need to get a motel for the night til' their wife/brother/dad/friend can wire them the money.

i do give money occasionally. for instance; when i bought my driver license on line, they asked me if i wanted to donate to state parks and a few other things. well i gave the state parks a $100 dollar bill. if st. jude or texas childrens hospital would ever approach me in a way similiar to that (not face to face) i would chunk some duckets their way as well. other than that, i'm very distrustful of people and their reasons for needing money so i just give them a smug look and be on my way.

i will donate loads of my time to anyone i judge to be deserving of it. meaning, if i see a guy busting his ass to get himself out of a bind, i will stay with this guy until he is out of a bind. but if i see some pathetic wimp crying like a baby cause AAA told him they weren't coming to help him change a flat, i'll let that guy piss and moan while i go on my merry way. i will not transfer soup from a pot to a bowl for some bum that is perfectly capable of doing that himself. nor will i cook it for him.

what i would be willing to do is assemble all the necessary ingredients along with cooking utensils, directions, and heating apparatuses in a box to give to a bum so he can actually do something for himself for a change. i mean seriously. being a bum is the most pathetic form of existance i can think of. it's like saying "hey guys. look at me. i gave up on life, could you do it for me".

both of my jobs over the last 10 years.....ALWAYS HIRING! Oh, but you have to pass a drug test. okay, nevermind....

[WILLIAMS5232]

i don't give a cent to bums, or those guys that hit you up at the gas pump who got lost, car broke down, someone stole their wallet, and they just need to get a motel for the night til' their wife/brother/dad/friend can wire them the money.

i do give money occasionally. for instance; when i bought my driver license on line, they asked me if i wanted to donate to state parks and a few other things. well i gave the state parks a $100 dollar bill. if st. jude or texas childrens hospital would ever approach me in a way similiar to that (not face to face) i would chunk some duckets their way as well. other than that, i'm very distrustful of people and their reasons for needing money so i just give them a smug look and be on my way.

i will donate loads of my time to anyone i judge to be deserving of it. meaning, if i see a guy busting his ass to get himself out of a bind, i will stay with this guy until he is out of a bind. but if i see some pathetic wimp crying like a baby cause AAA told him they weren't coming to help him change a flat, i'll let that guy piss and moan while i go on my merry way. i will not transfer soup from a pot to a bowl for some bum that is perfectly capable of doing that himself. nor will i cook it for him.

what i would be willing to do is assemble all the necessary ingredients along with cooking utensils, directions, and heating apparatuses in a box to give to a bum so he can actually do something for himself for a change. i mean seriously. being a bum is the most pathetic form of existance i can think of. it's like saying "hey guys. look at me. i gave up on life, could you do it for me".

both of my jobs over the last 10 years.....ALWAYS HIRING! Oh, but you have to pass a drug test. okay, nevermind....

I can't believe a poor bum can't work and be high. that's discriminatory on some level i'm sure. and yeah, our company has been looking for help desperately for as long as I can remember. meanwhile bums rule the intersections to streets leading into our company's office. this is not a suit and tie position. I work construction which is the perfect job for a bum to get back on his feet. bathing is optional on a construction site.

[mrswdk]

I tried giving a homeless woman outside a bar the sushi roll I was holding at the time, but she turned it down because she didn't like tuna.

[nietzsche]

I tried giving a homeless woman outside a bar the sushi roll I was holding at the time, but she turned it down because she didn't like tuna.

so?? a bum can't have preferences??

[mrswdk]

I tried giving a homeless woman outside a bar the sushi roll I was holding at the time, but she turned it down because she didn't like tuna.

so?? a bum can't have preferences??

Would've thought someone with no money would appreciate some food when offered to them.

Most of the bums in Beijing are professional begging gangs anyway though, so they don't really count.

[Dukasaur]

I tried giving a homeless woman outside a bar the sushi roll I was holding at the time, but she turned it down because she didn't like tuna.

Once, back when I was a cab driver, I was sitting in front of the bus terminal in the middle of winter. There was an old bum going through the garbage cans at the bus terminal. I'd see him pull out some fragment of something and chew on it. It was a brutally cold night in January; I really felt for the guy. The food he was pulling out of the garbage can must have been frozen solid; it probably cost him as many calories to thaw it in his mouth as he derived from it.

I took $10 out of my pocket and went over to him. I held out the $10 and said, "Man, go buy yourself some dinner." He just growled at me like a dog and backed away. I approached closer and he began snarling. No words, just animal snarls. He had no front teeth so his canines looked huge. Middle of the night, I'm all alone with someone who looks and sounds like a werewolf. I started getting nervous and got back in my cab. I drove passed and dropped the ten-spot at his feet. He didn't pick it up, just ran away snarling. I went back and picked it up.

Anyone who's stable can get an apartment, get welfare, get retraining, get a job, etc. That all goes without saying. But many of the chronically homeless are burdened with serious depression, schizophrenia, and other illnesses. They are simply not capable of capable of functioning well enough to take advantage of services that are available to them.

Stuff like this...

i don't give a cent to bums, or those guys that hit you up at the gas pump who got lost, car broke down, someone stole their wallet, and they just need to get a motel for the night til' their wife/brother/dad/friend can wire them the money.

i do give money occasionally. for instance; when i bought my driver license on line, they asked me if i wanted to donate to state parks and a few other things. well i gave the state parks a $100 dollar bill. if st. jude or texas childrens hospital would ever approach me in a way similiar to that (not face to face) i would chunk some duckets their way as well. other than that, i'm very distrustful of people and their reasons for needing money so i just give them a smug look and be on my way.

i will donate loads of my time to anyone i judge to be deserving of it. meaning, if i see a guy busting his ass to get himself out of a bind, i will stay with this guy until he is out of a bind. but if i see some pathetic wimp crying like a baby cause AAA told him they weren't coming to help him change a flat, i'll let that guy piss and moan while i go on my merry way. i will not transfer soup from a pot to a bowl for some bum that is perfectly capable of doing that himself. nor will i cook it for him.

what i would be willing to do is assemble all the necessary ingredients along with cooking utensils, directions, and heating apparatuses in a box to give to a bum so he can actually do something for himself for a change. i mean seriously. being a bum is the most pathetic form of existance i can think of. it's like saying "hey guys. look at me. i gave up on life, could you do it for me".

both of my jobs over the last 10 years.....ALWAYS HIRING! Oh, but you have to pass a drug test. okay, nevermind....

I can't believe a poor bum can't work and be high. that's discriminatory on some level i'm sure. and yeah, our company has been looking for help desperately for as long as I can remember. meanwhile bums rule the intersections to streets leading into our company's office. this is not a suit and tie position. I work construction which is the perfect job for a bum to get back on his feet. bathing is optional on a construction site.

... misses the point. Many of these people aren't capable of even asking for a job.

At least one bum that I used to know personally is a former Associate Professor. He wrote the Java compiler that they used for years at Brock University. He did brilliant work, several people have told me. But at some point he became paranoid about deadlines. Still did brilliant work if no time frame was mentioned, but the moment somebody mentioned a deadline he would start to tremble with fear, and that was that. Maybe if that was his only problem he would have gotten some therapy or whatever, but he had a bit of a drinking problem as well, and then his parents who he was very close to died and he just went into a tailspin of drinking and sleeping on the streets.

Besides him, I know two other guys with genius-level I.Q.s that are also unemployed and unemployable, but who manage to navigate well enough to not be homeless and to preserve themselves on welfare.

The traditional judgemental label of "lazy bum" is just so shallow as to be useless. There's a lot more to what's wrong with these people than a lack of desire to work.

Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, or so they say. We can hope the poor bastards get something.

[nietzsche]

You know you're right, but the burden of thinking of their suffering is to much to some of us, so we basically find an excuse not to pitty them and continue with our lives as if them brought it up on themselves.

Which is also a bit of justifying the extents to which we go to stay away from thise situations for ourselves. I bet at leat half of the people hate their jobs but keep them anyway because the alternative of being homeless is painful, specially in countries like the US where falling back on relatives is often not an option.

[nietzsche]

Something similar happened indirectly to me some months ago, there was a girl, maybe around 20 that was, according to some people, dropped from car by a group of men. She was pretty and was dressed in a way that enhanced her figure but not necessarily as a prostitute. Nobody knew where she slept the first night but the second day i hear the story, she was almost in front of our store sitting by herself and i made a couple of sandwiches and convinced my sister to bring them to her along withh a can of juice. My sister was like 5 mins with her, said she was not completely out of her mind but yes a little bit crazy, and she hesitated to take the sandwiches and drank the juice.

I told my sister she could be someone's daughter and started calling many numbers but everybody just gave us another number to call, until finally the police said she would come. The police came first to us and she saw them and fled.

I never heard about her again. She was probably a victim of people trafficking.

[WILLIAMS5232]

I tried giving a homeless woman outside a bar the sushi roll I was holding at the time, but she turned it down because she didn't like tuna.

so?? a bum can't have preferences??

a bum with too many preferences, is usually a hungry bum.

stuff like this.......

At least one bum that I used to know personally is a former Associate Professor. He wrote the Java compiler that they used for years at Brock University. He did brilliant work, several people have told me. But at some point he became paranoid about deadlines. Still did brilliant work if no time frame was mentioned, but the moment somebody mentioned a deadline he would start to tremble with fear, and that was that. Maybe if that was his only problem he would have gotten some therapy or whatever, but he had a bit of a drinking problem as well, and then his parents who he was very close to died and he just went into a tailspin of drinking and sleeping on the streets.

.... misses the point

those aren't the bums i'm talking about. the ones i'm talking about are sane, and capable of asking for a job. if you can
'ask a man for a dollar, then you can ask a man for a job. if you can wait 20-40 mins in an organized soup kitchen line, then you can sweep a parking lot, if you can feed birds at a park, then you can blow grass off of a driveway. you give 3 examples of bums you say are uncapable of work. i'll see 20 tommorrow that i say are capable.

the bums i know all stand at intersections holding signs with witty statements of how they could use a few dollars.
pretty much, you spare your dollars towards what i consider a wasted effort to "help" and then walk away feeling good about
yourself. i'll keep my ten and give it to someone who provides a service instead. and i'll feel good about myself. in the meantime,
that guy you wanted to give the ten dollars to. he probably still needs ten dollars.

[mrswdk]

those aren't the bums i'm talking about. the ones i'm talking about are sane, and capable of asking for a job. if you can
'ask a man for a dollar, then you can ask a man for a job. if you can wait 20-40 mins in an organized soup kitchen line, then you can sweep a parking lot, if you can feed birds at a park, then you can blow grass off of a driveway. you give 3 examples of bums you say are uncapable of work. i'll see 20 tommorrow that i say are capable.

the bums i know all stand at intersections holding signs with witty statements of how they could use a few dollars.
pretty much, you spare your dollars towards what i consider a wasted effort to "help" and then walk away feeling good about
yourself. i'll keep my ten and give it to someone who provides a service instead. and i'll feel good about myself. in the meantime,
that guy you wanted to give the ten dollars to. he probably still needs ten dollars.

Why don't you go offer some of those guys a couple of those construction jobs that you apparently struggle to fill and see whether or not they accept?

[WILLIAMS5232]

those aren't the bums i'm talking about. the ones i'm talking about are sane, and capable of asking for a job. if you can
'ask a man for a dollar, then you can ask a man for a job. if you can wait 20-40 mins in an organized soup kitchen line, then you can sweep a parking lot, if you can feed birds at a park, then you can blow grass off of a driveway. you give 3 examples of bums you say are uncapable of work. i'll see 20 tommorrow that i say are capable.

the bums i know all stand at intersections holding signs with witty statements of how they could use a few dollars.
pretty much, you spare your dollars towards what i consider a wasted effort to "help" and then walk away feeling good about
yourself. i'll keep my ten and give it to someone who provides a service instead. and i'll feel good about myself. in the meantime,
that guy you wanted to give the ten dollars to. he probably still needs ten dollars.

Why don't you go offer some of those guys a couple of those construction jobs that you apparently struggle to fill and see whether or not they accept?

1. i dont care if they have a job or not.
2. the issue is not that my company has positions to fill, the issue os the bums holding up the sign does not want a position. why would they when there are people like duko throwing $10 bills at thier feet. i have had numerous exchanges with bums. all the ones i encounter are basically scam artists.asking a bum if he wants a job is not going to turn his life around. neither is giving him $10. at some point you need to put the responsibility on the bum.
3, i do not recruit employees for my company
4. i really hope you dont think that a guy holding a sign that says he is hungry and will work for food would honestly take you up on the work part.

[Dukasaur]

those aren't the bums i'm talking about. the ones i'm talking about are sane, and capable of asking for a job. if you can
'ask a man for a dollar, then you can ask a man for a job. if you can wait 20-40 mins in an organized soup kitchen line, then you can sweep a parking lot, if you can feed birds at a park, then you can blow grass off of a driveway. you give 3 examples of bums you say are uncapable of work. i'll see 20 tommorrow that i say are capable.

the bums i know all stand at intersections holding signs with witty statements of how they could use a few dollars.
pretty much, you spare your dollars towards what i consider a wasted effort to "help" and then walk away feeling good about
yourself. i'll keep my ten and give it to someone who provides a service instead. and i'll feel good about myself. in the meantime,
that guy you wanted to give the ten dollars to. he probably still needs ten dollars.

Why don't you go offer some of those guys a couple of those construction jobs that you apparently struggle to fill and see whether or not they accept?

1. i dont care if they have a job or not.
2. the issue is not that my company has positions to fill, the issue os the bums holding up the sign does not want a position. why would they when there are people like duko throwing $10 bills at thier feet. i have had numerous exchanges with bums. all the ones i encounter are basically scam artists.asking a bum if he wants a job is not going to turn his life around. neither is giving him $10. at some point you need to put the responsibility on the bum.
3, i do not recruit employees for my company
4. i really hope you dont think that a guy holding a sign that says he is hungry and will work for food would honestly take you up on the work part.

Actually, you're wrong. I used to have a small masonry business. Wasn't big enough to require full-time help, so I didn't have any permanent employees, but every now and then I'd have some big job to do that required a lot of help, and I'd often recruit on the spot at the St. Vincent de Paul lunch kitchen. I'd just walk in, look around and say, "Hey, you wanna work?" and the answer was 75% of the time "yeah!"

These people don't have their lives organised enough that they feel they can look for a full time job, but if a job is staring them right in the face, they'll gladly do it. I think maybe you need to re-examine your assumptions.

[WILLIAMS5232]

Actually, you're wrong. I used to have a small masonry business. Wasn't big enough to require full-time help, so I didn't have any permanent employees, but every now and then I'd have some big job to do that required a lot of help, and I'd often recruit on the spot at the St. Vincent de Paul lunch kitchen. I'd just walk in, look around and say, "Hey, you wanna work?" and the answer was 75% of the time "yeah!"

These people don't have their lives organised enough that they feel they can look for a full time job, but if a job is staring them right in the face, they'll gladly do it. I think maybe you need to re-examine your assumptions.

actually, according to you, i'm right. at least 25% of the time anyway. i bet that number is geared more towards your benefit tho.

look, here we are again. you give them a temp income. well...what about tommorrow. you're happy. you got your work done. then you throw em back to the curb with a full belly and good wishes. problem still unsolved.

instead of focusing so hard on thinking im just a pos for not caring for them would you just admit you are not doing anything for their well being either. sire you feel real sorry for them. you even give them snacks and capitalize on their unfortunate predicament they're in. but now what.

i see two solutions.
1. quit enabling them
2. go cousel them and teach them how to get prganized.

im going with option 1

you try option 2 and tell me bow successful you are.

[Dukasaur]

Actually, you're wrong. I used to have a small masonry business. Wasn't big enough to require full-time help, so I didn't have any permanent employees, but every now and then I'd have some big job to do that required a lot of help, and I'd often recruit on the spot at the St. Vincent de Paul lunch kitchen. I'd just walk in, look around and say, "Hey, you wanna work?" and the answer was 75% of the time "yeah!"

These people don't have their lives organised enough that they feel they can look for a full time job, but if a job is staring them right in the face, they'll gladly do it. I think maybe you need to re-examine your assumptions.

actually, according to you, i'm right. at least 25% of the time anyway. i bet that number is geared more towards your benefit tho.

look, here we are again. you give them a temp income. well...what about tommorrow. you're happy. you got your work done. then you throw em back to the curb with a full belly and good wishes. problem still unsolved.

instead of focusing so hard on thinking im just a pos for not caring for them would you just admit you are not doing anything for their well being either. sire you feel real sorry for them. you even give them snacks and capitalize on their unfortunate predicament they're in. but now what.

i see two solutions.
1. quit enabling them
2. go cousel them and teach them how to get prganized.

im going with option 1

you try option 2 and tell me bow successful you are.

Why don't you try developing full-blown schizophrenia and then tell me how organized you're going to be?

I don't need to offer counselling services because there's plenty of counselling services out there. There's plenty of welfare agencies, job hunting clubs, subsidized housing, subsidized transport, retraining options. The people who don't take advantage of these are too screwed up to be able to. They don't accept counselling because they don't trust anyone enough to open up and work with a counsellor. Some of the homeless have disability pensions worth thousands, but they remain homeless because they can't cross that psychological barrier of humbling themselves in front of a landlord and filling out a rental application. Some of them have amazing skills, but the idea of committing themselves to an ongoing full-time job fills them with fear. I've already told you about the former professor, but the thing is he's not the only one I could have told you about! That's actually a fairly common scenario, someone who is willing to be productive in his own time, but starts shitting bricks at the idea of facing schedules and deadlines.

Most of the modern homeless are homeless by choice. The supports to transition to regular life are there, but those require interviews, application forms, deadlines, contracts. The little things that to you and me are just a nuisance are for some people an insurmountable obstacle. The idea of having to justify their shitty life in an interview or describe it on an application form fills them with so much fear and self-loathing that they just can't do it.

Most of these people have real and serious mental disorders of one kind or another. Fifty years ago we would just institutionalize them, but eventually the ideology changed and we figured out that it's better to let them live as best they can in freedom than to basically jail them for being fucked up.

"Quit enabling them" -- enabling them to do what, exactly? If I buy a cheeseburger for a homeless guy it's not enablng him to do anything he would wouldn't do anyway. He'll still go to the park and pick up cigarette butts afterward. It's just that now he's going to go pick up cigarette butts with a hot cheeseburger in his belly, and otherwise he would have gone to do it hungry. It really doesn't hurt to be nice to somebody once in a while. I'm not advocating altruism. I'm not advocating stripping yourself naked to give somebody else your shirt. But if you have 20 shirts you're not using, will it kill you to give a couple to somebody who doesn't have one?

[WILLIAMS5232]

Why don't you try developing full-blown schizophrenia and then tell me how organized you're going to be?

that's not how it works.

Most of the modern homeless are homeless by choice.

Some of the homeless have disability pensions worth thousands

Most of these people have real and serious mental disorders of one kind or another.

Some of them have amazing skills

That's actually a fairly common scenario, someone who is willing to be productive in his own time, but starts shitting bricks at the idea of facing schedules and deadlines.

sounds like you got it down to a science.

all i have said, is i'm not talking about theses bums. i don't spend time in soup kitchens, and i don't claim to be a student of psychology or mental disorders. I've been in numerous encounters with bums at red lights holding up signs that say they want food. but I've also witnessed them take food from people and just lay it over in the grass so they don't miss out on the ones that have the good stuff. money. if i said i was hungry and someone gave me an apple i'd go ahead and eat it while i held the sign.

I've also gotten into arguments with some of these guys when they pester me for money. I've seen people with serious mental disorders and all the guys I've communicated with talk normal. just like any guy you may see at work today.

I've also dealt with con artists that approach me mainly at gas pumps. where there's just enough time for them to read you and see if you're going to slip them a 20 spot or not before your car is full. it's like your stuck there and have to listen to the whole story. I've heard it over and over, basically it's always the same. just change a few details here and there. I've also gotten into some pretty heated exchanges with these guys too.

i don't disagree that there are homeless people with serious mental disorders. but to listen to you explain it, being homeless requires you to have a mental disorder.

enabling them to do what, exactly?

not fend for themselves mainly. kind of like having a dog as a pet. see how long you keep him once you stop the filling up the food bowl. i have nothing against you for giving a bum 20 bucks and a cheeseburger. or cleaning out your closet to give them your spare clothes. if you don't do it, there will be another dukasaur that will. nothing i can do about it. but i'm not going to do it. and you're not going to convince me to do it. as much as you believe that you have to help those people, i believe that is the worst thing you can do for them. being mean or nice has nothing to do with it.

[rishaed]

Saxi its Noneya business.
Cause if this is a thread for people pride themselves on how much they donate in front of others its a waste of time.

[Dukasaur]

Yeah, okay Will. There's some bad apples in the basket so let's toss the whole basket in the trash. Got it.

[mrswdk]

So basically, WILLIAMS' solution to getting homeless people out of homelessness is to refuse to give them money or jobs, because to do either of those things 'enables' them.

Ignoring them and then coming up with reasons like 'they're probably all lazy drug addicts' is weak. Why not just admit that you want to wash your hands of them, rather than pretending there is some sort of moral aspect to your indifference?

[DoomYoshi]

Yeah, okay Will. There's some bad apples in the basket so let's toss the whole basket in the trash. Got it.

Far better to exterminate all Malus plants, and any mention of them.


I don't understand your point at all William. Why should people work jobs they don't need, making products that nobody needs? It is the Western perspective that puts economic growth at the forefront of goals that is what I call schizophrenic.

[Phatscotty]

i don't give a cent to bums, or those guys that hit you up at the gas pump who got lost, car broke down, someone stole their wallet, and they just need to get a motel for the night til' their wife/brother/dad/friend can wire them the money.

i do give money occasionally. for instance; when i bought my driver license on line, they asked me if i wanted to donate to state parks and a few other things. well i gave the state parks a $100 dollar bill. if st. jude or texas childrens hospital would ever approach me in a way similiar to that (not face to face) i would chunk some duckets their way as well. other than that, i'm very distrustful of people and their reasons for needing money so i just give them a smug look and be on my way.

i will donate loads of my time to anyone i judge to be deserving of it. meaning, if i see a guy busting his ass to get himself out of a bind, i will stay with this guy until he is out of a bind. but if i see some pathetic wimp crying like a baby cause AAA told him they weren't coming to help him change a flat, i'll let that guy piss and moan while i go on my merry way. i will not transfer soup from a pot to a bowl for some bum that is perfectly capable of doing that himself. nor will i cook it for him.

what i would be willing to do is assemble all the necessary ingredients along with cooking utensils, directions, and heating apparatuses in a box to give to a bum so he can actually do something for himself for a change. i mean seriously. being a bum is the most pathetic form of existance i can think of. it's like saying "hey guys. look at me. i gave up on life, could you do it for me".

both of my jobs over the last 10 years.....ALWAYS HIRING! Oh, but you have to pass a drug test. okay, nevermind....

I can't believe a poor bum can't work and be high. that's discriminatory on some level i'm sure. and yeah, our company has been looking for help desperately for as long as I can remember. meanwhile bums rule the intersections to streets leading into our company's office. this is not a suit and tie position. I work construction which is the perfect job for a bum to get back on his feet. bathing is optional on a construction site.

not so long as the drugs that prevent them from being hired are 'illegal'. I think that's bs too, but on the other side, would you really let a crackhead who doesn't sleep the weekend they get paid come in monday morning all burnt out and burnt up and running your machinery? Driving for you company? making judgements that affect you? pissing off your better workers and making work and life tough for others?

[Phatscotty]

I tried giving a homeless woman outside a bar the sushi roll I was holding at the time, but she turned it down because she didn't like tuna.

so?? a bum can't have preferences??

Nope. There is in fact a rule on this.

Beggars can't be choosers.

- Nietche

[Phatscotty]

I tried giving a homeless woman outside a bar the sushi roll I was holding at the time, but she turned it down because she didn't like tuna.

Once, back when I was a cab driver, I was sitting in front of the bus terminal in the middle of winter. There was an old bum going through the garbage cans at the bus terminal. I'd see him pull out some fragment of something and chew on it. It was a brutally cold night in January; I really felt for the guy. The food he was pulling out of the garbage can must have been frozen solid; it probably cost him as many calories to thaw it in his mouth as he derived from it.

I took $10 out of my pocket and went over to him. I held out the $10 and said, "Man, go buy yourself some dinner." He just growled at me like a dog and backed away. I approached closer and he began snarling. No words, just animal snarls. He had no front teeth so his canines looked huge. Middle of the night, I'm all alone with someone who looks and sounds like a werewolf. I started getting nervous and got back in my cab. I drove passed and dropped the ten-spot at his feet. He didn't pick it up, just ran away snarling. I went back and picked it up.

Anyone who's stable can get an apartment, get welfare, get retraining, get a job, etc. That all goes without saying. But many of the chronically homeless are burdened with serious depression, schizophrenia, and other illnesses. They are simply not capable of capable of functioning well enough to take advantage of services that are available to them.

Stuff like this...

i don't give a cent to bums, or those guys that hit you up at the gas pump who got lost, car broke down, someone stole their wallet, and they just need to get a motel for the night til' their wife/brother/dad/friend can wire them the money.

i do give money occasionally. for instance; when i bought my driver license on line, they asked me if i wanted to donate to state parks and a few other things. well i gave the state parks a $100 dollar bill. if st. jude or texas childrens hospital would ever approach me in a way similiar to that (not face to face) i would chunk some duckets their way as well. other than that, i'm very distrustful of people and their reasons for needing money so i just give them a smug look and be on my way.

i will donate loads of my time to anyone i judge to be deserving of it. meaning, if i see a guy busting his ass to get himself out of a bind, i will stay with this guy until he is out of a bind. but if i see some pathetic wimp crying like a baby cause AAA told him they weren't coming to help him change a flat, i'll let that guy piss and moan while i go on my merry way. i will not transfer soup from a pot to a bowl for some bum that is perfectly capable of doing that himself. nor will i cook it for him.

what i would be willing to do is assemble all the necessary ingredients along with cooking utensils, directions, and heating apparatuses in a box to give to a bum so he can actually do something for himself for a change. i mean seriously. being a bum is the most pathetic form of existance i can think of. it's like saying "hey guys. look at me. i gave up on life, could you do it for me".

both of my jobs over the last 10 years.....ALWAYS HIRING! Oh, but you have to pass a drug test. okay, nevermind....

I can't believe a poor bum can't work and be high. that's discriminatory on some level i'm sure. and yeah, our company has been looking for help desperately for as long as I can remember. meanwhile bums rule the intersections to streets leading into our company's office. this is not a suit and tie position. I work construction which is the perfect job for a bum to get back on his feet. bathing is optional on a construction site.

... misses the point. Many of these people aren't capable of even asking for a job.

At least one bum that I used to know personally is a former Associate Professor. He wrote the Java compiler that they used for years at Brock University. He did brilliant work, several people have told me. But at some point he became paranoid about deadlines. Still did brilliant work if no time frame was mentioned, but the moment somebody mentioned a deadline he would start to tremble with fear, and that was that. Maybe if that was his only problem he would have gotten some therapy or whatever, but he had a bit of a drinking problem as well, and then his parents who he was very close to died and he just went into a tailspin of drinking and sleeping on the streets.

Besides him, I know two other guys with genius-level I.Q.s that are also unemployed and unemployable, but who manage to navigate well enough to not be homeless and to preserve themselves on welfare.

The traditional judgemental label of "lazy bum" is just so shallow as to be useless. There's a lot more to what's wrong with these people than a lack of desire to work.

Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, or so they say. We can hope the poor bastards get something.

Similar story. when was a teenager, this park across the street from my grandpas house was a dumpy wasteland. people just dumped there stuff there, washers n dryers, wood pallets, microwaves, refridgerators, old bikes...you get the idea. so my grandpa won a spot on the city council and made cleaning up the park a priority. They didn't levy taxes or force anyone else to pay, they simply made the situation aware and promoted and ask for money voluntarily. They got the money they needed and cleaned up and groomed the parks and built bicycle paths and installed some benches. They cruz of the story though is, there was a guy who lived in that rubbish and barely anyone even know about it, he had a hole dug and kinda burrowed during the day and did his business at night. anyways, they all pooled together some money, got him a free place for a few months in one of the caring citizens duplexes, the local grocer gave him a free credit, the hair salon gave him soap n shampoo and shaving tools n towels, the launderer agreed to help him do laundry, the mayor agreed to check in on him and help him, the pastor helped to council to steer clear of temptations and bad impulses. I vcan't remember everything....but this dude was set and had a lot to be grateful for and expressed gratitude with tears at the time in a local newspaper interview. He was not mentally ill. My grandpas part was to be the one to give him a job, just cleaning up stuff and helping carry stuff and random stuff. Dude showed up the first day, asked my grandpa to advance him a couple bucks which he was advanced, and then did not show up the next day or ever again, at least for work. A few weeks went by and someone checked in the park and the guy dug a hole in the same spot and CHOSE to live there, his furniture was liquor bottles. Turns out he hustled money for everything the community gave him out of the goodness of their hearts and used the money to go on a drinking binge. The guy did show up at my grandpas shop again soon after, askin for a handout.

Some people cannot be helped. Some people refuse to be helped. Some people give up on recieving help. some people will do what they want to do and don't care that there is help out there for them. Yet, I feel it's these kind of people Progressives always 'imagine' in their heads as the face of 'the millions' suffering and the reason why they will always have a reason for their hearts to bleed. To them, it doesn't matter if someone can actually be helped or not. to them, it's all about seeing one guy having something and another guy having nothing, and deciding that they have the power to take that something and give it to the nothing. all too often, the results are both end up with nothing except mroe greedy and snarly demands for more and exploit everyone's emotions that there aren't doing enough and accuse those that have done much of 'never doing anything' in the first place....

[mrswdk]

Why should people work jobs they don't need, making products that nobody needs? It is the Western perspective that puts economic growth at the forefront of goals that is what I call schizophrenic.

Says the guy living in his comfortable house in Canada playing Risk on the internet.

[Phatscotty]

but yes I agree and am aware so many of these people are mentally ill. I don't give full credit for 'depression' as a real reason, since it can so easily be influenced by perception and education and secularism. But I give depression more cred than I do ADHD. Some people, sure they have raging ADHD, but I think most of them diagnosed as such aren't really ADHD and they start using it as a crutch and like all victim mentalities it ends up destroying the life

[DoomYoshi]

Why should people work jobs they don't need, making products that nobody needs? It is the Western perspective that puts economic growth at the forefront of goals that is what I call schizophrenic.

Says the guy living in his comfortable house in Canada playing Risk on the internet.

The alternative is treating income as growth itself.