Rebecca Twigg is homeless

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by Buzz

I think you may have misunderstood his post. He said his tolerance for coddling the homeless...as in a misguided way of dealing with a problem.

I agree. I don’t think there is anything compassionate in allowing a human being to sit in their own feces and urine and allow them to shoot up. No one would allow or condone a baby to sit in a dirty diaper and leave drugs lying around for them to access. You would be thrown in jail for child endangerment. And yet out here in SF that’s basically the city’s approach to homelessness. I have personally witnessed the cops just stand there and do nothing and even walk away when homeless have masturbated in public, dropped their pants and crapped, yes crapped, right on the sidewalk, piss and do drugs, be completely intoxicated, etc.

If you allow criminal, aberrant and self destructive behavior it’s just begets more of the same. If you don’t believe come walk around San Francisco or Oakland. It just keeps getting worse.

More word salad, same reductive point.

Homelessness is an incredibly complex problem and one that the richest country in the history of the planet should be able to solve.

There's no excuse that we as a society allow anyone in this nation to go to bed with an empty belly, without a roof over their head, or without access to basic healthcare.

And yet here we are.

[54ny77]

This thread demonstrates that homelessness is a crazy complex issue, without question.

[ultraman6970]

Flash, the problem is really spread. You have hobos that wont go out of the street... then you have at the same time people that work out the system to take advantage of it so others ones cant be helped. Then you have other ones that simply dont qualify for any help like for example the retired grandmas and grandpas you know.

I do get your point that is unfair that somebody goes to bed hungry, many arent, and some are because of other people working out the system or just because they do all legal and at the time to apply for assistance they dont lie in the paperworks and for 50 cents extra in their paychecks they are unqualified for assistance of any kind.

Some people even work less hours so they can get the assistance and refuse to work more hours or the assistance will be denied, where i work there's at least 4 people that work like 2 hours a day and they go home, and is not because are sick... they work 5 hours a day the gvmt check will be cut off.

Other ones just rely in the amount of kids and people living in their house to get assistance (seen those homes with 20 cars outside?)... and they wont do anything to get off of it..

In some places you have families put in hotels by the county, kids living in hotels paid by the county because they are homeless, but they have a 250 bucks nike, the last iphone and dressed sharp like the rich kid of the school.. each state is different but situations like that happen all over, the issue is that people doesn't know about the programs offered by the counties, really really underground stuff sometimes.

Social workers or what in my country we call Visitor social worker, is not a profession counties and states take seriously IMO, or these situations would not happen... you detect a family or a person working out the system, then the saved funds could be channeled in the right direction but w/o having that support from the counties to detect the anomalies, it will be really hard to fix the problems you know. The other issue is that the gvmt channel funds to counties based in the ammount of people they are helping so the more people they help (or pretty much give your money up) they more money the county gets and they simply dont do anything to even investigate if the paperwork is real... which is sad because situations like Ms twigg or Hobo Jo in your hood would be less propense to happen because funds and resources would be channeled in the right direction.

Sadly, the subject wanted or not it becomes politically inclined. And pretty much there's not much to do at that point. And happens here, there and everywhere around the country, the issue is that people just don't know. As i said before, a lot of stuff at local gvmts going on that is really underground.

[harryschwartzma]

To me the main issue is that she was woefully under compensated throughout her career commensurate to her abilities and achievements. Had she been fairly paid at the peak of her career she would have had resources to maybe deal with her own issues on her own time. Maybe she would have squandered it, but at least she would have been able to earn a chance at a normal life.

[Mikej]

Seems like the more we fix things the more help people need.

[Mikej]

Originally Posted by harryschwartzma

To me the main issue is that she was woefully under compensated throughout her career commensurate to her abilities and achievements. Had she been fairly paid at the peak of her career she would have had resources to maybe deal with her own issues on her own time. Maybe she would have squandered it, but at least she would have been able to earn a chance at a normal life.

What was she getting paid? And pay is not really a good measure of how a person will integrate into society.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by livingminimal

no, but permanent supportive housing, will.

https://www.nhchc.org/policy-advocac...rtive-housing/

but...

released its budget proposal today for fiscal year 2020, and like its previous budget requests for 2017, 2018, and 2019, the administration is proposing steep cuts to both the department of housing and urban development (hud) and the department of transportation (dot).

For hud, the budget requests $44.1 billion in discretionary funding, a 16.4 percent decrease from 2019 funding levels. For dot, the budget requests $21.4 billion in discretionary spending, a 22 percent decrease from 2019 funding levels.

[ultraman6970]

IMO, In paper many plans or ideas looks terrific but in practice they dont work too well because if you have 1000 guys like Mr Gallagher from the Tv show and game over...

[David Kirk]

I've not shared this in public before but I was homeless when I was in my late teens.

I didn't do drugs and I never committed a crime....I just didn't have enough money to both eat and have a place to stay.

I left home just before turning 17 because my older brother was violently abusive to me and my parents looked the other way in an effort to delude themselves that everything was "fine." I moved from New York to Florida and worked at a bike shop and did my very best to make money racing BMX.

I was making it but not by much. And then my truck broke down and the repair took everything I had. I lost my apartment and did some house sitting and couch surfing and saved some money but coming up with first month, last month and security deposit was a big ask.

I ran out of places to sleep and started sleeping in my truck and showering at a local campground. I thought it would be for a night or two and it lasted much longer. I found it hard to find places to park the truck where I wouldn't get tickets or towed.

I knew that it was going to get much worse if I didn't do something big to find a place to live. I chose to attend some B level pro BMX races thinking that if I won I could get a few hundred bucks (much smaller winnings than at A level races but easier to get). I trained as hard as I could on the little food I could afford and I won two B races and suddenly had just enough to get a very small apartment with two other guys. It sucked but it was dry and safe. From there things progressed very slowly to the good.

I wasn't mentally ill. I wasn't an addict. I wasn't a criminal. I wasn't lazy. I was broke....flat out broke. The only thing I lacked was money. I saw all too many like me. I also saw people with larger challenges than just being broke. I saw a full mix. One sees much more when you are not passing by at 55 mph but sitting still with your fellow humans. One sees a lot and it is an eye opener.

dave

[peanutgallery]

She may have pulled in 50k per anum during the heyday, but her success and likeness were leveraged by individuals/organizations who could barely tote her dirty cycling socks as far as cycling chops were concerned. Cast aside by Chris Carmichael et.al when she refused to ride a sponsor junket in the 96 Olympics because she didn't like it and felt more competitive on another bike. Cast aside like a NCAA athlete with a chronic injury. She was way undercompensated

$$ doesn't fix everything, but it certainly makes things easier. In this case, a big check to her favorite homeless charity from USAC or whatever would probably give an incredible amount of personal satisfaction

Originally Posted by Mikej

What was she getting paid? And pay is not really a good measure of how a person will integrate into society.

[weisan]

A lot of good insight and many well-meaning pals.

Like any typical complex problem, the issue of homelessness has many layers.

Is it driven by socioeconomic factors?

Is it related to mental health?

Is our welfare system taking care of these people?

Are we helping them to get back on their feet or are we just feeding more into their co-dependencies?

Of course, the answer is yes.

Like the seven blind mice trying to figure out the elephant, we are all holding on to a piece of the puzzle.

Understanding the real issue(s) behind homelessness is one thing, solving it is another.

The executive director who runs a homeless shelter program or the social scientist who did 2 years of research on the subject, they may know a lot of the inside story and are closely involved but they may or may not have the key to unlock the solution. Sometimes, especially, when dealing with complex issues, it takes a bit of separation or distance from the day-to-day to be able to think outside the box and come up with a creative solution. Sometimes we think we know, but we don't. The author Gladwell is an expert in peeling the onion and showing us the "surprise element".

A very well resourced nation like the United States shouldn't be allowing homelessness to exist or should be able to solve the problem of homelessness. That's like saying we should be able to solve obesity, gun laws, teen suicide, tax evasion or any other problems in our society. It's not that simple. Sometimes it takes more than just throwing money, people, time or resources at the problem.

As always, like a lot of the problems we are dealing with, it starts with us.

[Gummee]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

Homelessness is an incredibly complex problem and one that the richest country in the history of the planet should be able to solve.

OK, I'll bite: how?

M

[gone]

Originally Posted by Gummee

OK, I'll bite: how?

M

Well, step one would be to stop treating homeless people like either they deserve it or it's their fault "poor life choices". A very significant percentage of people in this country are one minor hospital stay away from living on the street.

Some ideas:

• Affordable housing based on ability to pay.
• Comprehensive mental health care, drug treatment programs, etc.
• Job training and placement programs.
• Raising minimum wages to the point that you could actually afford to live on what you earn.
• Affordable health care for all. Perhaps making health care non-profit?

If we spent even a small fraction of what we spend on defense on homelessness, we might not solve it but we sure as hell would make a dent.

[buddybikes]

Back in the 40's, my father lived for a while at the YMCA. Didn't consider himself homeless, just a simple room. Paid minimal rent while just beginning pharmacy. Don't think back then, least I never heard from my father, this was unsafe. How can society now have safe infrastructures for people like Dave Kirk who can get a chance at life for minimal costs.

Our "common law son in law" basically the same situation, but is brilliant (aspergers) he was able to get loans through school kept roof over his head. 15 years later is still paying it off.

[ultraman6970]

Well thats the thing, is hard to discriminate... many of the homeless have social and psychological problems. The cases as mr kirk and just the few... for example he had been in my county he could have applied to free stuff... probably back in the day they did not have that, probably he did not know... probably the system was already collapsed, who knows.

One thing is certain, no matter how much help you get, if the affected doesnt want to get out of that, the person wont; as simply as that.