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You'd do very well not to try not to hold this opinion in your mind:

    "the homeless are shameless opportunists who go wherever they can most leech off society"

You've basically tarred a whole class of (often vulnerable) humans with your predisposed judgements. It's a dangerous thing to do.

I'm in a privileged position, and in all honesty, I don't know enough about homelessness to make particularly informed comments on the subject. You need to start with compassion and an attempt at understanding otherwise you won't get anywhere.

Look at the situation in Europe right now, there are literally millions of refugees that will become part of the homeless class. "shameless opportunists"? I think not.

What about the kids born into it?

> I don't know enough about homelessness to make particularly informed comments on the subject.

But you know enough to say omniusaspirer is wrong?

> What about the kids born into it?

What about the children? Should we debate about their place in society instead of fixing the system that created homeless kids? That same question can be used to accuse the hug-away-homelessness types of perpetuating perverse incentives.

I'm pretty sure I don't know how to help the homeless as a group, but you can't eat melodrama. Give a grumpy person half the leeway you'd give a panhandler, please.

I think you've taken my comments in a pretty uncharitable way.

I don't need to know anything at all about homelessness to know that looking down on any group in society as a whole unit is wrong (and unproductive).

I'm not using a flawed "what about the children" argument here, in case you misunderstood. It's pretty straightforward; there are people literally born into a situation that they have no control over, so you can't make any judgements about their character due to the life they've "chosen".

Of course that's a single extreme example to prove a point. You don't need to do much research to see that this isn't a class of people who have chosen to take an easy path to leach of society.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/why_we_campaign/tack...

> You need to start with compassion and an attempt at understanding otherwise you won't get anywhere.

-aidos

> ... looking down on any group in society as a whole unit is wrong (and unproductive).

Unless they think enabling homelessness causes homelessness? You don't know omniusaspirer. He or she could have been homeless at some point. He or she called for a national comprehensive solution and increased spending, but that's not good enough? Do we need to be feelings police and check privilege this aggressively? Why would you alienate potential allies in the fight against homelessness?

And, for what it's worth, I have lost family members to homelessness. And not due to a lack of compassion or resources. There was more than understanding, there was love, and it wasn't enough.

Firstly, sorry to hear of your loss. Fortunately it's not something I've had to deal with on a personal level and I hope it stays that way.

There may be some misinterpretation going on but I certainly didn't mean to imply that I was judging anything about omniusaspirer based on privilege or otherwise.

My point was that a comment like "homeless are shameless opportunists who go wherever they can most leech off society" is incredibly hateful talk to apply to a broad group of people. It's an ugly narrative, and if you attach those labels to a group of people you don't even know it's hard to imagine how you're going to help them.

I wasn't suggesting compassion and understanding as any form of solution.

Partially, this sort of narrative is one I'm particularly aware of at the moment. Over the last few months the British press have been using similar sorts of narratives to create an "us and them" gulf between humans and refugees.

I do stand by my comment. If you treat people as a lower class of being (as I would argue "homeless are shameless opportunists who go wherever they can most leech off society" suggests) then you'll struggle to solve these issues at a social level.

Aside from all that – I'd like to hope that we all want to help solve this issue. I've been doing a little googling around but haven't managed to find very good information on homeless causes. There must be bucketloads of research into it. I'd love to understand a little more about it.

I have no use for enforcing narrative, especially when that involves pushing away people already willing to help. We're not trying to save the souls of grumpy people; we're trying to make sure people can have dignity, a home, food, and clean clothing.

If people wonder why Donald Trump is a thing, it's the backlash against this kind of thought policing. And Donald Trump is a terrible person, so please don't make me agree with him. I will not accept that the answer to an "us and them" narrative is to pick a new "them".

Yeah, the "shameless" comment was cold and dumb, but he's not apologizing... what are you going to do about it? Making sure people feel the right way is a terrible battle to fight on many levels.

>there are people literally born into a situation that they have no control over

And similarly, Omniusaspirer (along with every other person) was literally born into a situation that he had no control over. So you can't make any judgements about his character, right?

I think this is all just getting a little pedantic and picky (if you see my other comment to Omniusaspirer you'll see I'm trying to be more productive).

But in response to your question – I fail to see where I'm making a judgements based on a stereotype. All I was saying is that it's dangerous to form a narrative based on stereotypes.

So when http://www.adn.com/article/20100401/study-homeless-teens-she... report about the number of homeless rural teens in Alaska, who go to the city to find a job but don't have high school diploma or equivalency.

Vicious cold? Check. Impoverished? Check. Rural? Check. And yet there is homelessness.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stat... is titled "States Struggle With 'Hidden' Rural Homelessness"

> But in Fredericksburg, as in other small towns, suburbs and rural corners of the country, the homeless are often hidden, out of sight and mind, hard to reach and hard to help, say people who work with the homeless. ...

> But rural areas are more likely to be poor, with limited transportation, making it that much harder for the homeless to get to a center that can provide counseling, a housing voucher or medical care.

http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/rural says :

> Many people think of homelessness as strictly an urban phenomenon because homeless people are greater in number and more visible in urban areas, but homelessness is also pervasive in rural areas.

> Rates of homelessness among rural areas vary widely. According to the Alliance’s Geography of Homelessness report, there are approximately 14 homeless people on average for every 10,000 people in rural areas, compared with 29 homeless people out of every 10,000 in urban areas.

All this suggests that you simply didn't see the homelessness that was there when you were a child.

> My entire childhood growing up I never saw a single homeless person despite growing up in an impoverished rural area

You didn't look hard enough.

Here's an article about homeless people in Ulan Bator, where temperatures reach -40.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/underground-and-off...

http://visura.co/user/MikeA/view/40-96

>Evangelical groups, he said, lure the homeless with offers of food, clothing and showers. But their promises of salvation are ignored, with the men resting inside for a few days before returning to the streets and their stupors. The government, he said, has one hospital where alcoholics are taken for up to two years. But there are few opportunities for work once they get out, so the path often leads back to the streets and drink.

If they choose to stay in that position and I never see them that's still a massive net positive. If people want to get obliterated by their addictions and ignore any help available to them then it's silly to interfere with or enable that lifestyle. At that point they've made a choice and I expect the local police to deal with the problem of homeless aggression and harassment. Make help available, and if they choose not to take advantage then continue to remind them help is available while at the same time keeping them from being a public nuisance.

To give you a personal experience: I was followed for a full block and cussed out by a homeless guy just the other day, a choice quote was "it's fuckin Ann Arbor man I know you got money!". My crime? "Sorry, I don't have anything for you, there's a shelter nearby that could really help you out".

These people are a problem, and it's not just because they're "suffering". No individual city is going to fix this problem, and frankly no country is going to fully fix it either. Denmark for example still has a sizable homeless problem despite a massive amount of help available simply because some people choose to be chronically homeless.

> If they choose

Why do you think homelessness is a choice?

Why do you think addiction is a choice?

> To give you a personal experience: I was followed for a full block and cussed out by a homeless guy just the other day, a choice quote was "it's fuckin Ann Arbor man I know you got money!".

To give you a personal experience: The other day, I ran into five or six panhandlers on the walk between my apartment and the local Target. Without exception, each asked for change and each -without exception- either wordlessly accepted my refusal, or offered some variant of "Okay. Have a nice day.".

Panhandlers and homeless are people like any other. Some of them are obnoxious as shit, just like any other random slice of humanity. Some of them are gaming the system. Some of them are in temporary, but dire need. Some of them will always be in need due to some sort of serious, lasting damage.

I heartily agree that our country has failed a huge chunk of the poor who are in need of psychiatric services. Reinstating funding for effective, humane, state-run mental hospitals is probably about as important as setting up a self-sustaining colony on Mars. [0]

> My entire childhood growing up I never saw a single homeless person...

My parents also shielded me from all sorts of ugly and unfortunate things while I was growing up. I'm not sure that this decision was wise, but it's far too late to change it now. It wasn't until much, much later in life that I learned a little about how to look for the homeless, beggars, and squatters, and the measures that The State employs to try to keep them out of the public eye.

> If [the homeless] choose to [continue to live in homeless outreach programs]...

You missed an important sentence in the bit that you quoted:

>> But there are few opportunities for work once they get out, so the path often leads back to the streets and drink.

If you don't have a way to make enough money to get a place, it's very, very hard to get a place. If you get a dollar a day, and you spend a dollar a day, you're pretty much never going to be able to materially improve your situation on your own.

[0] That is to say, very, very important.

I think you could have worded it differently to ignite a more positive discussion but, as you say, let's put that aspect to one side.

I'm sure you're right in so much as, people are going to make their situation as workable as possible. If you can easily choose an environment that makes life easier, you probably will.

If the city has 'excellent resources for the homeless to both survive and "get back on their feet"' you have to ask the question, why isn't it working? Maybe it is? Maybe it's just not working fast enough?

Maybe the most productive thing to do is to look at this population of humans and say - what do each of them have to offer to make society better. How do we harness that in a positive way for everyone. Like I said in my other comment – I don't know anything about homelessness so I can't really discuss the solutions in any detail.

Sorry that this is so off-topic, but your edit breaks the HN guidelines. Please don't go on about downvoting in comments here; it always reduces signal-noise, especially since your post was otherwise a high quality one.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Most / many homeless have substance abuse and/or mental problems [citation needed], hardly opportunists.

> Omniusaspirer: It's a taboo thing to say but spend enough time in > different locations and you learn very quickly that the homeless are > shameless opportunists who go wherever they can most leech off > society.

First, I have to be clear: the homeless are a broad population, and calling them all parasites, essentially, is offensive to me. I've spent more time than most talking to homeless, helping them, and I consider many homeless people to be friends. A lot of them are mentally ill, and they are ill in ways that are easily identifiable from a brief encounter. However a lot of them are ill in ways that are just as damaging, but not easily identified. One rather common example: depression. From the outside they look normal, but if you spend any time at all talking with them, it's clear that something is very wrong. Some of them have trouble regulating their emotions, and it's not that they just don't try. It's not a problem that they can think their way out of, and medication often isn't that effective. Some of them are physically ill, but again, it's not clear just looking at them that somethings wrong. One friend of mine had a heart attack, got MRSA in the hospital which became a 9 month ICU visit that cleared him out of all his money. The end result was six or seven years of homelessness, until he could get into subsidized housing.

Please note that I'm not saying that all homeless people are just in need of some love and understanding and then everything will be just ducky. The fact is that some homeless people are dangerous and should be locked up. I don't have any trouble with that (although they should get psychological help while locked up).

If I had to guess, based on my (very) limited experience I'd say that about 1/3 of the homeless population is there because of addiction issues, and the remaining 2/3 has serious mental issues.

I agree that there needs to be "expanded mental services, more rehabilitation", however I think the policing needs to be dome very carefully. From the tone of your post, I suspect your idea of "strict policing" is going to cause more harm than good. First, there are some civil rights issues -- it's illegal (in the US) to discriminate against a class of people. That's why cities can't just kick out the homeless, just like they can't ust kick out addicts, or black people. Second, strict policing of homelessness will end up throwing a vulnerable population into jails or prisons, both of which are expensive, overcrowded, and have many other serious problems.

The thing with homelessness is that there isn't any easy, one-size-fits-all answer. It is a difficult problem, and one that will take time and money to address. I don't have any easy answers, either. But there are a lot of people suffering. Also, don't think that you are that far from homelessness. It's not an "us vs. them" issue. Sooner or later all of us get old, or sick, and need someone to take care of us. That's just how life is.