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Comment by aidos | Hacker News Reader

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?

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> 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.

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