There was a psychiatric hospital that closed down a while ago which has resulted in a large number of homeless people in the surprisingly small town where I live. Yes, I agree with the big push to de-institutionalize people with serious mental illness, but the lack of support given to help these folks become fully independent is astonishing. Well, that’s the united states for you, i guess.

Oh but the army is always hiring!

I live and work in Boston. We have a large homeless population here as well. I am fortunate enough to work for a nonprofit that (tries to) help with this situation. Mainly, my company takes in homeless people from shelters who have suffered a major physical or psychological trauma in their past or those who need psychiatric care. The programs offered to those who are interested/qualify aid with everything from daily living skills to assistance with finding employment. While places like this do help, there are never enough. And there is never enough funding to do all that is possible to aid those who really need our services. The program I work in is slotted for ten individuals but currently we are running at half capacity due to lack of funding. Its a frustrating situation to be in, seeing what help can be provided but having to cut it short due to federal/state budget cuts.

Quoting Patrick Pitt:

Oh but the army is always hiring!

Capt. Pitt,
I failed Dweeb 1. I doubt then would let me in.

Matt,
I like the fact that the story you relateld didn’t have to do with a physical fault or a mental alliment, but did have to do with life.
There are a thousand small, little towns
with enough little people to fill them
and enough stories to sew them together

And still, unless you were there….?
Thanks for speaking to the common man.
I pumped gas too, I was ashamed too, I smirked too

I’ve never understood how a family can give up on a one of its members because of an illness.

I was in high school, and a speaker with Schizophrenia came in to give a speech to us about living with the disability. The speech itself was good, but what was really unbelievable to me was the fact that, after he was hospitalized for the second time (as he thought his Schizophrenia had been cured by the medication, and stopped taking it), his family moved. Like, they actually changed their phone number, last name, and everything, just so they wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore. I guess I’m spoiled, in that my family would do damn near anything for me - and I guess I’ve come to accept that as the norm.

Seriously though. That’s just fucked up.

I have just watced someone very close to me lose their job due to a layoff. It has been three years since then and she has searched for something suitable. Again, suitable not being ‘fancy’ but there are a couple of physical limitations that must be taken into consideration. There is no help or assistance for her save perhaps $100 in food stamps per month. No insurance. She lost her apartment but only after using all of her 401k/IRAs. Currently, she is one step from being homeless. It scares me how quickly the dominoes can be set up just to fall. The basics in life are frustratingly hard to obtain when you fall through the cracks.

There was a time in my life when many of the friends I had were homeless. I never let myself forget how lucky I was to be a part of their world by choice - no matter how real and serious my own problems were, I always had something to go back to. I knew far too many people who had been through the most horrible, inconceivable shit…so much worse than I ever want to be able to really understand.

I took a lesson from the incredible sense of family and community that those kind of people can create in a void…it’s the only way to survive, on so many levels. Necessity or not, it’s admirable. They were some of the most resilient and resourceful and cunning people to have ever crossed my path (don’t get me wrong - there were idiots and assholes too, but they weren’t the majority). Life on the street is one of the hardest ways to live (it would be so tempting, so easy, for me to give up - if it were me). It’s an incredible paradox, to stay alive in that environment - the coexistence of extreme good luck and bad luck.

Perhaps it’s impossible to comprehend from outside, but I believe it is our responsibility as human beings to give each other the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who can imagine that another human would choose to live in hell, well…I’m guessing they’ve never been there.

I lived on public assistance as a child. I do remember it and it was not fun. You never wanted your friends to find out. I worked my way through college and got a masters degree. In my line of work your always pursuing new work so there is no guarantee that next job will be there. Always a constant struggle.

i myself spent a month in the downtown east in a sick sort of way trying to “find myself”…what I found was that I’d been there the whole time-I wasn’t going anywhere-I was being a petty asshole-and that I should really just go hme and get my shit together…and now I think I’m getting there…8 years after my “trip” to Van but still on my feet and dealing with myself on my own terms and without the prying and presumptuous medicating western medical system…there i go being an asshole again…but two homeless people that i met in van will stay with me forever…Richard-an addict- asked me-rhetorically-if it was possible for a 20 year old to have a tortured soul…I’d like to know i i have a soul at all please…And Tamara-a freckled,red-headed runaway- simply told people when she pan-handled that “even pennies count”…their words will never leave my mind…maybe I’ll figure out why i still sometimes feel like i don’t know myself…pleased to meet you…who are you..?How ar you today..?

PeaceLoveandUndersanding

I see my parents struggle sometimes but it is nothing compared to the realities of how bad people have it. And often times I take everything I have for granted. I mean I’m sitting in my room, in my nice house in the suburbs with a big pool in the yard, typing away on my laptop with my cellphone and iPod feet away from me …I don’t have to think about the harsh realities of the world. Even though I know I should.

And sure …I can work, save and go to univeristy so I can have a “good job” and not have to worry about my next meal or where I will sleep at night, but in the end you never know what shit life is going to throw at you.

“Who willfully chooses to be homeless, to sleep huddled in doorways in the rain, or in a park? Believe it or not, there are those out there that actually believe that root causes do not exist that explain homelessness; that those that are out on the streets are simply there because they’re too lazy to get their act together.”

I never faced anything in my childhood quite as drastic as the things you’ve listed. Insomnia, depression and fairly constant peer ridicule, yeah, but stuff I’m supposed to cope better with. Now I’m in my mid twenties, my phone and cable are disconnected, I’ve had to drop two classes that I could barely afford in the first place and I’m working six days a week. All because I spent the month of January unemployed and looking for a job that would fit my school schedule rather than accepting something immediately.
Turn to family again? Yeah I guess, but I’m tired of disappointed frowns. I have every opportunity but all I want to do is run from my debts and hide from the people I let down.

I guess what I’m saying is some people’s lives fall apart because they really are too lazy to get their act together. That’s a mile in my shoes.

Quoting T-Lee:

Just say sorry if you don’t have it. offer a granola bar, something.

You know I used to do just that. I live in OR and commute to work so there was nobody asking for anything except at the stoplights. Every day I would see someone standing there, broke my heart…It was then that I went to Safeway and picked up a box of granola bars. Every day I would hand whoever was standing there a granola bar, they were always very thankful. I even gave the guy who had a dog two bars.

My Aunt works in Duluth, MN with homeless teens, she helps run a shelter downtown. My family had the privilege of being invited to her partner’s daughters wedding *talk about complicated, hi I’m the niece of your mother’s partner, here to attend your African-American Apostolic Lutheran ceremony in Duluth, MN- it was awesome I LOVED it! Never experienced anything like it before and probably never will again.* Anyways at the wedding there was a girl from the shelter there. She was maybe 16, 8 months pregnant and smoking a cigarette outside the reception hall. Being as naïve as I was I asked my Aunt if she should be smoking, my Aunt looked right at me and said ‘oh honey, that’s the least of her problems’. That moment right there was very eye opening for me. I’d been very sheltered up until that point of my life, but I’ll always remember that.

The past two Christmases, while shopping at my local No Frills I saw a man….I watched this man from a distance. He approached shoppers and asked if he could return their carts to get the quarter, some let him some just ignored him (I mean come on it’s a flippin quarter, cheap bastards).
At the time I was on diability myself due to my mental illness, I didn’t have much but I thought where does this man sleep? what does he eat? I was getting in my car and going home to my small warm safe apartment. I got all the change in my purse, about $5 and some small change and drove by and gave it to him, the next Christmas….same thing…….I wonder ?????? why is it I only see this man at Christmas? This year I was in a better place mentally and finacially, so I was able to give him more.
I think people come into your life to teach you things. This man taught me even though I thought I was at the end…. a year can make a big difference….who knows the money you give someone may be the ticket to a better/different life, $2 to us is nothing we spaend that on coffee $5 a combo from Wendy’s, you can’t think about the negative (they are buying alcohol or drugs) just think maybe just maybe that money made a difference in someones life. Remember the guy on the internet that traded a paperclip for a house. :)

This may be a little off topic because I’ll be talking about the homeless in Montreal, but in a way, it’s comparable.

In Quebec, there’s a problem with welfare (that may exist elsewhere, I just don’t know about it). If you don’t have an address, you can’t have welfare. If you want to rent and are jobless and welfare-less, then they won’t rent…it’s the chicken and the egg, which comes first?

That being said, there is always a big problem when it comes to giving money to beggars: are they going to drink it or inject themselves with it?

It may seem cliché, but downtown Montreal, there’s a lot of drug takers who beg for money. I’m not talking about all people LIVING in the streets, but about the people who are just begging for change. I some of these people being arrested by the police because they were shooting themselves with heroin outside or driking themselves silly.

When a real homeless person begs for money to eat, I would much rather buy him breakfast than give him money. I know I’m not minding my business, but it’s my money.

Other than that, the actual homeless people are the most silent ones when it comes to begging (in Montreal again). You know the people you see sleeping on the sidewalk and whatnot, they’re the ones who beg the less. Generally, you can walk pass them, they have a cup in front of them, don’t say a word, stare out of boredom or sleep. That is a real tragedy. People begging for bullshit are horrible because they annoy people so much so that the people who actually need it don’t get a dime. Walk down St-Denis street downtown Montreal…if you gave to every begger, you’d be in debt. Scrap the drug takers and the bullshitters and you could help a lot of them just get through a day.

Good post Matt.

This is a real eye opening post Matt. Like Prosis said a few posts before, most of the homeless people are silent, at least where I live, a much smaller city than Montreal, we have homeless people (yes we have, as many I’m sure would not believe even if I told them… but from the people I know that are working in the “field” we have more than anyone would like to really think) and we don’t see them begging in the streets, even if they are among everyone else. We have, however, a community home that is mostly full and very underfunded, I’m not sure their request for donations are totally met.

Even in small cities like mine (50K habitants), this is the reality. Not because they are all alcoholics or addicted to drugs, but because they are mostly in a bad situation and I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to get out of this. I wish some of my friends would realise this before judging… but that isn’t the case, and I tried.

Homelessness is widespread, and not just in large cities.

As a young child growing up in Guelph, my trips to downtown Toronto for baseball games were always memorable. The main thing that sticks out in my memories of these trips were that the homeless were always lined up on the sidewalks begging for change from the crowd. Being a child, I had no idea what tradgies these people could have experienced or why they did not have a family to take them to baseball games. This was a whole new world, appart from the one I had grown up in, and all I remember doing was trying not to make eye contact with the powerful reality of homelessness. It’s scary that I was not the only person doing so. I’m ashamed to admit that I was even scared of them at the time, but my views have fortunatly changed over the years. A child raised in ignorance will be eventually hurt by harsh reality.

Thanks for giving me something to comment on Mr. Good.

Jess!

I’m on welfare at this very moment while waiting for other sources of living income to come through.

Even if it’s for only a temporary time, or if the reason you are on welfare is completely outside of your control, there is a feeling of guilt and internalized shame (common in our society of poor bashing). There are so many myths about the welfare system (the ‘make taxpayers feel that everyone on welfare are committing fraud’ scare campaign worked rather effectively), and many people don’t know that often whatever money is received is often immediately paid back / taken back by the government as soon as employment / insurance / or whatever other monies are received, even if that means the person goes without money for a further amount of time so that the debt is repaid. It’s not a free ride nor an enjoyable one. I remember when 30 bucks or so was cut from mother’s who were receiving welfare because it was said they were using it to buy beer. Incredulous to punish everyone, insulting and it only made things worse.

Where I live, I have seen the other consequences of the system, where people who have to decide between food or rent and can’t run the chance of being evicted, decide to turn to selling drugs (or themselves) to make ends meet. Or, through so many different factors and from being pushed further down into the ground, they give up. Sometimes, there just aren’t any legitimate jobs available in an area and without the funding to relocate or the ability to do so, people get trapped in a cycle of poverty. Without access to funding for education or effective government programs (totally gutted in the past few decades), it can be a very demoralizing experience.

People often don’t realize just how close they can be to being the person on the street, or alone having to submit all of their personal details to receive next to nothing to scrape by. With the manufacturing industry and other sectors of the economy going through some difficult changes, people who once felt secure about their income and would never have thought of themselves as being ‘one of those people’ are soon finding themselves in line at the welfare office. Employment (Unemployment Insurance) qualifying factors have been tightened so much that many are surprised when they find themselves even more worse off. Suddenly, they’re on the inside of the outside and things look much different.

The percentage of people who “abuse the system on a regular basis” are so minimal, so very very small, that the amount spent on investigating possible fraud cases is tremendous in comparison to the actual few cases where welfare fraud has occurred. Again, that assumption of people and stigmatization is just one of the many things that is preventing real change.

I think dialogue between those who have been there and those who haven’t is extremely important in making change that isn’t just all talk.

A thank you from someone below the waterline. Thanks for writing this post.