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I Used to Be Homeless

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Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#281

Post by RobertRoberts »

kakarot wrote: post #257
lliamander wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he's disputing that crime and poverty are correlated. I think he's disputing both the idea that poverty causes crime and the idea that cracking down on petty crime hurts the poor. There are many people who are poor due to unfortunate circumstances, but more than likely, if a poor person commits crimes, it has less to do with their poverty and more to do with other factors that caused both their poverty…

You're telling me that if I was rich I would still have risked my freedom to steal food from the supermarket during the time when I was homeless and extremely sick and unable to work? And conversely, that I should have just starved instead of stealing food in order to maintain my moral standing? That is arguably an illogical position.

In America (my personal frame of reference) I could eat 7 meals a day as a homeless person. No one starves here if they go and look for food. I got food stamps the day I walked into the social services office.

"Starving or stealing" in the US today is a straw man argument.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#282

Post by RobertRoberts »

kakarot wrote: post #255
RobertRoberts wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been poor most of my life. It's not discriminatory against the poor at all. I lived in a van with my wife, and we didn't steal. There were people in the parks that would steal, and the police would come after them, not us. I speak from life experience. You are helping spread a deadly lie. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong. Go be genuinely poor, it's really easy to do. Just use a tiny amount of money to live o…

I've been extremely poor most of my life. I've been homeless. And neither of our personal anecdotes have any bearing on the reason why the drug war began. I suggest checking out The Emperor Wears No Clothes for a background behind the start of drug prohibition as a new way to discriminate and make use of bolstered police forces after the failure of alcohol prohibition, as well as prevent the disruption of several ent…

I don't disagree with anything you are saying. But you aren't hearing what I said, being poor doesn't cause you to commit crimes.

If you have been homeless, you know that there are both good and wonderful people that are homeless and rotten crooks. Neither of which adding money to their pocket would change.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#283

Post by kakarot »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #280
kakarot wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a disservice to the poor to allow them to become unfairly entrenched in the legal system. No one is ignoring crimes wholesale. This argument is about which of these "crimes" are legitimate and which aren't.

My mother's family was so poor that they ran out of beans to feed 7 kids one winter. They never stole, hurt anyone or broke any laws.

That's great for her, but that doesn't define the moral boundary.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#284

Post by kakarot »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #282
kakarot wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been extremely poor most of my life. I've been homeless. And neither of our personal anecdotes have any bearing on the reason why the drug war began. I suggest checking out The Emperor Wears No Clothes for a background behind the start of drug prohibition as a new way to discriminate and make use of bolstered police forces after the failure of alcohol prohibition, as well as prevent the disruption of several ent…

I don't disagree with anything you are saying. But you aren't hearing what I said, being poor doesn't cause you to commit crimes. If you have been homeless, you know that there are both good and wonderful people that are homeless and rotten crooks. Neither of which adding money to their pocket would change.

The argument isn't about being poor causing someone to commit crimes. That's a complete straw-man. Let's focus.

The argument is about discriminatory laws and conditions forcing a percentage of those in poverty to be considered criminals. Specifically, the drug war. That was all my original comment deconstructed. We could extend the moral boundary to stealing food in order to survive provided you don't hurt anyone, but that's it.

I never made any claim that being poor causes some kind of effect on people that turns them into criminals. You're barking up the wrong tree.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#285

Post by paulgrant999 »

clairity wrote: post #223
smileysteve wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of a fine for doing something illegal is supposed to be corrective. If a person can not pay the fine, if they're not further inconvenienced by being arrested and sent to hours until jail; the effective corrective action is being applied to the judge, police; They can arrest the same homeless, mentally ill, drug addicted person each day; or put them in prison where they don't belong -- or they can fine/arr…

> "The purpose of a fine for doing something illegal is supposed to be corrective." that's almost certainly not true. a fine is primarily a deterrent, and failing that, is punitive. it's not corrective (or restorative), because it doesn't "correct" anything. an example of corrective action is a burglar being required to return/replace stolen items.

s/deterrant/punitive/corrective/coercive/g.

fixed that for you.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#286

Post by closeparen »

megaman8 wrote: post #79
closeparen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may work when the concentration is low. I’d estimate 15-20 homeless people on the daily walk between my front door in SOMA and the Muni Metro. Often in relatively dense tent encampments. I’d feel pretty weird giving to one and not the others on the same block. Especially since it’s probably the same people day in and day out. It’d take some serious preparation before going out the door to pack enough for everyon…

SF just passed 300 million/year measure that's supposed to help the homeless and that's in addition to the 240 million/year of funding that's already there. Both of those combined exceeds the budgets of most cities. First I would say, let's figure out how to use that money so that it's actually working. 540 million/year is enough to give the 7000 homeless in SF 77,000$ per year. Let's put that to good use and make su…

Presumably, the things a government needs to buy to help are housing and personnel, which are unusually expensive here by a wide margin. So having far and away the highest spending per person needing assistance seems correct.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#287

Post by closeparen »

cujo wrote: post #52
closeparen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may work when the concentration is low. I’d estimate 15-20 homeless people on the daily walk between my front door in SOMA and the Muni Metro. Often in relatively dense tent encampments. I’d feel pretty weird giving to one and not the others on the same block. Especially since it’s probably the same people day in and day out. It’d take some serious preparation before going out the door to pack enough for everyon…

I understand what you're saying, but you're literally saying you feeling awkward is more important than someone having food that day. Sure, it's not the most efficient or probably effective, but giving a little bit does make a difference.

It’s a fair criticism. But if that’s the social contract - that a pedestrian in an urban area is obliged to empathize with and offer support for all the destitution along his path - then we are doomed to drive around suburbia forever. Walkability is a compelling goal, but at that price, it seems impossible. So I reject the notion that it’s the price. I realize that’s flawed reasoning.

It’s in San Francisco’s DNA to welcome the desperate and downtrodden from everywhere in the world. I don’t begrudge it that. But it means the streets will never be free of poverty until utopia reigns on every last inch of the earth. Which seems unlikely to happen soon. There’s got to be a pragmatic trade off for the next 50 years.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#288

Post by umichguy »

yitosda wrote: post #263
umichguy wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question for you (and anyone else), while on the topic. If you had a Master's degree and all you did was "normal" office job type stuff, but now if you want to do hourly burger flipping or whatever else, how would you go about tailoring your CV? You can drop a degree or something but now you have to also account for 5 to 7yrs of full-time job experience.....I am trying to rack my brain.

I doubt you need to account for a gap in work experience for a burger flipping job.

I had a friend who had a BS and wanted a temp part time job but got turned down a lot....and these were simple jobs!

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#289

Post by jki275 »

dahdum wrote: post #188
jki275 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never tried to rent in Tokyo, but I can imagine the prices are astronomical in any decent areas.

They really aren't, they are just small compared to western standards. You can get a two bedroom in Shinjuku for $1900/month, it's just going to be around 625 sqft. Transport in the Tokyo area is so good it's not really a big deal to live further out either. A big reason is that the Japanese land zoning approach is far more rational than the US approach. Much has been written about it[1]. 1. https://www.vox.com/2016/…

That's astronomical for that amount of space.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#290

Post by kazen44 »

wjossey wrote: post #193
kazen44 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't know how this works in the US, but in the netherlands we have an extensive system of mental healthcare (financed through the public healthcare system). This system goes from crib to coffin as far as age brackets go, and is integrated with each other. This system seems to work quite well because it has a lot of different methods of dealing with issues people have. Some people live in semi-independant communal…

This is really great to learn about, thank you. It's nothing like that here, primarily because we have such a fragmented system. If one is poor, you will qualify for medicaid, which will vary wildly in terms of quality and access depending on the state in which you live. Even with medicaid, you'll have out of pocket expenses, because of the way our insurance system works in the US. If you are homeless or someone who…

some more information can be found at the dutch website for help (roughly translated)[0]. It is in dutch, but with a bit of google translate you should be able to make out how these "open instellingen" function. (most are aimed at youth and young adults, because the issues seem to be more prelevant there).

some more information about how long term healthcare works in the netherlands can be found at [1]. and more info about communal living here [2].

[0] https://www.regelhulp.nl/ik-heb-hulp-nodig/verblijf-in-een-j...

[1] https://www.regelhulp.nl/ik-heb-hulp-nodig/wet-langdurige-zo...

[2] https://www.regelhulp.nl/ik-heb-hulp-nodig/langdurig-verblij...

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