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Groups of Homeless People

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Re: Groups of Homeless People

#31

Post by glangdale »

ericmcer wrote: post #24
glangdale wrote: post #21

The bit on 'ruiners' is overly judgemental, lumping people who are clearly upset and mentally ill in with predators. Yes, there are sociopaths and predators in homeless shelters, but a lot of the behaviors being picked out in group 5 are just signs of mental illness and distress - just a severe point on the continuum of group 4. Also, a category that's neglected is people who could be served by existing shelter or ha…

I agree with the 'ruiners' label though, especially living in SF, the vast majority of homeless are minding their own business and trying to get by. If you pass by 100 in your day and just one happens to be openly shitting in front of you, you might walk away saying, 'the homeless are really ruining the city', in spite of 99% of your encounters being neutral.

I'm not convinced that characterizing people who are mentally ill as "ruiners" is a particularly helpful taxonomy whether you're looking to understand homelessness or help fix it. I think it just serves as a tough-talking catchall category for "homeless I don't like" here (like we'll cut the 'bad ones' out of the herd and then be nice to everyone else).

I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of labelling people as 'ruiners' - even when they have have behaviours that are in fact ruining cities, shelters, etc. This is particularly pernicious because the author doesn't bother to separate out predatory behavior ("robbing other homeless people") from mental illness ("painting the walls with poo").

It's like the author just ran out of compassion somewhere down the list and said "fuck the rest of these guys".

Re: Groups of Homeless People

#32

Post by harlanji »

Are you homeless? I am and have been for about 10 months, SF. I don’t think this is a constructive list; I am working on my own, of course. For example, there is a new group in Mountain View who call themselves transitional RV housing. Nice try but not holding any water in my view.

Tangent, I am qualified for a lot of dev jobs.

Re: Groups of Homeless People

#33

Post by ghostly_s »

standardUser wrote: post #23

As a many-decades resident of Santa Cruz and San Francisco, and a as someone who has in the past been deeply involved in the street/drug scene and been associated with and friends with many dozens of people who have lived on the streets, I think this bizarre attempt at categorization missed the most visible and important group of people on the streets... People who choose to live on the streets. Go talk to people. As…

Well then, sounds like a problem that can easily be solved with the meager expense of public facilities, trashcans, and open spaces that aren't sidewalks for the unhoused to hang out in.

Re: Groups of Homeless People

#34

Post by watwut »

standardUser wrote: post #23

As a many-decades resident of Santa Cruz and San Francisco, and a as someone who has in the past been deeply involved in the street/drug scene and been associated with and friends with many dozens of people who have lived on the streets, I think this bizarre attempt at categorization missed the most visible and important group of people on the streets... People who choose to live on the streets. Go talk to people. As…

Why is the amount of these growing?

Re: Groups of Homeless People

#35

Post by forevertogether »

Oh sure! Project your fears onto other people, and put them into psuedo-categories. Much easier to do this than to humanize them. Bravo for your technical analysis!

Oh boy! This sarcasm is what living in Britain for 10 years has helped me master. I think deep down my sarcasm actually represents pain.

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“We Americans stubbornly resist the possibility that what we do is profoundly shaped by policies, norms, systems, and other structural realities. We prefer to believe that people who commit crimes are morally deficient, that the have-nots in our midst are lazy (or at least insufficiently resourceful), that overweight people simply lack the willpower to stop eating, and so on. If only those folks would just exercise a little personal responsibility, a bit more self-control!” — Alfie Kahn

-

Seriously, what needs of yours are met by psuedo-diagnosing some of American society's most vulnerable? And more importantly, what needs of yours are unmet? What emotions do you feel, and what do you feel in your body?

I think American society has evolved into a culture that glorifies violence, turns young girls into sex objects, sends young men to their deaths to ‘defend America’, and indoctrinates it's citizens with bizarre nationalistic views and a sense superiority that to me is completely removed from a compassionate view of life.

For some reason, instead of having an empathic view on those people, your ego has decided that it is actually better than these people. This to me looks like a case of good old grandiosity! This seems oh so common in the great U. S. of A.. Exceptionalism seems to be embedded into the culture overall.

I invite all of us to take a gentle look in the mirror, and I believe the following video reflects our collective unconscious and our society’s ‘shadow’. It has helped me reflect, maybe it will for you too.

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” -C.G. Jung

(In-Shadow by Lubomir Arsov)[https://vimeo.com/242569435]

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Update - comment on prison:

"I don’t have a solution to ruiners that isn’t prison"

Have you watched the recent documentary 'The Work'? I think putting people in jail is possibly the worst crime of all. Let's get them in therapy instead. We can help to heal them by listening to their stories. The trailer for 'The Work' can be watched here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8OVXG2GhpQ

Re: Groups of Homeless People

#36

Post by ende »

ghostly_s wrote: post #33
standardUser wrote: post #23

As a many-decades resident of Santa Cruz and San Francisco, and a as someone who has in the past been deeply involved in the street/drug scene and been associated with and friends with many dozens of people who have lived on the streets, I think this bizarre attempt at categorization missed the most visible and important group of people on the streets... People who choose to live on the streets. Go talk to people. As…

Well then, sounds like a problem that can easily be solved with the meager expense of public facilities, trashcans, and open spaces that aren't sidewalks for the unhoused to hang out in.

I think you’re missing the point. The people that OP is referring to refuse to use all the public facilities offered, they don’t want to sleep indoors, they don’t want to use trash cans, they don’t want to piss in mobile bathrooms or take showers, they don’t want to be corralled into designated hang out spots.

They want to go wherever they want to, camp out wherever they want to, they want to collect whatever garbage they want to and they don’t want to clean up after themselves, they want to do as much drugs and alcohol abuse in public as they want to, they want to piss wherever they may happen to be at the moment because they don’t want to be burdened with the responsibility of thinking out their actions.

This doesn’t describe every one exactly but it generally describes most that fall into this category.

Ultimately these are people who refuse to play by the rules of society. No amount of public support is going to change them because they simply do not want to change. They are perfectly happy where they are right now, doing whatever it is they want to do. Nobody can solve their ‘problem’ because as far as they are concerned there is no problem.

So understanding that fact, society needs to decide just how much of that behavior it is willing to tolerate.

Re: Groups of Homeless People

#38

Post by marcus_holmes »

codeafin wrote: post #30
mav3rick wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any ideas as to why they prefer to stay on the streets ?

It's similar to someone complaining about their job or relationship, but refusing to do anything about it. Life can be comfortable if you keep thinking to yourself that you are a helpless victim. You become your own biggest hurdle at that point but it's a consistent predictable life people sometimes subconsciously fall into. It's also still subjective to say not being homeless is all good. Some may even prefer that "…

I had a mate around the same time who was voluntarily homeless. A Falklands veteran who'd worked on bomb disposal. They didn't know what PTSD was back then, but after he'd seen too many of his friends blown up in buildings, he didn't trust them much, and preferred living outdoors.

But that's a different thing, I think.

Totally agree, for some people painting themselves as innocent victims of circumstance allowed them to avoid all responsibility for their lives, and let them continue avoiding facing unpleasant/difficult truths about themselves. Not all, obviously, but there were those who didn't want to change because change would be painful.

Re: Groups of Homeless People

#39

Post by ende »

dbcurtis wrote: post #6
_ikuh wrote: post #2

I was pretty with it until 4 and 5. The premise that certain groups of people without housing "can't survive without the kind of assistance that money can't buy" is condescending and elitist at best.

No, there are a huge number of people that are on the edge w.r.t. mental health. Not quite capable of handling activities of daily living and/or their own finances. Or not 100% of the time, and that fraction of the time that they can't, their money evaporates, and/or relationships evaporate. The crisis in mental health care in the US is shameful. It is true that in the bad-old-days people were over institutionalized.…

> That said, I don't think many of the mentally ill need to be forced into an institution under the old model, but we really do need a mechanism to deal with ill people resistant to treatment.

This is the mission statement right here. Very well said.

There are quite a few articles/blogs/etc out there from psychiatric professionals who were practicing before deinstitutionalization, many of whom were champions of the reforms, but who in retrospect question whether it should have happened (or at least how it was executed and how ‘community mental health’ never really took off).

Maybe it’s time to revisit the concept of mental institutions, albeit a more humane model.

Re: Groups of Homeless People

#40

Post by DanBC »

ende wrote: post #39
dbcurtis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there are a huge number of people that are on the edge w.r.t. mental health. Not quite capable of handling activities of daily living and/or their own finances. Or not 100% of the time, and that fraction of the time that they can't, their money evaporates, and/or relationships evaporate. The crisis in mental health care in the US is shameful. It is true that in the bad-old-days people were over institutionalized.…

> That said, I don't think many of the mentally ill need to be forced into an institution under the old model, but we really do need a mechanism to deal with ill people resistant to treatment. This is the mission statement right here. Very well said. There are quite a few articles/blogs/etc out there from psychiatric professionals who were practicing before deinstitutionalization, many of whom were champions of the r…

> Maybe it’s time to revisit the concept of mental institutions, albeit a more humane model.

There isn't a more humane model. If you're forcing people into an institution you're also going to be forcign them to take medication and if you're not very careful there's a bunch of other restrictive practice and other bad stuff that happens. The main ones would be use of rapid tranquilisation, use of prone restraint and supine restraint, and sexual assualt from staff and other patients.

A better model would be correctly funded assertive outreach teams.

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