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Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

latimes.com

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Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#121

Post by foobarian »

belval wrote: post #31
dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…

The base issue is usually mental illness worsened by substance abuse, without a strong social net and with readily available street drugs these people are pretty much unfit for any kind of work.

The mental illness factor is a part of it, but what's different about the US is that there seems to be less will to "put away" the homeless. You don't see them in more authoritarian societies where the powers that be are less cavalier about grabbing them off the street and depositing who knows where (even if it does end up being some nice universal-healthcare provided institution).

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#122

Post by skeeter2020 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #93
SrslyJosh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck getting and keeping a job when you have nowhere to shower and may be forced to relocate at any time. Oh, and the cops may come and smash or steal all of your belongings.

Gym memberships can be had for $20/month or less, and provide a full bathroom facility for showering and grooming. I'm not trying to be pedantic. I'm just pointing this out for anybody reading this who may find themself in a situation like this in the future.

good luck getting a gym membership without an address, cell phone, credit card or sizeable deposit - forget about the fact that you look & smell terrible.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#123

Post by hackeraccount »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…

I'm not of the Left. So you know where I'm come from.

That said people who are living on the street are frequently deeply alone in way that can be hard to understand. Substance abuse problems. Mental problems. Sure all of that. No place to live too.

All of that's a huge burden. On top of that the jobs that get listed are frequently not going to be offering 30 hours or less a week.

So the way to think of people in that place is that they've got a job. - getting alcohol or drugs. They might have another job - having an incomplete view of reality. On top of that and I would say this most of all, they are frequently alienated from any friend or family.

It's hard in that place to say find 20 or 30 hours (if you're lucky) a week to bring in extra cash. It's doubly hard when your expenses are basically everything you have and everything you can get your hands on.

As I said earlier I'm not on the Left. I think there's an established view that says the problem here is mental problems of one sort or another leading to homelessness and unemployment. It's not that I think that's untrue but that the description is incomplete. It looks at a profound loss and describes a physical situation - even when talking about substance abuse and mental problems there's a clinical view that will help no one. In my opinion at least. Certainly I'm out of step.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#124

Post by gumby »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…

There are many different reasons, some articulated already by other replies. There are also some practical/pragmatic barriers.

One is that if you are living on the street, any possessions are likely with you at all times. What do you do with them while working?

Another is that if you are living on the street you may have involuntary hygiene issues relating to lack of access to water, clothes washing etc which may make you unhireable.

There are real phase changes between "couch surfing", "living in your car" and "utterly homeless" and hysteretic effects that often mean that if you cross a threshold "downstream" it becomes almost impossible in many cases to move back.

There are other issues in the US as well, e.g.: unlike countries like Japan or most EU countries, a lot of people with psychiatric issues are homeless (converse isn't true -- most homeless people do not have psychiatric issues, but the ones that do exacerbate the problem). Also because of weather and services, the homeless population is concentrated in a few discrete areas. Ironically that makes it harder to get support for them as most people don't actually encounter truely homeless people except in the movies.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#125

Post by mc32 »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…

I don’t know, honestly. When I travel overseas and see people who don’t look down upon menial jobs but see them as a source of sustenance I have to admire them.

I’ll see people doing lots of things like picking up recyclables, selling drinks, handyman type jobs, knife sharpener, shoe repair, mobile tailor, etc. Very seldom see homeless in Asia or Mexico (I don’t stay in tourist areas). People there hustle one way or another (I mean the positive hustle, not the negative hustler type hustle). But we seem lazy in contrast.

Sadly, I saw this attitude in a relative. Out of a job, this one would refuse to take a job at the Home Depot or the like. No, that was not their kind of work. They would rather mooch off friends till one of the friends gave them an easy job they could drag their feet at all day. This relative is perfectly healthy and has no physical problems. But would actually rather sleep on the street on occasion rather than get up and show up to work on time on a schedule. Amazing!

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#126

Post by [deleted] »

fabian2k wrote: post #114
simonsarris wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First please note that America has fewer homeless people than many European nations or Canada. Per 10K: Germany......79 UK...........46 Sweden.......36 Canada.......36 Netherlands..23 France.......21 USA..........17 (via Wikipedia, stats for differing years unfortunately but gives a sense of magnitude) It's mostly that the US homeless population concentrates in very few areas. > How do you reconcile that with the fac…

Are you sure those stats are right? It does not seem plausible to me that Germany has 4-5 times as many homeless as the US. I looked a bit, and the numbers really don't match my expectations, I'm pretty sure they're not counting the same things. I found one paper that compares the US and Germany and they got a lifetime prevalence of homelesness of 6.2% in the US and 2.4% in Germany ( https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.or…

[deleted]

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#128

Post by backtoyoujim »

Gimpei wrote: post #119
simonsarris wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First please note that America has fewer homeless people than many European nations or Canada. Per 10K: Germany......79 UK...........46 Sweden.......36 Canada.......36 Netherlands..23 France.......21 USA..........17 (via Wikipedia, stats for differing years unfortunately but gives a sense of magnitude) It's mostly that the US homeless population concentrates in very few areas. > How do you reconcile that with the fac…

I don't think wikipedia is a good source of data in this case. For one German homelessness includes Syrian refugees. Second, it appears as if the definition of homelessness varies wildly across countries, making these numbers not really useful for cross-country comparison. https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HC3-1-Homeless-population.pd...

What ethic background can the United States subtract from its total homeless population ?

Because that reads _to_me_ like you are saying "homeless Syrians don't count".

To which I would ask you, "Why not ?"

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#129

Post by spfzero »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…

Some do, but I'd expect the majority are in the "don't want to work" category. A lot of people are under the impression that these are people that, if only given a chance, would want to get back on their feet and re-integrate with the rest of society. I'd say that the evidence, such as what you've observed, argues against that.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#130

Post by fxtentacle »

temp8964 wrote: post #83
pineconewarrior wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, that job may not offer the person any net quality-of-life improvements. Flipping that burger for 30 hours a week does not give them enough money to find housing. Now they're still broke but they're also tired, smelly, and angry.

What kind of life you can get by just flipping burger for 30 hours a week in Europe? Honest question.

The typical student lifestyle, I'd say. 20m^2 room 5-10km from the city center with combined toilet+shower and internet flatrate.
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