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Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

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191–200 of 254 posts

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#191
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It started w/ an Aladdin story & dream-chasing .. but to cut to it, @ present, I basically operate in / out of a storage unit. The routine basically goes: Wake up, run / shower @ gym (some days, meditate in tanning booth), go to cafe & write for ~3-4 hours, Citi Bike to day-job, work it & once finished, go to sleep on soho-streets @ night. I ended up in this situation because I put myself into it so as to be in New Y…

do you have any public writing? I'd be interested in reading what you've written.

Wow, that'd be 100% awesome ..

If you visit my site, https://blondyn.com , you will find Episode 1 of my Aladdin adaptation (Aladdin Exponential) for which I moved to the city.

Also, I recently self-published an NYC short story compilation (Lit Art: Vol.1 - LOL POP), which right now is free to read if you've Amazon Prime.

If you're interested in a fun & light read, I'd recommend the short stories.

Aladdin Exponential is a novel - a spin on Aladdin ~ the premise ~ instead of a Genie coming out of the Lamp, the Aladdin character gets pulled inside to discover a Whole New World .. adventure ensues.

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. This was literally nuts. Nevada bused in and dumped over 50 mentally ill patients onto the streets of San Francisco, and the consequence was that you couldn't walk in downtown San Francisco without encountering 1 of these patients acting crazy on the streets. It's somewhat lame that the City settled for a measly compensation of 400K. They should've all been rounded up and send back to Nevada, to the hospital…

Sorry, but rounding up American citizens who didn’t commit any crime and shipping them somewhere else seems extremely un-American. This is the kind of thinking that has lead to some of the worst human rights abuses in the 20th century in countries like Germany with concentration camps, and in the US with internment camps.

That's what happened first. I mean how do you know - these people are crazy, they may have been able to function in their home town but are lost in SF. If they dont want to go don't force them, but it seems ironic and cruel to just assume they're happy in this new place they were thrust into.

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#194
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1930 5.9% of all Americans where living in NYC. The importance of cities has seen minimal changes, the issue is we stopped building enough housing and transportation infrastructure. Many US issues come from where we place the borders of our local governments. Local was more meaningful before the car, but with increased mobility that’s no longer the case.

Suburban political boundaries were drawn this way intentionally. The “solution” for integrated school districts was to pack up and leave for places that minorities couldn’t afford to move to, so you could keep your kids going to all-white schools. Even today undoing those boundaries is fraught by the specter of history. https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/fears-about-ma...

It's not about all-white for the most part. It's about having a "good" school that does the most for your kid. The racial profile is an artifact of many other social issues.

If we want to solve racial issues in our society we have to stop demonizing people for wanting good things for themselves and their families as being racially motivated, when the racial correlation is almost purely incidental.

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#195
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a scam, but I'm not convinced. Between my own experiences interacting with the homeless and scammers, seeing his fresh physical wounds (including staples in his head), and the weird amount of knowledge he had about physics and obscure computer operating systems, I just don't see it. If anything, he deserves my help just for being so thorough.

Why would society want to reward people who go to great lengths to defraud others?

Someone needs to tell the homeless guy that with the right doctored up resume he'd be perfect for a Fortune 500 CEO position. The skills are the same.

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#196
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wiped out back in 2017. I was a web developer living in Dallas and making 90K a year. My manager and I didn't get along and I eventually ended up on a PIP. After 30 days I realized I wasn't going to meet the PIP goals and resigned before being fired. I wasn't worried, I had about 50K in cash and 20K in credit, and I surly could find a job before it ran out. I was wrong. I got very few interviews and when I did,…

How are you applying for jobs? Are you spraying and praying or are you going to meetups and such to network and get recommendations? Cold resumes won't get nearly as far as a recommendation. Have you applied to remote jobs? Contract jobs? Looked for freelance work?

I'll be real, it sounds like you're giving the generic "I just Googled how to get a job" advice and in my personal experience - this kind of advice rarely accomplishes anything and leaves you more distraught than before.

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#197
post #7

KOMO TV in Seattle recently (last Sunday) did a big report on this called "Seattle is Dying." Down south in Portland, it's the same thing. Down in San Francisco...same thing. Down further, same thing. This is spreading quite quickly, all over in the big cities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b53uiRFq4Ds

I was totally interested in watching this, but this youtube is complete garbage, and does not belong on HN.

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#198

I echo others' sentiments here, that these problems will not be fixed unless people from all sides stop trying to 'win' on ideological grounds, stop trying to gaslight each other, stop trying to demonize, and simply evaluate the situation for what it really is. This requires making hard decisions, selecting the right incentives/disincentives, accepting that no solution is perfect, and instituting transparent well-aud…

> No one is entitled to live wherever they want, doing whatever job they want, at whatever pay they are able to demand. Why is it the case that one is entitled to pay someone less than a living wage to do work needed in a city? I've recently observed a society full of ridiculously unimaginable wealth, with zero homeless people. How is this possible? This wealthy society decided that any person who lives in it should…

Because everyone on the right would bring up the Cold War, for some reason.

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#199
post #8

What is the problem with people living in tents? Why are they forced to dismantle and kicked out by cops? It makes no sense. How can Americans be so cruel to the most vulnerable, most helpless people in our society that they won't even let them live in tents and insist on disrupting their lives constantly? What kind of sick society does this? Is it just so rich assholes don't have to look at them and be reminded that…

Not all homeless people are alike. The left only seems to see victims and the right only sees cheaters looking for a free ride. The truth IMO is a continuous distribution between those two extremes. And as long as the proposed solutions only target one tail or another, no progress will be made because of the other tail being ignored. This should be a solvable problem in my opinion we are a rich country and we can aff…

The cheaters are probably victims too. They learn that cheating is their best way to survive, so why wouldn't they? If they see no future, if they see nothing ahead of them, why wouldn't they cheat?

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Several people I know who work on poverty wages in the arts industry I don't have much sympathy for anyone who chooses to work in the arts... One must see the risks taken, and that the rewards are unpredictable. > elder- or child-care for a homeowner Are you talking about the very wealthy here? The upper income? The middle or even low income earners that made good financial choices? Looking after children and elder…

> I don't have much sympathy for anyone who chooses to work in the arts... One must see the risks taken, and that the rewards are unpredictable. You have different goals in life than other people. Please try to be aware that the path you've chosen is not the only right one. Some people have different goals. Some people even have the cognitive ability to regard the goal of fulfillment in life and creativity as more im…

> Please try to be aware that the path you've chosen is not the only right one. Some people have different goals....[snip]

I am old enough to have family, friends and acquantances from plenty of different ages and wage brackets: minimum wage hospo, the retired poor, sickness beneficiaries, young and unemployed by choice, successful land-banked hippies, successful founders, successful artists etc. I support my friends and family, even when they are making lifestyle choices.

Your reply comes across to me as condescending.

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