Homelessness In Your City

[c-no]

Don't know how bad homelessness is in my city but I do remember yesterday seeing a few homeless people in front of a building, junk, tents, and all in the downtown area my sister drove past.

Would Panhandlers count? I've seen those quite often whenever I'd head to and from work.

They could count if they are the homeless kind. I have heard on how there are panhandlers that aren't actually homeless.

 

[WhoWhatWhere]

There were a few homeless people in my area, about four. Three of them died/were killed and the other dude just sorta lives on the stairs of a post office. We give him food sometimes. I kinda get nervous about giving him money, he usually goes straight to the liquor store with it. He got into trouble the last time I saw him drunk. He has days where he'll take what you give him or he'll just say "No thank you!" even if he really needs it. You see a lot more homeless guys in the next town over.

Im unsure if power leveling is a thing within the deep thoughts section of this board so if the depth of this is inappropriate I'll be happy to edit.

A very close family member is the ED of a newish one stop homeless shelter. Meaning there are numerous services available on campus. Food, job training, mental and physical health services, law services, assistance with finding affordable housing so on and so forth. They run with the idea of what is needed now? I.E food clothes shelter. The next is how to help get them into affordable housing and self sustaining. The last being support in maintaining the previous.

I often see/hear people pull the well they should just get off their asses and get a job, or the ever popular they'll just go buy drugs or alcohol or whatever. The thing that many people seem to forget is that most people do not want to be homeless. Many people wind up homeless due to situations out of their control. Be it poor economy, mental health, physical disabilities, and yes substance abuse. The number of veterans that wind up on the streets is fucking staggering. Finding a job when you have no address, no phone number, no appropriate interview clothing, or deteriorating mental/ physical health can be incredibly difficult.

It pains me how often people shit all over those with nothing. Literally nothing but the ground they're sleeping on and even that is becoming criminalized on the regular. Now I get there are shitty people abusing the system. Shitty people exist everywhere. Feeling uncomfortable giving someone panhandling money I totally get. The other side of the coin that many people don't realize is there are so many more people that aren't visible to the mainstream. Tent cities and such. Families, kids who are shunned by their parents for whatever reasons including being gay or transgender. Kids, women and men who leave due to physical, mental or psychological abuse.

Anyway the point being if I were chronically homeless and having to put up with the shit that comes along with it I can easily see falling into substance abuse as an escape from it all. I'm not meaning oh hey lets go be fucked up and fucked over and on our merry way. Just that at the end of the day I understand it. It's such a sad shitty cycle.

Ive had the pleasure of meeting some incredibly intelligent, funny and charasmatic people through assisting at our local shelters.

At the end of the day they're still people and deserve to be regarded as such.

 

[Tragi-Chan]

I live in London, and the homelessness problem is pretty bad here. The problem is that affordable housing is becoming harder and harder to come by, and rents are rising higher and higher. Even the suburbs are unaffordable for most young people. Council housing used to be an option, but lots of that got sold off in the 80s and waiting lists for a place are a mile long. Huge amounts of housing gets bought up by businessmen purely for the sake of investment - you see massive blocks of housing with nobody living in them. In theory, a lot of new developments have to include affordable housing, but in practice the housing is absolutely crap and usually a considerably smaller amount of the development than was originally agreed.

So yeah, the homelessness problem could actually be resolved if our mayor could get property developers' cocks out of his mouth for ten seconds.

 

[gamer2014]

I live in London, and the homelessness problem is pretty bad here. The problem is that affordable housing is becoming harder and harder to come by, and rents are rising higher and higher. Even the suburbs are unaffordable for most young people. Council housing used to be an option, but lots of that got sold off in the 80s and waiting lists for a place are a mile long. Huge amounts of housing gets bought up by businessmen purely for the sake of investment - you see massive blocks of housing with nobody living in them. In theory, a lot of new developments have to include affordable housing, but in practice the housing is absolutely crap and usually a considerably smaller amount of the development than was originally agreed.

So yeah, the homelessness problem could actually be resolved if our mayor could get property developers' cocks out of his mouth for ten seconds.

True, True:

To add on panhandling, London has some Romani gypsies who are exploited by gangs from Romania/Bulgaria to beg on the streets.

London is having a mayoral election this May so we will see who gets in.

 

[millais]

There is a homeless guy who camps out in the local 24/7 laundromat during many months of the year. He is pretty harmless and has some sort of mental illness that makes him talk to himself, but the biggest problem is that he smells awful and the laundromat ends up stinking very badly when he is in there for too long. One time I bribed him with water and dried fish to leave town for a day so the smell in the laundromat would go away and it would be safe for me to unload my clean clothes without exposing them to the homeless stench. But apart from the smell, he is very well behaved. Never steals clothes from unattended washers/dryers, and he doesn't piss/shit on the floor.

 

[Vitriol]

I was walking to work yesterday morning and was incredulous to see two long term homeless men openly trading each other for what looked like heroine. As Bum 1 was counting the money bum 2 had given him and before bum 2 had put the gear in his pocket the brazen fellow had the nerve to look me in the eye and ask for change while holding heroin.

 

[Funnybone]

I was walking to work yesterday morning and was incredulous to see two long term homeless men openly trading each other for what looked like heroine. As Bum 1 was counting the money bum 2 had given him and before bum 2 had put the gear in his pocket the brazen fellow had the nerve to look me in the eye and ask for change while holding heroin.

Def not as bad as yours but I recently noticed a new bunch of homeless people here that are smoking either weed or from a pack of cigarettes. I wouldn't be surprised if they were buying like three packs a day since they are constantly smoking. Both are expensive hobbies-- it's fucking weird when a guy is begging while smoking from a nice newly bought pack of high end menthols in his breast pocket. It's pretty stupid when they beg while obviously being wealthy enough to afford an expensive addiction-- also they're just showing you where people's donations are going. It's unnerving.

 

[SpessCaptain]

One day I was out with my brother at a McD. A couple who obviously just became homeless demanded us to buy them some burgers and probably they were expecting us to pity them cause they were heroine addicts trying to go straight. We just shot them a glance and told them piss off and they fucked off. Me and my brother are pretty much Kiwi Incarnate and the second they left we chatted up about how much of a bunch of faggots they were. Things could of gone terribly wrong if they were crazy loons.

Thankfully - Sydney's homeless aren't usually aggressive-crazy, nor uncommon and usually well looked after - I work for a shop in the city where for donations which heavily assists the homeless on a daily basis, once in a while a homeless person walks through my work and into the business part of the shop. The Nun comes in and inspects him and gives him some pointers, a chat and some food and off he trotted with all their thanks and blesses. They are usually very well behaved and even ask to buy things at the store so they aren't total scrubs.

They're kind of a mixed bag here but usually they just put out their hands and ask for food or money (mostly) on the busy streets. Some will attempt to busk for money (one dude I go past once in a while plays Darude Sandstorm on a recorder fequently) but most are out of sight or being well looked after. Maybe I haven't seen really shit ones often or ignore them very easily.

Then there is my home suburb: There are two known beggars that hang around my local shopping centre - one draws artworks and tries to sell them in a small corner of the store, they don't mind him because apparently he helps when thieves bolt out of the door and he tackles them, so he's more like a watchdog to them than a nuisance. I did talk to him once and gave him 50 cents for a phone call and went his way - I don't care if that 50c went to a drink or a legitimate phonecall but he seemed alright. I have seen his art and obviously he has some very heavily kiddish influences which suggests he might have a child-like sense in the world and he is harmless.

Then, there's this ex-bikie guy he turned out to be a big fucker who did some bad things in life, he walks through to the several churches and the local branch of my shop and demands shit, he even begged my father and myself for cash for the bed for the local churches. When he tires of the silent suburban life/being pestered by staff to leave he often fucks off back into the city and begs there apparently.

 

[fuehrer_dessler]

I dunno about how bad or good the homeless situation in my city is, but I think due to the welfare system and homeless shelters (there are some in a few minutes walking distance from where I live), the situation is more or less OK. Most of the homeless I've seen (which may not mean much regarding the homeless of the city in their entirety) look vaguely foreign, so maybe some of them have problems getting welfare due to problems with their residence status (illegals?).

 

[AnOminous]

They're kind of a mixed bag here but usually they just put out their hands and ask for food or money (mostly) on the busy streets. Some will attempt to busk for money (one dude I go past once in a while plays Darude Sandstorm on a recorder fequently)

Seriously?

That's a guy trying to get you to pay him to stop.

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

Don't have many visible homeless in Norwich (yea powerlevel but I've mentioned Norfolk here like a million times) They're usually pretty unobtrusive and inoffensive but I did once encounter a guy who called my Danish friend a "fucking French cunt!" because he very politely explained that he only had Euros on him when asked for money, then had the gall to wiggle his fuckin' KFC cup at me. I told him as nicely as I could to freeze to death in the winter.

We don't need loud, annoying homeless people anyway because we have this guy:

A lot of Norfolk people will defend him because he's such a familiar part of the scenery but as far as I'm concerned he's a smelly, rude, bitter old man with some filthy, dirty puppets and fuck all talent.