Good for you and me. Me for my level of exasperation. I hold out little hope that you'll figure out why for you.
I don't know any homeless although I once worked with one at Tektronix. The guy lived with his brother out of his car. He now works as an engineer and has gobs of money. I went to college with a couple guys who were near homeless. One turned out okay working as an engineer but had so many problems with the police that he went to Hong Kong to live never to return. The other was a child molester who got a job working at Seaside High School. Couldn't stand his guts.
A walk through the homeless people's area, and observe what is happening. The "Problem" is not one problem or cause. I have seen them in Oakland, San Fransisco, LA, and Portland. One thing stood out to me, the black homeless and the white homeless mix, but live differently. Well I guess I should say, some of the white homeless, the ones doing drugs, needle type stuff. They are most often White younger people. There are others, that just live there because they can get by cheap. Then the drunks, that have just given up. Given up until the want to change hits them. Not much you can do for them until they want to make a change. The young white needle users though? Why are they there? I did not see any black needle users that I remember any where. Black hookers with mental issues but not showing off needle use, those seem to be white flaunting the vise, pillow at the ready to crash on. An odd dang mess.
Easy there lad! You don't want to pick on the only vet mess in the history of the NW VA. Teaching is out of the question.
I used to be homeless. I am not an addict. I do want to work. I nearly always have. When I was a teen my dad lost his job. He tried to find other work. It didn't come. We lost our home. I lived on the street for most of a summer. I was able to get a job, save, and get back on my feet. I gained a lot of humility though. I have never forgotten the experience. I have respect for people in that position. Yes, I found there are some who want to be homeless. Who like that life. But, there are others who were living paycheck to paycheck. They lost their jobs or rent kept going up till they drowned. A lot of people don't want to be homeless. They have just found themselves there because they were failed by a society that leverages the rich against the poor. The disparity is real. Everyone deserves a roof over their head. That should be a basic human right. It is terrible to have to wonder if you are going to be able to pay the rent next month. How you are going to put food on the table, pay utilities, etc. It adds up and for millions of Americans the bill is higher than the paycheck.
Damn, that's rough, man. I never would have guessed. I know that some homeless people are just bums, but I've also heard stories like yours...good people with bad luck. fwiw, kudos to you for hanging tough.
I actually think that this is a description of the real problem at least IMO. It's not the existence of the ultra-rich or the wealth disparity. It's the cost of living, especially in larger cities. A lot of people are homeless and have jobs. The costs of all that stuff is just to great and going up faster than their ability to make money. Yes you can make good arguments that the ultra-rich, and crony capitalism have enriched themselves at the expense of others, but there is not anything wrong in being successful financially, there is something wrong in using that wealth to hold back lower /middle-class people from finding success themselves. There are a lot of homeless people, some from bad decisions, some from bad decisions of their parents, some by choice, there's lots of reasons.
It's the number one problem humanity faces....only an airborne virus will humble the 1% as to the dangers of people breathing air that have no healthcare or sanitation...when they make your family sick, it starts to have value. I was in Taiwan for the SARS epidemic and it was amazing to see the effect it had on all walks of life
I'd probably call it selfishness, but greed is part of that, and it's mostly semantics. Even in epidemics though, there is plenty of history of people willing to take advantage of it. Hard times do tend to bring people together though.
Many very wealthy Taiwanese paid pilots to fly them out of the country...breaking the law to escape under quarantine...some doctors did...nurses stayed behind and died saving lives...those who tried to buy their way out, risked lives of others and died as well. The nurses were heroes …..the triads, mafia bought all the face masks everyone had to wear and charged top dollar for them...bleach saved the country. These are not generalities or speculation, they're real. Invisible assassins are the scariest ones..it was one hell of a life lesson I think about whenever I see homeless camps
When I was about 9 there were days when we had nothing to eat. I remember one time when my mother stole my little brother's piggy bank so we could get milk to go with the cornbread we had for dinner. Maybe that's why I, too, have empathy for those who are disadvantaged. No kid should have to go through that.
