I’ve worked helping homeless people in the past on many occasions, had friends whos family members were homeless, had homeless friends, and had even been homeless myself for a small amount of time. There are a lot of people that are homeless through no fault of their own, there are people that are homeless because of drug abuse (which perpetuates the cycle). Both of these people need more access to the help that can be provided to them, but I mainly wanted to talk about a third category of homelessness: People that are homeless by choice.

People that are homeless by choice have told me that they enjoy the lifestyle and enjoy the freedom that it brings despite the negatives. They actively rejected help from people and expressed their desires to me to intend living that lifestyle forever. While I think every person has the right to live their own life the way they see fit, homelessness often has negatives to the people that aren’t homeless. Feces and needles in the streets, breaking and entering into homes, garages, sheds, vandalizing and burning them down in the process. Of course all homeless people aren’t like that but the point still remains: a healthy society generally doesn’t have homeless people. How do you achieve a balance to allow the people whom are homeless by choice to live in a way they see fit while also minimizing the perceived issues of homelessness? What are your thoughts on homeless people?

I ask these questions in good faith and I hope you also do the same. Thank you for your thoughts and opinions.

  • beansnifferOP
    61·
    3 years ago

    Public restrooms and safe injection rooms are a good start; here it seems to work.

    I am happy to hear that it those solutions work in your area, but I have also have vivid memories of seeing a homeless man shitting 15ft away from a public restroom that was clean and accessible. Not to mention how filthy restrooms visited by the homeless are. Obviously not saying that more public restrooms aren’t worth building, just saying that sometimes solutions are unfortunately more nuanced than just throwing more money for public services.

    Also, do people who are homeless by choice have the same behaviors or needs as the other two groups, statistically? That would be interesting to research

    That would be very interesting to research. From my experience talking with them directly, they seem to be more nomadic whereas people that are homeless through no fault of their own will tend to stay in the city they grew up it, or became homeless in.

    Thank you for your comment.

    • krolden
      5·
      3 years ago

      That sounds more like they have mental health issues that they probably can’t get good care for. Whatever state asylum they’d be put in is probably a lot worse than the bridge they could be living under.

      • pingveno
        3·
        3 years ago

        Maybe yes, maybe no. We’ve had trouble here recently with pedestrian fatalities among homeless people. Mental illness was a factor in some, but far from all, of those cases. A half-decent mental health facility would at least be favorable to death.

    • Gaywallet (they/it)@beehaw.org
      11·
      3 years ago

      just saying that sometimes solutions are unfortunately more nuanced than just throwing more money for public services.

      Either you pony up the resources to help people or you deal with seeing them shit in the streets or making public restrooms ‘filthy’. Even for the ones you do reach, there will be some who are not willing to change their behavior, which means you get to decide as a member of society how much it’s worth to have public restrooms clean - is it worth employing more staff to clean these restrooms more often (or hopefully, more robust infrastructure that can self-clean or can be cleaned by robots or is more resistant to becoming ‘filthy’). Unfortunately there isn’t some magic pill that solves everything for free. Fortunately there are an absurd amount of resources in the world, and this is absolutely something that can be solved.