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.
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.
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.