Helping the poor

Remove all ads!

When we were young, uncaring, dumba** teenagers, my friends and I would buy day old bread, make big breadballs and go down to the 30th st Station in Philly, the big hub and proceed to pelt the homeless with the breadballs. They would scramble for them as they took the beating. Now that i reflect on what we did, we were cretins for doing it. I wish i could take those actions back. I probably would kick some teenage butt if i seen teenagers doing it now. Many of these people make some really bad choices to get where they are. But along the way, there are lots of little cruel bastards that really help push them farther down the ladder. I still don't give them money, but my wife and I do donate to charities like the churches, the Salvation Army, etc... Food drives for the homeless are usually what we like to donate to. Do they all deserve our help when they refused to help themselves? Who knows. I am not a bleeding heart, but because of some really cruel things i did as a teenager, i now like to try and help.

 

As soon as they become "militant", as you term it, they are engaging in coercion and extortion, which makes them no longer "poor, sad, disadvantaged people who have had bad luck" but rather "criminal scum". At that point I advocate the strongest possible punishments for them, not excluding death.

I'm deadly serious. Anyone who tries to bully a fellow citizen, especially one who is less able to defend herself (as in your example, 8people) is a worthless individual and nothing they have done in the past or could possibly do in the future can compensate for their behaviour. They need to be excised from society with extreme prejudice.

 

Penn eh? I spent 2 years at State College, Penn St. They had those warming vents on alot of streets for the students to warm up on during their walks between classes in the winter. Usually a couple of the crazies/homeless would park themselves there as well. They were helped more often than not, but some people would be real jerks, usually the silverspoon fratboyz.

 

Admittedly, I do donate to the poor directly on occasion. A dollar means very little to me; it's a coke or a pack of gum. My reasoning behind handing one out now and again is that perhaps that dollar has helped someone along the way. Of course, many valid points are made in this thread that it's counterproductive, and I can't exactly disagree.

My dad used to live in Baltimore, MD a couple years back. He made the mistake of giving some change to one gentleman who hung out at a corner close to his workplace one day. Sure enough, every single day this man came to expect his handouts, saying "I'm keeping a close eye on your car for you, man!" After about four days of giving charity to this man, my father finally told him that was enough; that he couldn't continue giving handouts on a day-to-day basis. Lo and behold, his window was bashed in the very next day in the parking lot of his workplace. A hard lesson learned, I guess.

 

local councils in my area have spoken out against giving money to the 'homeless' as quite rightly they are liars.

A popular evening location in Swansea city, wind street which has over 30 bars, clubs and restaurants can be frequented by thousands of people on the weekend alone, and many 'homeless' have turned it into a job of sorts making hundreds of pounds a night.

 

Since when did poor people become an inferior race? Poverty or drug addiction aren't exactly hereditary traits. How stupid is it to think poverty will be eradicated if the currently impoverished don't procreate?

My sentiment exactly. While I don't particularly like them or approve of their lifestyle, they obviously need help. And everyone is served by helping them, whether they deserve it or not.
In reality, most homeless in Holland share just one trait: low IQ. You need to be pretty dim to end up on the streets in Holland, and psychosis, addiction, criminal records, they are just symptoms. Slight disclaimer: Holland still has just 3% unemployment, during this economic crisis. Lowest in Europe I heard. So don't go around thinking every homeless in your own country is an idiot or an addict. When there aren't enough jobs, some decent people also get financially broken.
I heard news about the recent surge in jobless and homeless in Japan; they take things very seriously. If the jobless haven't already committed suicide, they are actively contemplating it.

Oh and LKD, I'm not entirely disagreeing with you: Many beggars do lie, and I agree that it's better to support them through charity than through donations.

 

LKD, is it me or have you turned particularly vicious against the criminal recently. I mean, you're seriously advocating the death penalty for, at worst, assault and, at best, harassment. Would you advocate the same if it were a pissed off guy that got cut off in traffic acting similarly (similar levels of violence and intimidation)?

 

No, I haven't turned vicious against the criminal recently --I've ALWAYS hated criminals, who I see as merely schoolyard bullies who never grew up.

If a pissed off driver were held up* by someone in a wheelchair, and he got out and started yelling at her, threatening her, intimidating her or God forbid touching her, yeah, I'd say that he needs the living poo beaten out of him at the very least, and if he physically assaulted a disabled person, he has shown that he is an utter piece of garbage that society doesn't need.

I hate bullies, and I hate those who take advantage of those physically weaker than them. We need to stop making excuses for those sorts of people and deal with them like the trash they are.

This doesn not mean I hate the poor. I was downtown once with my 3 little girls, and this dirty wino came up to me. To say he had poor hygiene is a big time understatement. He asked me for some change. I had none, I was using Interac and bills that day. I said "Hey, I'm here with my family." He said "that's cool, man" and walked away. I advocate helping that man through a social program. He was no criminal. Sure he made me a little nervous but his later behaviour showed me that he was not a criminal. Give him a bed and some soup. Teach him about hygiene, and help him to overcome his addiction(s?) I have no hate on for the poor who do not commit crimes.

*by which I mean, the person in the wheelchair took a long time to cross the street, NOT a "holdup" at gunpoint! Point of clarification!

 

Good thing you mentioned this - I had assumed the latter meaning when I first read your message!

 

Oh man I totally have to hold someone up now Only have swords though unfortunately

Problem in UK is often the homeless get stuck in a cycle that is very hard to break out of. Employees don't generally like to take someone on without a bank account to deposit money into (largely tax reasons) and banks are unwilling to give bank accounts to those who do not have a home address and proof of mainting a rent and utilities (I believe Lloyds TSB actually have a program for homeless accounts though, specifically designed to assist the homeless.)

Without the right directive and being cut out of the normal employment cycle and lack of regular income and a place to KEEP that income it is near impossible to get back on track - addictions or no.

My mother and I were made homelss (illegally we later found out ) but we were fortunate to already have accounts in our names and family and friends who could take us in for weeks at a time. A lot of our stuff was destroyed or stolen when we could have ideally sold excess for money to put towards rent or a deposit on a place.

We were eventually housed by the council in a place we were gauranteed for two years (surprise, surprise, the landlord decided to sell up within that time though :lol) and moved onto an estate which led onto its own problems where people were very judgmental about us as soon as they knew where we lived. More than once parents refused to let their children visit me despite where we lived was actually a very nice area, unfortunately though it was an estate, can't have any decent citizen going there now, can we?

We have never been reduced to begging from strangers but I feel for those who have had to shelve their pride and are reduced to such a situation and are then grouped together with those reduced to the same level through pure vice, more often than not they fall into the same patterns as well which is such a shame.

 

He never had the chance, unfortunately. The guy disappeared that very day after ruining his window.

 

LKD, I'll advocate punishment for the criminal any day, and I'll even advocate physical punishment for some cases, but I'll rarely approve of disproportionate punishment (i.e. beating the crap out of someone for yelling), and those rare cases where I will, the real crime was a threat of future activity.

8, the vicious cycle of poverty isn't just a UK problem. I'd bet anywhere that has modern banking institutes has similar problems. Places where a day's labor can frequently be payed, in cash, at the end of the day may not suffer so much, but those are getting fewer and farther between.

 

I understand that, but I only have experience of the UK system, so did not wish to blanket other countries where I cannot be definite of the systems employed

 

I don't, as a rule, give money to individuals. I think it's inefficient and that organizations do a better job of looking after these people's interests. Though to be honest I can't say I donate much at all.

It's hard for to say what can be done to help them. There are some people who just fell through the cracks but for many others they have problems a lot deeper than bad luck. Back in college we had a lecture given by a priest who ran one of Ireland's largest homeless shelters. It was a bit of an eye opener. One thing that was an eye opener for me was that he refused to take government funding as to do that he had to make attempts to take junkies off of drugs and he refused to do that. He said that in nearly all the cases he dealt with junkies started taking drugs as a means to escape another problems that they had. Child abuse when they were younger for instance. He observed that taking them down merely resulted in their old mental problems resurfacing and these were often worse. So, he didn't believe in taking them clean unless you're also going to help them mentally as well. Eh, I mean that you can help them, of course you want to. This guy's message is anecdotal, not hard research. But I know I will never have the kind of understanding he has about the poor.

 

For the poor, "hunger can be a motivator," so why bother?

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-co...ly-01-2009/tip-wag---cynthia-davis---fox-news

 

I believe that several banks have similar accounts, they simply dont give overdrafts or any kind of credit on these accounts.

 

There we go, a bit more info on banking for the homeless. Bloody good idea I think!

 

Someone somewhere said that addiction isn't a choice. I beg to differ. I am not addicted to cigarrettes. Why am I not addicted? Because I have never made the choice to start using the damn things. I have always chosen not to do it. The same could be said of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or whatever. The only time addiction could be considered to be a non-choice would be if someone pumped you full of drugs without your consent. I'm sure that has happened, but overall, I would say most addicts took their first steps voluntarily. Now they are stuck, true, but it's their own bloody fault for taking that step. Other people have faced terrible occurences in their lives but have not chosen to start using drugs.

Now if someone wants to clean up, then I believe we should help them. But we should not let them of the hook for the crimes they commit. In fact, sicne there seems to be a strong correlation between addiction and crime, I stick to my guns despite negative rep -- for their own good and protection, not to mention the protection of society from their crimes, we should lock them up and force them to get clean. Draconian? You bet. But in extreme cases you have to do something drastic. Think of the lives of the homeless addicts that could be saved if we stopped wringing our hands about their right to slowly kill themselves and put their rights -- and society's rights -- ahead of their right to get high.

It'd be costly, but would it be any more costly than the price we pay now?

Oh, BTW, if your gonna rep me, positive or negative, please ID yourself -- I don't have a full account here and the system doesn't do it for me.