So today I did more volunteer work...

As I said before I have been volunteering at the main homeless shelter here in San Diego because I want to do something good and because I wanted to get a bit more perspective on one of the country's most intractable problems. In the past I have done clerical work or volunteered to help teach educational classes like resume writing workshops but this time I was helping cook at the meals center and then helping to hand out meals both to residents of the shelter as well as (for lunch at least) anyone who wants a free meal. I recommend every liberal does such volunteer work before deciding how best to deal with homelessness as practical experience gives perspective.

First, the food cooked and given out is both nutricious and all you can eat. I wasn't there for breakfast but it was cereal with whole milk, sausage, sliced melon and fruit, pancakes with butter and sryup along with coffee, milk, and ice water. I was there to help with lunch which was a Philly cheese steak sandwich, fries, salad, and mixed fruit wit water and tea. Dinner was baked chicken, baked beans, salad, and apple cobbler.

So the food we made was not complicated but healthy, balanced, and people could have all they wanted. Some of my observations are as follows.

The people in the shelter were better behaved and socialized than the lunch crowd where anyone was let in. I attribute this to the program targets people in greatest need so elderly, pregnant homeless women, vets, people working sobriety programs, the disabled, etc... They actively weed out people who use drugs, who refuse to take their medication if mentally ill, or people who broke program rules. The whole area around the shelter looks like a shit hole, tents every where, people doing drugs or drinking in public, hideously ugly hookers with one tooth who are in their 20's but look like they are in their 60's (seriously, do not do Meth people), people who are so deep into drugs or mental illness they have stopped giving a shit. We are talking people shitting and pissing in the middle of the street despite public toilets and who have not washed or shaved in weeks despite the shelter offering free showers and free soap twice a day.

I saw one guy squat, shit, and keep walking without wiping right on the side walk despite being 50 feet from a public restroom. He was screaming and carrying on a conversation with himself the whole time. At lunch there was no violence with the people housed there but several were quite obviously on drugs while several others were obviously mentally ill and disruptive. One did keep throwing her food on the floor and began screaming at security when she was ejected. After the program people eat lunch then it was opened up to all members of the public and the cafeteria became a mad house. We are talking just screaming, yelling, fighting, and complete dysfunction despite security's best efforts. There were not less then ten fights where police were called and people were arrested.

Dinner was much calmer as it consisted only of people in the program and so those not trying to put their life back together were not there. I have more to say especially about the break down of which sort of people were there but I will save that for another post.

No one fucking cares.

Was it court ordered 'volunteer' work?

If it is he clearly hasn't made it off the booze yet.

I miss Tererun, guys

Yes. Tererun may not be the Master Troll he claimed to be, but at least he's not a racist arsehole.

You used the wrong gender pronoun, you racist, sexist, misogynist anti-LGBT xenophobic asshole. I will see to it that you are disbarred and that the British government prosecutes you for hate speech and violations of the EU charter on human rights, that your family is stripped of title and lands out to third cousins, that you are drawn and quartered on Trafalgar square and your entrails fed to pigs with BSE, and your severed head crushed and put in a toilet mounted on a pedestal across from 10 Downing Street marked with plaque that says "This disgustingly backwards throwback to our past quite possibly misused a self-adopted gender pronoun in an Internet forum." Children with throw eggs at it. Dogs will pee on it. Tererun will leave hand-signed autobiographies and Polemics longer than the Encyclopedia Britannica on it. You have crossed a line that cannot ever be crossed. You have omitted a small 's'. Justice will be done.

Side note: Is Tererun a guy who's a girl or a girl who's a guy? I've never really figured that out. I do not reply with any personal pronouns for that reason.

see my blue room thread

Nope. I just felt like doing something good. I am now thinking about finding something that helps people who actually want to be helped because it seems clear the majority of the homeless, at least here, do not want to change the root causes of their homelessness and instead just want someone to enable them to keep living the way they are currently living. Keep them going long enough to find their next fix.

Why do you think the root causes of their problems are personal rather than societal?

Why do you think the root causes of their problems are personal rather than societal? - mburtonk

I wasn't with Dinner, but in general if the vast majority of any demographic group can overcome or at least survive their societal problems inflicted upon their group, but they make choices that pretty much keep them on their knees in poverty or despair - that boils down to personal choices/problems or bad luck. But making consistently bad choices or having a bad attitude will turn even good luck into bad.

It depends on the person. About 10% were elderly (65+) who can't work but don't make much on social security. That is a society wide problem. Another 10%-15% are truly disabled, missing limbs or wheel chair bound, and SSI disability just doesn't pay enough to cover rent and the cost of living. Again, that is a society wide problem. The rest fall more on personal issues.

Mentally ill people who have insurance (as all poor do in this state) and access to care but who refuse to follow the treatment or take their meds. Or, most commonly, severe drug addiction which has become all consuming to these people and leaves them not caring about a single other thing in the world. Again, there is free inpatient treatment available but most of them do not want it even if it means staying a homeless junkie. Yes, those are personal choices.

I would estimate about 10% are first time homeless, people who can function in society, but who lost their job, got sick, or something else caused them to end up homeless. I hear those folks take full opportunity to work the system and quickly get back on their feet. I also feel bad for the elderly homeless because most of them seem like good people and they are just targets for the aggressive piece of shit predatory drug addict homeless. Most of the elderly get into the shelter programs ASAP as they are given priority. I see very few kids as social services will sweep in and take them away in a heartbeat.

Personal choices sure, but drugs can wreck your brain past the point where it can make the choice.

Oh no doubt - but in this day & age if you choose to use hard drugs and say you don't know what the outcome might be you are living under a rock or truly, truly don't give a shit and are a waste of oxygen.

What are the root causes, what changes do you recommend?

Exactly. The only reason this thread is in the RR is .

I don't understand how someone so full of hate can also be worried about "doing good".

There is obviously a case is denial at some level.

You try way too hard to be funny. It's not working.

None, he just likes judging.

Besides the 1/4th I spoke about earlier (the elderly and disabled) and the 10% who seem to be functional and first time homeless due to unemployment running out or what not that leaves around 2/3rds who are mostly mentally ill or chemically dependent. Again, the state offers free services to these people but most of them will not take them.

My solution will likely be unpopular but we need to bring back the state run mental health facilities and remove some of the reforms from the 1970's which made it almost impossible to commit people involuntarily. Basically, you need to force people into treatment whither they want to our not. It is the only way I see treatment being successful with the die hard cases because if they haven't hit rock bottom yet they never will.

good for you.

So you recognize that they are mentally ill, but then condemn them for behaving like they are mentally ill? And just so we're clear, that's exactly what you are doing when you say they choose not to accept services.

Gul, please read completely before posting as my suggestion as to what to do with those who refuse treatment was pretty clear.

He's right though.

How can you hold it against someone that they can't take care of themselves because they are mentally incapable of it? You may as well blame someone with Down's syndrome for being unable to get into MIT.

Yes, I read your thoughts about it. Do you remember writing this?

You are blaming them for their mental illness. And I knew you would say I didn't read your post, but tough shit, because I seem more familiar with what you said than you are. Fucking idiot.

As I said, if someone is unwilling or unable to care for their own well being then we need to bring back the involuntary institutionalization which mostly got gutted in the 1970's.

How was I unclear about that? @Anna do you know what a fucking idiot is? Someone who keeps asking a question which has already been answered. I mean you could at least try to have intelligent feedback before running off at the mouth.

If someone can't function as a human being nor take care of basic needs then that was exactly what the state mental system was originally designed to handle. Sadly, the system mostly got closed down in the early 1970's due to both real and imagined abuses but that threw the baby out with the bath water because there is a genuine need.

THere's one of our locals... a woman in her late 30s. I first met her a few years back, and other than the stories about when she'd been rich and important, (think how every asshole here who'd ever been in a NG unit claimed sniping level skills some years back-that sort of motivation) she was alright. A little broken down, but not a wreck. No hard drug use, doesn't drink, tiny little ballet bodied thing. My guess is that she'd gotten out of an abusive relationship with the type of well off dude that enjoys keeping chicks as toys... she was struggling, but was stressed from the drastic decline in her lifestyle.

Anyways, one thing leads to another and over the last few years she's often having deep conversations while she walks alone, probably dropped 10% of her already negligible weight, and being slender and tiny, had more than a bit of bad sex along the way... she's pretty much the PTSD poster child, which is where I've been going with this...

The results of traumatic stress are likely the biggest single factor affecting rehabilitating homeless and marginalized people. Between delayed or lack of treatment, accompanied by inadequate shelter, malnourishment, and lack of medical care, they just get worse with time and neglect. This is why harm reduction efforts are so important... it's often palliative care because the system has failed to do anything for them until they've gotten to the point where those of us not far (if not having actually almost been in their paper stuffed shoes) are the only ones left to ease the pain.


I think I'm gonna have to talk about a former housemate from about six years back in the other thread. He's actually a success story, having gotten clean, back to his FN roots, and blazing his own path as a teacher/healer. Maybe later...

I agree they do get beat down but there are outs and many choose them at least for a while. Those ones work the system and get their life back together. Who we are talking about are the ones who not only don't but don't want to for what ever reason.

That is a not insignificant part of the problem and the most intractable making up most of the long term homeless.

It's clear that you don't understand their situation. Read Spaceturkey's post again. When a certain level of pain is reached, people aren't really capable of re-direction. They need safety and comfort first, and sometimes for quite a while, before they are ready to seek life changing choices. It's not a simple yes/no proposition when they wake up in the morning. I'm glad you have spent some time at a shelter. I advise you to continue doing so, but without any judgement. Get to know these people on a deeper level and you might start to find some different conclusions about their circumstance.

I once worked at a shelter. Most people who are homeless are either resource deficient or chronic. The first group knows they shouldn't be there, doesn't want to be there, but does not have the employment or other life skills required to pull together first/last plus deposit. The second group have been crushed by some past trauma. They will often seem the way Dinner has described, but the reality is that they can't right now do anything but seek safety. That does not mean they require institutionalization. It means they require protection.