Do you see homeless people everyday?

I work in San Francisco, so they are all around me as I walk the two blocks from the train to my office.

We used to call them “hobos”. And I often saw them down near the train tracks and on skid row in San Francisco.

Calling it “an influx” is a bit of overstatement. In terms of absolute numbers, it has gone up, but not necessarily in percentage terms. In many ways they are just more visible than they ever were before.

We had whole areas south of Market Street with old industrial buildings that are now replaced with million dollar condos. The homeless have been moved out of old hiding places and out onto heavily traveled streets.

For causes: an economy without many jobs for unskilled workers, income inequality with the top 1/10th of 1% controlling more than the bottom 50%, lack of Congressional support for the VA and housing for veterans.

Yes. I work three streets away from Skid Row in L.A. Reagan threw thousands of people with mental illness out on the streets without any kind of safety net. Gentrification has caused more homelessness and the economy.

No, I don’t unless I go into a city like NYC or SF.

Yes. Every day.

And I don’t think it’s an influx. In most cases I think they are people who were already here, not arrivals from outside. They’ve lost their previous homes but remained in the area because their chances of survival are better in known territory and where they have contacts.

I think life on the streets is virtually inseparable from drug use. You use the drugs so you can bear the life that drug use has brought you to. It’s hard to say where the cause and effect are, but I think as a society we’ve lost our anchors and our hope, and no one is more affected by this loss than our young people.

Sadly yes, on many, many street corners—and I urge you to read about my friend’s exhaustive efforts to do something about it at his We Are All Homeless site.

Yes.

No, not really. I live in a town of about 120k with another city of about 100k right next door and about 50k in transient student population. I am out every day but rarely see homeless folk. There are about three street people I see on a regular basis but I don’t know if they are officially homeless.

No. I live in a rural farming community.

@Jeruba I think life on the streets is virtually inseparable from drug use. You use the drugs so you can bear the life that drug use has brought you to.
That is a sad misunderstanding I think most (and I am not going to bite my tongue on that because I have seen it 1st hand) people have, mainly because the drug attic or alcoholic homeless are more visible. There are homeless people who are homeless but still manage to hold down jobs. I won’t go into Christians and Believers who are also homeless and have no need for booze and dope. That I deal has been batted around so long and hard it is believable like the myth that every gal who is a stripper, prostitute or porn star was sexed up as a child.

To the OP question, every single day, I work with outreaches, congregations, and with the homeless blessing them with extra needed items I come across and trying to nudge them to better choices in their life if they are too stubborn to give God a try. I don’t know where you live, but sometimes a place can get more homeless depending on what outreach is available there for them. I have never seen a place where the homeless just flocked to, not even here where there is more outreach and congregations involved with it that if you are homeless you can have at least one hot meal a day if you know where to go.

The cause I see is manifold, it can come from losing one’s home and not being able to obtain another because there are not enough or no places within their income to get, not enough credit, with nearly every place that is not privately owned running background checks, some of those who have the money can’t rent because of their legal past. Not to mention who I can the ”functional mental cases”, they are not on the planet well enough to hold down an apartment, keep it clean, keep the lights on, buy food and cook it and more important, pay the rent on time. The cause is more than just one thing.

In LA the homeless people are their own demographic. We have at least 100k homeless people. The conditions here are perfect for being homeless.

No, hardly ever in fact.

My opinion about drug use came from speaking directly with more than one of those affected. Their experience may not be universal, but it isn’t unique. Direct quote: “The street is hell and is all about drugs, which will destroy your soul.” I have listened to many a recovering addict (not attic) speak; it was one of them who made the statement about using drugs so you can endure the life they brought you to.

@tinyfaery I think you mean Kennedy. He’s the one who closed all mental institutions.

Reagan

In the county I work in and the city I work in, there are homeless people but they live in shelters or at least sleep in shelters, so they look just like anybody else. Decent clothes on, decent shoes. As far as people sleeping in the street, no, that is not where I work and it’s definitely not where I live (farm country).

@Buffaloman: Nobody closed “all” mental institutions. There are still mental institutions that are open and operating.

There are two large highway underpasses within a half mile of my place with about 4 people living under each one.

When the camps get too elaborate, the city removes their luxury accommodations.

The 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. L.C. stated that mental illness was a disability and covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. All governmental agencies, not just the state hospitals, would be required thereafter to make “reasonable accommodations” to move people with mental illness into community-based treatment to end unnecessary institutionalization.

Deinstitutionalization of People with Mental Illness: Causes and Consequences

So, you can blame the influx of the past 10–12 years largely on the federal government, @Buffaloman.

Hardly, if not never. My city is very strict to homeless people. They have put up a hot line and ask citizens to call every time they see a homeless person. The authorities will immediately “take care” of the homeless person. They will be transported to building with “special facilities”.

They have been doing the work for years and they are specially efficent. They just don’t want any homeless people on the street because it will “damage the city’s good image”. The idea of transporting homeless people out of sight may sound nice, but it has am implication that homeless people are all mentally unstable and need to be quarantined fast.

I really don’t know if I should be happy or sad…

No

No, I’m in a fairly small town surrounded by country side. We do have some homeless people that sell Big Issue magazines on the high street but I only see them about once a week.

I’m in a small town, too.
I don’t know if we have homeless but we frequently have transients begging on two of the busy street-corners that are sort of puzzlers.
Even though the faces change, the two corners the transients use always remain the same.
They are always clean, neat, and reasonably well dressed.
Sometimes there is a single man, sometimes a single woman, sometimes a man, a woman, and a kid in a stroller.

I have resisted the urge to stop and try to chat with them. The strong urge. The corners they use are both within spitting distance of Mexican restaurants and the transients appear to be Hispanic. I wonder if they aren’t transients staying with locals and trying to raise enough money to move on.

We had a bona fide homeless man in town a few years back and he refused all offers of food, shelter and employment. He lived under the overpass on the interstate at the edge of town until the do-goodedness of the locals made him move to more solitary digs.

No, I never see them.

I blame homeless people for being homeless or their parents.

Vitka Eisen, CEO of HealthRIGHT 360…was a heroin addict from age 19 to 25…Three college degrees later, including a doctorate in education from Harvard University…Having been homeless during periods of her addiction, Eisen knows the difficulties teenage addicts may face.

“It’s hard for these kids to get off heroin, because they lead such challenging lives. If a kid’s using heroin, there’s a high likelihood of trauma exposure” from school, work or family life, she said. “Drugs may seem like the best thing in their life, the thing that helped them deal with how they experience the circumstances of their lives.”

Source.

Yes, every day. There are a lot of homeless veterans and mentally ill people.

@Kardamom I too DO see mentally ill people every day but mostly they are on my TV and running for for President.

OP was banned, if it makes any difference?

OP was banned

Huh. I liked hearing the very different answers from around the world.

OP was banned, if it makes any difference?
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A moderator announced on another question that the OP has been banned.

@katykit:
“I blame homeless people for being homeless or their parents.”
has also departed.

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