Posted on 07/09/2009 7:26:18 AM PDT by Patriot1259
Homelessness is an epidemic. As Americans, it is our right and privilege to help reach the needy. As Christians, it is our duty. What are the real problems and real solutions?
"How do we reclaim our park benches back from the homeless?" I listened to a city official ask a group of business men and women last Tuesday.
Sound heartless?
(Excerpt) Read more at thecypresstimes.com ...
Almost all of the homeless have alcohol or drug problems, or have refused treatment for a mental problem.
It is lucky for all of us, that at the ACLU allowed libraries to be turned into day care centers, for the homeless, we now have the Internet and other ways of finding information.
Soylent Green...
What do ya do with a drunken vagrant
What do ya do with a drunken vagrant
What do ya do with a drunken vagrant
Early in the mornin’?
Have him scream at Barack Obama
Have him scream at Barack Obama
Have him scream at Barack Obama
Early in the mornin’!
Some time ‘round noon he rises
Some time ‘round noon he rises
Some time ‘round noon he rises
Hours past the mornin’!
Preach some hope/change garbage at ‘im
Preach some hope/change garbage at ‘im
Preach some hope/change garbage at ‘im
Early in the mornin’.
Some time ‘round noon he rises
Some time ‘round noon he rises
Some time ‘round noon he rises
Hours past the mornin’!
They should light out for the territories. The frontier calls . . . hunting, trapping, clearing the wilderness, homesteading . . . westward the march of empire.
That would require work.
Feed them to the “hungry”.
The only exception may be the ones who need meds, but have no real way of getting them, or refuse to take them as a result of the imbalance to begin with. They, more than any of the others who have chosen the lifestyle, may truly want to change, but are unable to do so because of their current mental state.
“How do we reclaim our park benches back from the homeless?”
Re-open mental Hospitals we closed all over the country as if these people no longer existed. Collaborate with religious institutions who will help provide staff to care for them. We chose to “mainstream” a lot of the very, very sick people that are now sleeping in the streets...we didn’t want to “stigmatize” them...there really are people in need of psychiatric care and relief from people who prey on them and we have dumped many of the sickest of them onto the sidewalk.
Or, we could just try to identify them before they are born and kill them, along with all of the pesky old folks. Eventually they and the elderly will be no burden at all. (Pathetic scary semi-sarcasm).
This idea sounds lofty and nice but only works only when the homeless actually want to be cured of substance abuse and integrated into the community rather than enabled to continue their destructive lifestyles indefinitely.
Until this prevailing philosphy is discredited, government help will continue to enable rather than cure the largest source of the problem. In fact, the only suceesses have been through non-government organizations such as AA and the Salvation Army who integrate a philosophy of changing behaviors with treating the symptoms.
Some are homeless because they choose to be. Some who appear to be homeless actually aren't. They just know they can earn easy money begging.
But there are those who are homeless through no real fault of their own, and they can use a hand up. There are already organizations in place to help them, and those of us who wish to do something about the homeless will support those organizations.
Urban planning, do gooders, zoning, urban renewal...in a phrase, government got rid of flop houses, rooming houses, boarding houses all of which provided low cost, tax paying, no government staff hiring..housing.
So, naturally we have a worse problem, needing yet more government, more staff and more taxes.
That’s what government does. It never lets an opportunity go to waste and not make things worse and require more taxes, more govey jobs, more pensions, buildings, administrators, ...bla,bla, bla.
We should respect the houseless. If it is noble, and environmentally in tune with nature for Africans to live in mud huts, why not the noble houseless Therou of our times in a van down by the river?
> Homelessness is an epidemic. As Americans, it is our right and privilege to help reach the needy. As Christians, it is our duty. What are the real problems and real solutions?
I encounter bucketloads of homeless all the time as a byproduct of my vocation. If your homeless are anything like the homeless here in New Zealand, for a large proportion of them it is a chosen lifestyle and preference. Many are “that way” because they like it “that way”. Few will voluntarily “change”.
Few of them are involved in criminal activity, and those who are are only involved in petty, opportunistic crime: such as shoplifting. At worst they are a minor urban nuisance. At best they are valuable sources of community intel and can be good company. I’d rather hang around with a homeless than with a Madoff-type any day of the week.
“Many are “that way” because they like it “that way”. Few will voluntarily “change”.
Yep. Many are living outside because of a paranoid schizophrenic character or delusional. And they aren’t gonna change that...many believe that if they do not have the ability to run away at a moments notice, not to be “trapped” inside, they will die or be killed. Not all...but many...are so desperately mentally ill and physically sick...watch how much fun some are having, talking to themselves, scratching at the fleas and the lice, sweating under the wool coats in the middle of summer (it protects them from a LOT of imagined harmful rays and things, you know, gives them the “extra skin” they need) and they are just living large, laughing and joking. They just LOVE the life they have...well, except for many of them who are crawling with spiders and the snakes inside them and the grotesque visons and struggles with demons...yep they are having a ball out there...I can see how that would be a good hang...
You can make videos of them for fun and profit:
Social problems that will NEVER go away:
1) Homeless
2) Crime
3) Prostitution
4) Drug addicts
5) politicians
Social problems that will NEVER go away:
1) Homeless
2) Crime
3) Prostitution
4) Drug addicts
5) politicians
Ironically, a list that keeps getting worse and more dangerous every year as we march bravely into the socialist new world...
The solution? Apply pepper spray. Repeat until the homeless go away. Simple.
> Yep. Many are living outside because of a paranoid schizophrenic character or delusional.
Your sarcasm aside, have you spoken to many homeless? I have, regularly. I’ve even resuscitated a few after they’ve made too merry on their glue/petrol/shoe polish and passed out.
One particular character comes to mind. He lives under one of the bridges in Henderson, on the Oratia Stream. One afternoon he said to me “ya know, mate: I have more freedom and live a better life than you do. I have waterfront property that I didn’t pay a dime for. I pay no taxes. I eat three meals a day — good meals, hot and plentiful. If I want to eat fish I catch ‘em. If I want a shower I can get one: or I can have a wash in the river. If I want to go to Piha Beach anytime I want, I go: I don’t have to account to a boss or get home any time in particular. I don’t answer to nobody. I don’t care which politician is in power and I don’t vote for any of them. You, on the other hand...”
He had it all figured out, in an old pocket diary. Where he could eat for free, and when. Doctors that treat the indigent for free. Automatic toilets — the ones that wash themselves out. The lot. And ducks were frolicking in the crystal-clear Oratia stream, and trout swam in the shaded shallows. It was a beautiful day, and I had no doubts a trip to Piha was on the cards for him.
As to your observations on Mental Health, you’re barking up the wrong tree on that. I sit on the board of an organization that provides mental health services, including housing. Our country has gone thru the same cycle of closing sanatoriums and asylums as has the United States. Our experience has been that community-based solutions do actually work quite a bit better than the “old way”...
...Ooops. I forgot. We have a social medicine system in New Zealand that acts as a safety-net for those incapable of looking after themselves. You American’s don’t: there’s no money to be made in treating the seriously mentally ill. Nevermind...
Your sarcasm aside,
Sorry, you got it wrong...it was not sarcasm...
As to your observations on Mental Health, you’re barking up the wrong tree on that. I sit on the board of an organization that provides mental health services, including housing. Our country has gone thru the same cycle of closing sanatoriums and asylums as has the United States. Our experience has been that community-based solutions do actually work quite a bit better than the “old way”...
Except when the meat wagons come to pick up the frozen stiffs, right? Or when they die because of infection? Or murdered?
Feed the obese to the starving.
> Except when the meat wagons come to pick up the frozen stiffs, right? Or when they die because of infection? Or murdered?
Just doesn’t happen here.
“The poor will always be with you.” Help them, yes, but don’t fall into the delusion that it is a problem that can be solved once and for all.
“Just doesn’t happen here.”
It happens here...plenty. I thought we were talking about what to do about the problem in the US? Thanks for the insight to what you do wherever you are, but it obviously isn’t here in the US....the needless deaths because of lack of routine medical care is staggering here. But we will continue to deny faith based initiatives and move to social programs that are underfunded...maybe enough will die so the problem doesn’t look as BIG? (that was sarcasm)...
Cook them down and use them as fuel oil. It solves two problems that way.
That's quite a cynical way of looking at things, and it fails to consider the fact that committing someone against their will, for anything more than a 72-hour psych watch, is nearly impossible in this country, due to the efforts of the ACLU and various other organizations.
The homeless in this country, from what I have seen, nearly all mentally ill.
We have very few of the pleasant waifs you describe, or the relatively pleasant drunks that I saw nearly everywhere in the UK.
I suggest going the other way with that. I'm betting the obese can wolf down the starving like popcorn. How much of an obese guy could the starving guy eat in one sitting.
It's just a matter of numbers.
spiked park bench seats
Of course, in NZ, public agencies may be motivated by nothing more than pristine altruism, which would make it even more of a paradise than it appears.
Move a couple of hundred of them into the White House. Let’s see The King show some real compassion.
> It happens here...plenty. I thought we were talking about what to do about the problem in the US? Thanks for the insight to what you do wherever you are
I’ve mentioned I’m in New Zealand several times.
If what you say is happening in the United States is true then it is an outrage: excellent reason for the US to adopt a competently-designed socialized medical delivery system without delay. Capitalism is great — we all like capitalism — and so is Free Enterprise. However if the relentless pursuit of these ends produces this shameful outcome for your Society...
> But we will continue to deny faith based initiatives and move to social programs that are underfunded...maybe enough will die so the problem doesn’t look as BIG? (that was sarcasm)...
Adequate funding really is the key, and IMO it is the reason why faith-based systems cannot succeed (unless of course they receive funding from the Government).
The indigent mentally ill ought to be a burden placed on and distributed amongst all of Society. Atheists and Agnostics ought not to be able to escape paying their fair share, which is what will almost certainly happen if funding does not draw from the state’s Revenue.
This isn’t to say that faith-based solutions have no place: they can and should be able to participate in delivering services — as many as they want to deliver, and they should receive government funding to supplement their own. However, they are not capable of delivering the entire solution by themselves: they are not resourced to do so.
If the homeless REALLY want to find a home they can, just ask this guy.
> We have very few of the pleasant waifs you describe, or the relatively pleasant drunks that I saw nearly everywhere in the UK.
> The homeless in this country, from what I have seen, nearly all mentally ill.
You’ve spoken to them, I take it? It’s difficult to diagnose mental illness from a distance, and it would be really easy to mistake mental illness from plain orneriness or antisocial behavior: most homeless I have met are very antisocial and they do behave weird and unpleasantly when they’ve been on the glue or solvents. I can’t say I’ve ever met one who could be described as “pleasant” or even “cordial” — at least not initially.
> That’s quite a cynical way of looking at things, and it fails to consider the fact that committing someone against their will, for anything more than a 72-hour psych watch, is nearly impossible in this country, due to the efforts of the ACLU and various other organizations.
Yet many of your states do allow you to detain and restrain people in protective custody if they are likely to be a harm to themselves.
In New Zealand we do not have that legal concept: it’s not permitted. All interaction with the mental health services is voluntary unless it is ordered by the courts — and even then unless it is part of a custodial sentence it is difficult or impossible to enforce.
Spoken to them, been accosted and assaulted by them, tried to run a business among them, scared them off of my customers, witnessed the utter apathy of the municipal authorities concerning their lawlessness...
Yet many of your states do allow you to detain and restrain people in protective custody if they are likely to be a harm to themselves.
But that's the point: if they are detained, they are medicated to the degree that they can walk into court and say that they no longer wish to be detained. Committing them further is a difficult and expensive legal process that is not usually successful and, thus, rarely undertaken.
All interaction with the mental health services is voluntary unless it is ordered by the courts — and even then unless it is part of a custodial sentence it is difficult or impossible to enforce.
Then I'm not really sure what difference between our two countries you are trying to point up? That America is a cold, heartless place, because we don't lock up crazy homeless people and force them into treatment and medication?
Oh wait, neither does NZ.
The fact that there is no free/affordable mental health treatment available for crazy homeless people? But there is, both from public services and from private sources, if the crazy homeless person only avails himself of it.
I guess I'm just missing your point.
If what you say is happening in the United States is true then it is an outrage: excellent reason for the US to adopt a competently-designed socialized medical delivery system without delay. Capitalism is great — we all like capitalism — and so is Free Enterprise. However if the relentless pursuit of these ends produces this shameful outcome for your Society...
Hahahahaha...you forgot the sarcasm tag! What kind of an idiot would want to install a socialized anything? They don’t work! They never have! Thanks for the laugh, though...
> Hahahahaha...you forgot the sarcasm tag! What kind of an idiot would want to install a socialized anything? They don’t work!
Socialized medicine works really well here. I don’t know anybody in our country that would vote to do away with it.
> Thanks for the laugh, though...
Anytime, no charge.
Let's see if I can help with that. In your earlier post, you pointed out:
>> and it fails to consider the fact that committing someone against their will, for anything more than a 72-hour psych watch, is nearly impossible in this country, due to the efforts of the ACLU and various other organizations.
I pointed out that it really is no different here in NZ. Yet we get different outcomes -- why?
I am not saying that we have no homeless who are mentally ill: for all I know a few could be. The ones I've met and spoken to aren't. I have said that for many/most/all here in New Zealand it would be a lifestyle choice. They like it like that, otherwise they wouldn't be homeless.
Here it would be literally true: there is neither reason nor excuse for anybody to be without a roof over their heads and food in their tummies and clothes on their backs and medicine in their cabinets. To live differently to that you do actually need to make a choice to do so.
“Socialized medicine works really well here. I don’t know anybody in our country that would vote to do away with it.”
I found someone who would do away with it, except he’s too dead...pretty common with rationed health care...
Single-payer socialized medicine a killer in New Zealand
New Zealand’s highly touted free cradle-to-the-grave public health system was in tatters Sunday after the death of a man whose family had for three weeks desperately tried to make health authorities give him life-extending medical treatment. Rau Williams died in Whangarei Hospital, north of Auckland, just hours after the Court of Appeal, in an emergency sitting, ruled that hospital managers Northland Health did not need to resume kidney dialysis treatment. “He was drowned by three top judges and two clinicians,” his nephew Jim Shortland said.
http://iatrogenic.org/newzealand.html
“Socialized medicine works really well here. I don’t know anybody in our country that would vote to do away with it.”
I found a few more who would give up the socialized rationing scheme; maybe you should get out more?
Hundreds of Hawke’s Bay people are waiting for gastroenterology procedures as the health board desperately appeals for general surgeons to help with the hospital’s sole specialist’s gruelling [sic] workload.
Hawke’s Bay Regional Hospital’s only gastroenterologist and part-time general physician, Malcolm Arnold, said there were 458 patients were on his waiting list alone, with 180 still awaiting a definite time to have their procedures performed.
Because of his intense workload, Dr Arnold is having difficulty keeping up with paperwork and is having to do it in his own time at home.
The hospital was trying to deal with the most urgent cases first. Less urgent cases were being pushed further down the list.
Those with highest priority included patients with bowel cancer or cancer of the oesophagus.
http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/hawke.html
> I found someone who would do away with it, except he’s too dead...pretty common with rationed health care...
Ah yes, the 10+ year old Rau Williams case. A terminally ill kidney patient who would not medically benefit from dialysis isn’t provided the use of a dialysis machine and consequently dies, to nobody’s surprise.
Everybody in NZ felt sorry for Rau Williams and his family, some even offered to buy/lease him a dialysis machine. But the sad thing about being terminally ill is that you tend to die from it.
The other sad thing about it is that it makes an excellent political football to kick around. A little bit of that happened at the time — not much, just a bit.
And despite the Rau Williams tragedy — for it is a tragedy when somebody dies far too young — nobody in New Zealand would vote to replace our medical system with yours, or anybody else’s.
You must be confused.
There are only homeless people during Republican administrations.
Ah yes, the 10+ year old Rau Williams case. A terminally ill kidney patient who would not medically benefit from dialysis isn’t provided the use of a dialysis machine and consequently dies, to nobody’s surprise.
Ahhhhhhh...and the 5 hundred or so other cases I just posted? They were a misunderstanding? They are all symptomatic of rationed health care...what we yanks call “socialized medicine”...
> I found a few more who would give up the socialized rationing scheme;
No they wouldn’t, else they would pay to use our private medical system, which is also a choice they have.
> maybe you should get out more?
Nah, but maybe you shouldn’t rely so much on the MSM as your source of dodgy “facts”.
> Hundreds of Hawke’s Bay people are waiting for gastroenterology procedures as the health board desperately appeals for general surgeons to help with the hospital’s sole specialist’s gruelling [sic] workload.
So they’re on a waiting list: they want free non-urgent operations, which are prioritized in terms of need. Those who need operating on most go first.
If they don’t feel like waiting their turn, they can always (always) pay — just like you would in the US — and go to a private hospital immediately. Many of us even have insurance schemes that allow us to do this.
In the old days, relatives would try to socialize these people - but with the ever present "homeless industry" that can't be done... Now it's free food for the homeless and guilt trips for everyone else. We created the system, put incentives in place to keep it going and now we have to live with it. Perverse incentives create sickening dependence.
Yeah, cry me a river.
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