Posted on 06/05/2006 10:14:55 AM PDT by FoxInSocks
WASHINGTON - A new program coming to the District will provide a free voice-mail service to low-income individuals and the homeless.
Community Voice Mail will make 350 voice-mail boxes available at no cost. Those who want to enroll will be asked to work with a social services case manager.
The manager will make the voice-mail service available as part of a client's overall plan to find a job, or to move out of a shelter or transitional housing.
Each person enrolled in the program will receive a private D.C. phone number connected to a voice-mail box. The number can be used only to check messages.
The executive director of Community Voice Mail says the service began more than a decade ago and serves 46,000 people each year in 37 cities.
"Hey man....I got your stuff here.Where's my money,man?
I'm not homeless right now, but leave a message and I'll call you back.
Sounds like a program that really helps, whether administered by gov't (as this appears to be) or by private charity.
What if they don't want to find a job and housing? That's the problem: society trying to tell them what to want.
Hello, this is Bob, I'm not home right now.....
LOL! As if. More likely, it's going to be used to continue to enable their own destructive habits which got them homeless in the first place. Another example of wasted money and effort because some liberal heart string got tugged.
I have to agree with you. They aren't homeless because they're down on their luck, as the Libbies would have you believe. They WANT to be that way.
ROTFLMAO!
Probably gonna be a bunch of voice mail boxes on the sell or trade market very soon.
Really cheap
And just what percent of the voicemailboxes will end up being used to convey coded messages between gang members, drug dealers/customers, "escort" services, free-lance prostitutes, jihadists and jihadist-wannabes, or maybe even a type of ebay for stolen goods?
I am pretty sure this tops the list of most misused tax-payer dollars.
How dare they require someone to actually work!...........
"Yo Willie! Dis is Dookie. Where you at bitch! I need dat money so I can socre some weed! I be down sitting on the street corner."
Ummmm. if they are homeless, how does v-mail work? Is WiFi on their new laptops next?
I'm confoosed.
Psh. The govt can't do anything for less than $50 million.
No, what FF is saying is that the sane homeless are usually homeless because they chose (for example) to pay for drugs instead of the rent.
They have made choices that led directly to their becoming homeless.
This is the kind of nuts and bolts help a conservative can support.
Not having a phone number to put on a job application is one of the toughest barriers to getting off the streets.
Even laborers have to be reachable for a job call.
" Hi this is Sparky. I am out drinking dry gas and vomiting into the gutter. Please leave your name and the name of the bridge you sleep under and I will get back to you."
BEEEEEEEEP
How is THIS a necessity?
What a waste ... .
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
"Hi! This is Sears Window Coverings - would you like a free estimate and demonstration on how our new triple-pane windows can make your Maytag refrigerator box even more cozy this winter?"
I think this is a good idea.
I am assuming that they would go to a pay phone, dial-up the 800 number, enter their mailbox # and pin, and get their messages.
Man quit trippin' dawg! I was jes 'bout to holla at ya boy til the po-leece came!"
I did some Googling.
I don't think it is directly government / taxpayer funded. It operates through donations/donors:
http://www.cvm.org/media/faq.htm
See
http://www.cvm.org/whatcvm/history.htm
for history.
It's been around for at least twelve years.
They are not homeless. They're sidewalk campers.
TWELVE YEARS!!!
What a waste of money!
Insanity.
I'm curious, how would you recommend someone pick themselves up and find a job, if they have no phone number an employer can call them at?
They don't have to pay taxes, do they? Do you know that a panhandler can make $30K a year? Taxfree?
When I say something about a homeless person, it's because that's what they've said to me. I often have to walk past them to go to lunch. They've even told me and a friend that they were given one-way tickets from Corpus Christi and Austin.
My remarks are based on what I've been told directly by them.
Yes, thank you for your response, that's exactly what I was saying.
It's important that you differentiated between sane and those who are bipolar, of which we have many in my area. I work downtown, across the street from the church that has all the programs for them.
"Hello, this is Bob, I'm not home right now....."
ROFL
"Hey Miami..Pass the Night Train"
Would you hire someone who left a phone number answered by the front desk at a shelter? Do you think these people have a lot of successful friends and family that are professional in the way they answer the phone and take messages?
BTW, thanks for your kind words.
Possibly, but if it's not mine, I don't care.
In order to make $30,000/year, a homeless person would have to make about $115/day, assuming that the said homeless person "works" on M-F every week of the year. Are you really going to sit there and tell me that that's possible? Really? Cause that's a big cup of change to lug around every day. Although, I do regularly see homeless dudes with big biceps, so that must explain it! And I thought they were doing pushups every morning on the side of the road.
Damn, if homelessness makes $30,000, why are any of us working? Plus, you get to sleep in the open air every day AND not pay taxes. What could be better than that?
Well, if they are in a social services system and trying to back on their feet, having a way to actually get in contact with them is a good thing.... but will this requirement actually be enforced? That's another issue.
I've had to deal with folks in these programs who have no phone or voice mail etc.. and its a pain to get in touch with them, have to call their case worker or their employer if they have one just to get a message to them.
Actually, I think you might have hit on the problem voice mail tries to solve. A way a homeless person can find a job without announcing to all potential employers that they are homeless. It makes them sound normal, the way trying to get messages through a homeless shelter or social worker ~doesn't~.
Gee, when I do the math I come out with $82.20 per day. That would be presuming the commissions were the same 365 days a year. They're probably higher during the holidays (cold weather, warm hearts) and lower during the tax season. Whatever it is on any given day, they spend it. And "work" again for it on another corner tomorrow.
Your remarks are evidently predicated on the notion that these folks bank like the rest of us. Please go back and read what Xenalyte was trying to explain to you and what citizens everywhere fail to keep in mind:
They are not interested in playing by society's rules. All the do-gooder programs in the world won't change that.
There's a circuit involved, too. They are known to the police and often told not to come back. They leave town awhile and return. One person "lived" at a bus stop near the airport here. S/he left a sign "gone to FL for the winter. Thanks for all the help, see you in the spring!"
I kid you not.
"Hhellooo... This is ah... it's... This is Dave. I'mm either paassed out or away from mmyy bbox right nowww. Ppleaase leave a mmmm-mmm-message."
Good point.
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