Republican State Gives Free Houses to Moochers, Cuts Homelessness by 74 Percent

slate.com ^ | 12/20/2013 | David Weigel

[Bob]

OK. As I said, there are some homeless veterans. I don’t doubt that in the slightest. There are also many homeless claiming to be veterans that aren’t.

[boop]

I remember the Seattle Hotel for Drunks experiment. I didn't know how it turned out.

From what I know about homelessness, is that yes, people are often homeless by choice.

If they go to say a shelter run by a Christian/religious/service organization. Hell even government-run, they have rules. As in no smoking, no drugs, no drinking.

That's fine for someone down on their luck, but for a hard-core addict/alcoholic, they are not going to play by those rules. They'd prefer to sleep outside if they can continue to use.

One of my favorite documentaries is called Dark Days. It talks about the tunnel people of NYC who live underground. These people live in hand built shanties, have tapped the electricity, and water lines, and basically live off the grid, drinking and drugging themselves silly.

But oh, what a dangerous place.

They've got their rules, and talk about some extremely freakish human beings. Some folks never leave, they stay down there for years.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The strange thing is that, despite it being so successful that Seattle actually brags about it, nobody else has tried to repeat the experiment.

It seems to me that more Republican cities would jump at an opportunity to save a bunch of money while reducing their homeless problem.

But there are a lot of people who would have sleepless nights over the idea of alcoholics being allowed to remain alcoholics, with no effort at persuasion or coercion to make them stop.

[boop]

Yeah I forget how the hierarchy went. But I thought that "Hobos" were considered almost honorable, because they'd work for a meal and not steal. IIRC the lowest class were the true "bums" who didn't want to work at all and were crooks.

Hobos looked down severely on bums.

BTW, my wife gets mad at me when I call them bums. I asked her: "We've been seeing the same guy at the same intersection for almost 6 years now. If that's not a bum I don't know what it is." And I was only half-joking when I said wouldn't it be something if we saw a second bum on the opposite corner? it would be like seeing a double rainbow.

Sure enough, the rare "double bum".

[thecodont]

I didn’t know this, but found that hobos had a sort of code of ethics.

http://www.hobo.com/whatisahobo/hobocode.html

[Organic Panic]

Yet many of those federal lands I can’t even park my car and camp for the night. But the homeless know where the handouts are.

[Bogey78O]

Yea, hobos weren’t the bottom. They were poor migrants who worked when they needed cash. They were good for small jobs that the illegals have taken over.

Some were crooks and drunks but most stayed clean enough to be employable. It was an entire subculture that we’ve destroyed with cyclical poverty. Now we just raise bums.

[boop]

Great link, thanks.

I guess I've never met a real "hobo". All I ever seem to see are bums.

The classic is another guy I see regularly with an empty gas can at Safeway asking for "gas money".

I've been so tempted to tell him I'll fill his can, just to see what he'd do. It's a HUGE five gallon size.

Betcha he'd refuse. Who would want to lug around 40 lbs. of gasoline?

I call him "gasbum", which makes my wife angry with me, too.

[GailA]

And Memphis Penal Farm stopped growing their own food a decade or more ago, and the extra going to food pantries, because the grocery store owners wanted the profit. And it was CRUEL to make prisoners WORK!