School survey--- Why do you think people are homeless

[cruizer]

So I have this school project and I have to survey these people. Please submit a vote! The question is Why do you think people are homeless world wide ( the most popular reason)

[LollipopLolita]

all of the above applies to many different situations. if you want to survey the homeless people, ask them the reasons why. they'll be more than happy to talk and they're all nice people. i used to work with them

[BlackRose]

I know a few and have met several more around here... and yeah, the situations are always different.

And actually, I met one man who had a house of his own, and a job to keep it up, but spent most of his nights outside, living as if he were homeless.

[muff]

I think people are homeless because they don't have homes...

[Ness]

People can be homeless because of financial problems, but people that stay homeless have mental problems.

[Nawms]

People are overlooking that many homeless people don't have mental disabilities, don't want a job and weren't abandoned by parents.
They simply don't want to work.

I have had homeless people with CD players on approach my car.
Ya, after I saw their CD players, I really felt the need to give them anything, let alone money.

[MasterJoel]

From my experience, aside from the ones with mental problems (can't anyone get them to an asylum?!), they just don't want to work. they just want handouts, and their welfare checks have stopped coming. on many occasions, my dad has offered homeless people jobs, and given him is business card, and as of yet, he has had no takers... they can find a job if they really looked for one. i just wish we could get the mentally disabled ones some help...

[Captain_Dude]

I know a couple of homless 'round here. Man, there are really some cool homeless, and I think the reason they exist it that they keep the universe in balance with their mystical powers...

[Kemon]

mental/drugs/being pimped out/lazy



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kemon on 2003-05-06 08:46 ]</font>

[Guile]

Cuz they are Bums

[LollipopLolita]

On 2003-05-05 13:49, Ness wrote:
People can be homeless because of financial problems, but people that stay homeless have mental problems.



not true. i know many homeless people who stay homeless who don't have mental problems. at the same time, there are millions of people who are mentally ill and are not homeless and are functioning normally.


Let's see, Tim Burton, Francis Ford Coppola, DMX, Van Damme, Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey, the effin Queen of England, Dave Matthews, and Robin Williams are just some more famous people who have mental illnesses and are functioning fine. Buzz Aldrin also had problems. Even Isaac Newton, Sylvia Plath and Mark Twain.



On 2003-05-05 15:10, MasterJoel wrote:
From my experience, aside from the ones with mental problems (can't anyone get them to an asylum.

there's no assylums like the ones you're talking about anymore. during the reagan years funding was cut and people released with no place to go, no resources to turn to. and assylums like such has since then ceased to exist. there's psychiatric hospitals but they operate differently. it's very difficult to distinguish true mental illness in homeless people. as such most of them end up in jails and prisons, where they get even more lost into the mix of people.

being homeless has also made people depressed, so they self medicate with drugs and alcohol and then they get mentally ill.


you're not going to get a straight true story til you talk to some homeless people yourself. contrary to popular belief there are homeless people who are not on drugs, not mentally ill and not bums. they are clean, they have jobs, they just can't afford a place to live and they're trying to regain one. there's also vets that have run out of resources.

go to a foundation that caters to the homeless. if you give me your location, i will find you one, i used to do work at one.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: LollipopLolita on 2003-05-07 21:34 ]</font>

[Rotis]

Capitalism.

Sure, not all homeless people are truly "innocent victims," but our social structure pretty much requires that some people be destitute while others live in the lap of luxury.

Oh, if only humans weren't so corrupt... socialism is such a good idea on paper.

[DeLiRiUmTrIgGeR]

I'm going to have to agree with Rotis on this one. Society is entirely corrupt. A good depiction of what life is beneath what people normally see is in the Disturbed Video- "Prayer"

Is it too late to change your options? Or does your school decide them?

[Guile]

Hey sometimes people don't need all the everyday items and such to live life..items like houses and cars!!

[LollipopLolita]

you're not going to have a society that is free from corruption unless you have a society that is free from people.

[Sedyne]

My opinion

1) Drug addiction
2) Lazyness/Lack of ambition to make something of urself
3) Somewhere you got royaly screwed from some jackass

[hucasts_rock]

On 2003-05-05 22:17, Captain_Dude wrote:
I know a couple of homless 'round here. Man, there are really some cool homeless, and I think the reason they exist it that they keep the universe in balance with their mystical powers...


like ollie the magical bum in the THPS games http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/anime2.gif

[Sai-Yuk]

i blame the media, making a homeless state look so damn appealing.

mental illness is a broad thing to blame.
i could say that i fall into the mentally ill bracket, but, i'm sure a lot of people who post here do. mentally ill people are not all mad as hatters and waiting for you to turn your back so they can rip your arm off and beat you to death with it in a dank back alley. no, they're normal people, only, seeing as they don't snugly fit into that bracket of 'normality' they're classed as different, and that classification is one that a lot of people hold a serious amount of bias toward.

if somebody has something like, dyslexia, then because people understand that to a better degree, they won't think too much of it, but, say they have something with a name thats not so familiar, then people will hold bias toward them because they're fearful of what they don't know and understand.

when you see 'Aspergers Syndrome' and you have no awareness of what it is, you'd worry, because it could mean that the person has a habit of going off the rails and has an obsession with blood and sharp objects, could it not?

aspergers is 'simply' a form of autism, that again, would get bias from people that saw it, if they had no idea how it affected the person, so, taking that into account, mentally ill people may possibly end up homeless because of that bias, not because the condition itself makes the person unable or unwilling to work

while this isn't supposed to be such a problem, i am quite sure that the bias against people with such conditions is still there to a degree - they just won't admit to it, because there are laws against it, and those laws in themselves serve to distance the mentally ill from the society they live in.

i guess that could be another factor. they're made to feel different, and as such, it impairs their judgement on what course of action to take. i know it has for me a number of times

the only reason i'm putting any of this is because of the recent home events where i was told 'i'm lucky i'm not homeless' over a petty issue

<sarcasm>if you object to any of this, i'll lick you and you'll end up mentally ill as well</sarcasm>

the sad thing is, people act as if they think mental illness is a disease that they'll catch...

next time i'll try and make sense.

[LollipopLolita]

i know what asperger's is. and i think sai yuk you're talking about stigma? and you're right there is a huge biasedness, ignorance and misunderstanding about the mentally ill. notice how schizophrenics are labelled as very violent? as if they are all psychotic killers, when in fact the psychotic killers are not medically psychotic and they are not schizophrenics? and more normal people kill than mentally ill people.

[Sai-Yuk]

i was mistaken for a schizophrenic once.
they have the worst degree of bias of the lot because of all the media coverage that they where given.

the best description i was given of that was, that schizophrenia is what they class anybody that they can't understand enough to diagnose. it isn't accurate, but it does throw things into a new perspective.

you're more likely to be murdered by your lover/husband/wife in a domestic dispute than you are to be stabbed to death by somebody that suffers from mental illness.

of course, if a wife stabbed her husband to death, it would maybe make the papers if it was a quiet day for the media.
if a schizophrenic did the same, it'd be all over the papers with titles like 'brutal schizo stabs brave innocent to death' and 'looney finds the place they belong - behind bars'

sure, i've had the odd urge to kill a member of my family, but, thats because of the degree of conflict that brought about the feeling, instead of because i'm a 'fuck-headed killer'

back on topic though, the media does also have a part in painting homeless people out to be something they're not.

[LollipopLolita]

yes i am very very sick of the stereotypes of schizophrenics especially in movies.

and i think it's just easier for people who run citites to group the homeless together and shove the problem under the carpet rather than addressing the real issue.

in sf, they tore down a really big shelter to make room for the parking lot of the new baseball stadium for the giants. that's cool i understand, but they never built a new shelter. so where are all the people to go except the streets? and then people complain saying that the homeless are all over the streets again. and then the cops arrest them. there is nothing else to label it except for stupid.