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Velonews reports that former champion cyclist Twigg got a CS degree but wasn't too successful in that career, and is now homeless in Seattle, https://www.velonews.com/2019/04/news/now-homeless-twigg-opens-up-in-article-with-seattle-times_492734 A longer version of the story/interview appears in the Seattle Times, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/olympic-medal-winning-cyclist-rebecca-twigg-is-homeless-in-seattle/
Rebecca Twigg has now been without a home for almost five years in Seattle, living first with friends and family, then in her car, then in homeless shelters and then, for a night, under garbage bags on the street downtown. She hasn't had a bike for years, and no one recognizes her anymore, she says.
Twigg, 56, agreed to share her story to convince the public that not all homeless people are addicted to drugs or alcohol; that there are many like her, who have struggled with employment and are "confused," as she said she is, about what to do next with their lives. She did not want to discuss mental health but feels it should be treated more seriously in Washington.
"Some of the hard days are really painful when you're training for racing," Twigg said, "but being homeless, when you have little hope or knowledge of where the finish line is going to be, is just as hard."
[...] She was spotted at 17 by famous cycling coach Eddie Borysewicz. After she won the world championship, he invited her to live in the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and train for the 1984 Olympic Games, where for the first time, women would be competing on bicycles.
Americans dominated the Olympics that year. Twigg won a silver medal, missing gold by a few inches to famous racer Connie Carpenter. She continued on her way up over the next several years, setting world records, winning world titles, and racing more than 60 times a year. She became known for her competition in individual pursuit, where two cyclists start at the same time on opposite sides of the track and each tries to catch the other. She's still among the most-decorated athletes in pursuit.
But the breakneck pace couldn't continue forever. She was married and soon after divorced. She crashed in Texas, broke her thumb and got 13 stitches in her head. The following year she felt burned out. She took a break at age 26, and that year she grew an entire inch, possibly because her body no longer had to expend so much energy training.
Twigg got an associate degree in computer science and became a programmer for a seaweed-products company in San Diego.
Twigg says the career wasn't a perfect fit. She quit and started training for the 1992 Olympic Games, winning a bronze medal in the 3,000-meter pursuit after only nine months of training. As she entered her 30s, she became regarded as the best American female cyclist.
The article has more details, she tried other IT jobs, but (not surprisingly to me) it sounds like her heart wasn't really in it.
If you were in her spot, what would you do for a second act, after such stunning early success in international sports? Some former athletes become motivational speakers or coaches, but she may not be the "self promoter" type, relying on her skill/strength for her success instead of team politics.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Gaaark on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:03AM (1 child)
Dog bless America.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:39AM
Hot dog, I say cool it man
I don't wanna be...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:35AM (45 children)
Make sure you get yourself financially covered for at least a couple of years. Getting into the top of international sport might be easy when you're young (I was never good at sports, so I can't relate), but staying there... well, isn't going to happen to most people until their retirement. If your replacement job isn't what you're looking for, don't sit ducks and hope it magically becomes better (it doesn't). Switch carreers, use your financial buffer if you have to, but make sure you get sufficient income within some reasonable time.
Today's society doesn't allow you to not have a plan for the future that suits your lifestyle.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:44AM (44 children)
She travelled so much she didn't have a support buffer, she made it through her good years and tried out different plans, but didn't find another less athletic career she could segue into. Speaking of other people I know both men and women, this happens more often than people like to publicly admit. The only difference in many cases between a smug success and a humble person in the sticks is the luck of the draw relative to their careers. If that factory shuts down, or that management position gets made redundant, how many people really CAN jump to another field of work, or go from management back to line work and climb back up to management again? And if you don't climb up to management, what chances do you have to retire if you get a mid-life hurdle that takes away your hard fought savings?
Take a minute to really truly imagine life from another persons shoes, for those of you who have had it rough, imagine not having had it rough at all and how it would affect your expectations for everyone else. And for those of you who have had it easy, think of all the places your life could have gone horribly wrong, and where you would be if you hadn't had a helping hand, another job opportunity, or a different passion to fall back on. There is a reason for that saying 'Don't judge a (wo)man until you've walked a mile in their (heels/)shoes.'
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:51PM (25 children)
And what's the answer you're looking for? Create some clueless and unfeeling bureaucracy to administer the feelgoods that need be administered?
And yet there are huge numbers of people who figure this out every year. I get that there's mentally ill people out there. But I also get that there's little we can do for them at present aside from making their environment better, and providing some help and medication of varying value. Sure, I agree that there's better support society should be providing - it's not a solution but is better than present.
At the same time, what really is the point of this article? I see it as just an emotional ritual, common to the reading of news. People want to read emotional stories. But some of the resulting narratives, such as the above of futility in one's life, aren't productive.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:58PM (2 children)
It's an emotional story, yes. I'd say there are multiple points to it. They include:
* Just because one is capable of reaching pinnacles of success in a field does not mean one will be successful in life. Or that one cannot still harbor issues that can bring one down. We might know that because MDC was here (or have learned it elsewhere), but that doesn't mean everybody does. And it might be good to be reminded of that anyway.
* Homeless people are people and can have daughters and families and yet be homeless. You might know that, but that doesn't mean everybody believes that in a practical sense. It's not an uncommon pattern that the homeless have relatives, or churches, or other structures that can no longer provide support because reasons.
* There is quite a bit that can be done for (or perhaps better, with) persons with mental disabilities or pathologies. Yet most such problems take cooperation of the person to recognize what is wrong and want to do something about it. Even without cures services can still be provided.
* Attention should be called to the places that are involved with homeless care. So that when we choose not to spend money on them, or choose to cut away budgets to make the rich richer, we have a better idea of who is truly injured by such choices.
* When one's pride is taken away (or given up) how does one move on from there. (And making such choices can lead to identity confusion). What should one do when pride may not be something one can't (or shouldn't) afford given one's challenges in Maslow's hierarchy?
* Just because one is successful does not mean that one is grounded - it sounds like she spent a long time with many residences and attempts to have a life, but no real home or an understanding of what makes up basic survival and security. But I'd guess you're being so fundamentally grounded may slip by that there are others who might have reasons they are not (or cannot be?)
As to futility.... Perhaps the overwhelming element of this narrative is to silently ask what is and is not futile. What might you do differently about the Rebecca Twiggs in your community, because they likely exist.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:35PM (1 child)
It's not very silent an asking.
My take here is stories don't tell us much. Current homelessness is somewhere [endhomelessness.org] around 500-600k homeless in the US out of 330 million people. One could have five orders of magnitude less homelessness or three orders of magnitude more, and still have dozens of sad stories.
What I can say from the above data is that it's a small fraction. Even with the problems these people currently face, the US isn't doing badly with rates a little above 1 in 1000 people. Perhaps we should also reflect on what we're doing right?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:58PM
Yes, we should reflect on what we're doing right. And in the subtext of the story, for example, are things like day shelters as well as night ones. It's in the background since the focus of the article is about a person and not the system, but it's there.
Is this isolated story representative? Is it objective truth about what homelessness is? I wouldn't say so - life is way more weird than any packaged narrative can relate. One could also contrast this story with that of Liz Murray [theguardian.com], and that our country can produce stories like those too. It's not all doom and gloom even if there is still work to do.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:54PM (21 children)
I didn't even have to finish reading the summary to know you'd be along to blow bloody diarrhea all over her any anyone who even attempts to use a bit of empathy. It's your true 'talent'.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:09PM (20 children)
Reason can be quite predictable. And what was the point of the empathy? To spin a cute story of woe. I liked Lawn's reply because he put thought into it, not just feigned empathy.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:26PM
So can a diarrhea geyser.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 17 2019, @09:06PM (18 children)
Reason, Mr. Hallow, dictates that we adopt a housing-first approach to those of the homeless population who have no comorbid drug or alcohol abuse issues or serious mental health problems. Just look at Salt Lake City.
It costs less--there's the economic argument, the reason, the one with no empathy at all involved so a soulless husk like you can digest it!--to do it this way than to allow the current system to continue. Start treating homelessness as what it is, a public health crisis, and do as much preventive medicine as possible. That is how you help the most people and keep the costs down.
You don't want this. Because deep down, you aren't about "reason." You just hate the idea of someone getting "free shit." I can only hope you end up homeless, and soon. Maybe you'll learn through suffering what you refuse to learn through the reason you pretend to hold so dear.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:09PM (2 children)
Always blows me away when you go the economic incentive route and they STILL fight back. How can anyone be so clueless about their own motivations that when you knock out the leg of "reason" they are standing on they somehow don't fall down? Then they sit there hovering over the ground thinking everything is normal.
We're just beating 'round the bush of bigotry and hate, it does seem to be that simple.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:20PM
The worst part is, they will look you right in the eye and deny it. Do it right in front of you and deny it when called on it. These people would lie to Christ on the cross. They think we're worse than stupid; they think we're subhuman and therefore perfectly okay to lie to.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 18 2019, @01:36AM
Only if you get the sign right. So many such "incentives" aren't. I'll look at the grandparent and see if it really is an economic incentive.
It helps to reason when you talk about "reason". But I'm used to people talking about reason without actually doing so, and then projecting that failure on me.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 18 2019, @01:38AM (14 children)
Ok. How many people is that? At these low levels of homelessness IMHO, you're speaking of people between homes and people with a lot of those comorbid factors.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 18 2019, @03:11AM (13 children)
Based on a rough sample size of about n=50, and with the understanding that it's biased toward the urban population here in Madison, I'd say at least 70% would be helped immediately and finally by a housing first initiative. That number may be higher or lower elsewhere. What is for certain is that the longer people stay homeless, with the world cutting them out of society and treating them as somewhere between invisible and vermin to be exterminated, the lower that number will go.
And it sounds tome like you want that to happen, like you want it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, so you can say there was no sense in helping to begin with. Again: I wish long-term homelessness upon you in as swift a manner as possible, so that you learn.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 18 2019, @06:14AM (12 children)
There are two counterpoints to that. First, you have a habit of saying falsehoods though not intentionally, I think. Just because you say this, doesn't mean it's close to reality. But let's ignore that Azuma filter.
Second, I find it interesting that by US measures of homelessness, only a quarter [endhomelessness.org] of the homeless qualify as what is called "chronically homeless". That is, homeless for a total duration of a year or more over a period of three years. That is, the people who are apparently not amenable to a housing first initiative by your estimate are similar in fraction to this group which has serious problems with homelessness.
Thus, even if we assume that 70% of the homeless can benefit from free/cheap housing provided by someone, we have the situation that about the same number of homeless find housing anyway (else there would be more chronically homeless in the first place). Looks to me like I was correct on the assertion that it's people between homes and people with those comorbid factors. I grant there may well be significant economic benefit to housing first - which apparently is implemented in Canada and a number of US cities, but I'd like to see some numbers - particularly how much faster people get off the street and find jobs than when they're not on housing first. Perhaps you can supply that?
Still it strikes me that the people most likely to be successful after housing first, would be successful anyway. That's the placebo effect, but with someone else's money.
I'm used to zealots exaggerating problems and their desired solutions. So no skin off my teeth. In response, I don't wish long-term involuntary homelessness on you because it's suffering and wouldn't make you a better person.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 18 2019, @10:30PM (11 children)
You will say and do anything to defend that worldview, I get it.
Again: not doin' this for you, pal. You made your decision and it's going to cost you a good long time writhing in Hellfire. This is for everyone who has to deal with your shit. Think of it as a sort of airborne vaccination program. This may be the one case where vaccines *do* cause autism flareups (yours).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:09PM (10 children)
And you'll keep projecting, I get that.
What I find interesting is that the only time you've attempted any sort of rational argument with me in the past few weeks, you a) don't follow through with any sort of support for your argument other than a personal observation which could be very wrong due to your past issues with delusion, b) immediately abandon the approach, indicating you weren't serious, and then c) brag about how you tried and it didn't work.
The obvious rebuttal here is that if you're going to use an economics argument, then show this housing first approach actually works in the way you claim it works. It looks to me like even in the absence of such an approach, more than half of the homeless population on their own gets housing of some kind which is very close to the potential success rate from your observations of your local population of homeless. In other words, does it do something or is it a placebo? Supporting programs that don't work can generate more homelessness (through redirection of resources via taxes and such).
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:29PM (9 children)
I already told you: Salt Lake City.
And, again, why do I (and all other properly functioning human beings) have to debase myself down to "here's a purely mathematical, monetary argument for why this works" anyway? You're a failure, a skinwalking reject that just looks like it has a human shape, something that feeds on the suffering of others. You have no place in this discussion. If you don't see why caring about other human beings has a benefit beyond simply cash in hand (or cash in ledger, whatever) then you don't belong anywhere near any discussion, and God forbid any policymaking, on the subject.
tl;dr: go away, we're done with you pissing in the gene pool.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:33PM (8 children)
I hear it's a city. What about them?
Because otherwise there's no point listening to you? You have a history of saying whatever to validate your worldview. That good enough?
This is an example of how you just say shit. I care about human beings, but I recognize the existence of cost. For example, helping a human being by hurting two more isn't a good tradeoff for me. How about you?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:41PM (7 children)
You're full of shit, and worse, you gussy it up by pretending to be reasonable, moral, and concerned with cost. We can all see this.
I only keep this up in order to get you to keep exposing yourself, so people can see you degenerate to exactly this sort of post: stripped down to bare willful ignorance, hypocrisy, and outright bullshitting. Whatever the opposite of "virtue signalling" is, you're doing it, and you actually think it's signalling virtue.
Keep it up, Hallow. Your corrosive inhumanity can't touch me, and the more you display it and double down on it, the more it becomes obvious to anyone watching what kind of walking septic tank you are. Keep it up.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:49PM (6 children)
Why are you telling the rest of us this? I wonder if there's anyone who actually believes you any more?
Your natural level, of course.
On the earlier topic, I googled around and the housing first thing seems to be a Canadian policy. They claimed all kinds of nice things for the policy, but I couldn't find independent evaluation of the policy. As I've noted before, a first step to policy advocacy should be showing that it's better than not doing anything. So is that true here? Is housing first better than not doing anything?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday April 21 2019, @12:02AM (5 children)
I'm pretty sure "the rest of us" know this and are on board :) You don't have anywhere as many supporters or friends as you think you do, and part of the reason why is your utter lack of common humanity. Most people can sense this and steer clear, because we know, if only subconsciously, that people like you are poison to a functioning society.
The data are out there. Look them up. I am not going to do your homework for you, and you have no one to blame but yourself for refusing to. And "the rest of us," of course, will see that you don't, which further erodes your credibility.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Sunday April 21 2019, @02:56AM (4 children)
In other words, you don't know that it's any better. You merely assume so.
Uh huh. You're not the rest of the internet.
Too bad. It's your opinion.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday April 21 2019, @03:52AM (3 children)
Facts are not opinions. Educate yourself. The data is out there; you refuse to assimilate it because it breaks your worldview over its knee like the flimsy piece of kindling it is. You did exactly what I predicted you to do, almost down to the word, and it's not helping your case any, despite what you may think.
Buddy, I don't *need* to be "the rest of the internet." You will find people who agree with you online, sure, but it's *where* you find them that's most telling. Let's just say between the two of us, I am not the one who will find her fellow travelers on Gab or Stormfront. You will, because your kind of economic "thinking" is popular with that crowd for reasons which ought to be fairly obvious.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 21 2019, @05:36PM (2 children)
There's way too much of this bullshit on the internet where people assert stuff and then tell me to back it up for them. Sorry, it's your job to sell your fucking arguments with those alleged facts. Just do your job.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday April 21 2019, @06:05PM (1 child)
The very first search result from DDG is this story from 2015 from NPR: https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how [npr.org]
Of course, some more recent articles attempt to dispute this, but they all follow a similar track: conflating the "chronically homeless," who are the hard cases mentioned before, with all homeless people. The media itself seems to want to make the very poorest of us suffer; it's the main reason I trust virtually nothing they say when it comes to money. Pareto ratios pop up all over nature; any program that wants to make real headway here has to factor that in to begin with.
How goddamned lazy can you be? I know, I know, as lazy as it takes not to ever have to change your views or accept new facts. Your mind is petrified, and you like it that way. You think it's a brain boner. If beliefs remain ossified for upwards of 4 years, see a psychiatrist.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @08:23PM
He's almost as lazy as someone who said most homeless people aren't mentally ill.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:01PM (13 children)
This is going to sound cold so let me preface this by saying I was homeless during college. I lived in a tent in the woods when the government changed the structure of my funding to no longer cover a gap with no classes in the summer. My lease was up and so I decided to do a little camping and spend the summer studying quietly. It was fine but interacting closely with the homeless left me with less sympathy and not more. The worst part of being homeless was other homeless people.
Most of them didn't accept help if it wasn't material. They begged constantly, to me, to their other friends, to anyone. They would constantly complain about nice shit they were getting for free. Many of them I sat down and showed them step by step how to get in front of money from the government to go to school or find work to get them on their feet. Not a single one followed up. They were just nodding their heads hoping I'd follow up with 5 bucks for their time.
I used to regularly watch them exchange tips about what stories were saddest. I saw them trading cardboard signs at least a half dozen people used one that said "My baby needs formula". They'd joke about how stupid the people were who gave them money. One girl borrowed her friend's turtles to go spange. Sitting on the sidewalk showing people the pets you can't feed to get money.. Like I'm supposed to believe you're homeless with pet turtles?
Anyhow whatever she did the turtles died after she brought them back.
She's declined to talk about her mental state and she has family in the city who aren't giving her a place to stay. With the homeless this is a big tell. If someone is homeless you have to wonder why her daughter isn't letting her sleep on the couch if she shows up to the foodbank and gets a bag of free groceries.
In my case I didn't trust my mom like that she's a sweet lady but was a shit parent and I'd honestly rather sleep on the ground than deal with her candy coated horseshit. But I could have if I was 5 years homeless or something.
I work in IT in seattle and there is a 50 year old guy who changed careers after breaking his back. Ageism exists but he's doing just fine, he's within arms reach of getting promoted into one of the better dev teams. He could have a promotion just about any time he feels like. I actually read the article to see if I could get her a job but reading between the lines she'd get fired without working on her mental health first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:21PM (3 children)
Got it. You weren't homeless. You were camping, with a predefined future in front of you. In other words, a tourist. Your situation didn't extend to them but you were very ready to show them how, huh?
Your family situation doesn't transfer to hers, either. Homeless people often do have relatives who will not help them for their own reasons, be it drug usage on the homeless person's part or just worn out because any such offer is temporary even if you're family. Or because they are sponging off society - I know as you state such people do exist. But they aren't the majority, sorry.
You might have pegged it - she needs counseling assistance and will not comment on it. (Which doesn't mean she isn't getting any assistance, either, but whatever - jump to that conclusion if you like). The bottom line of the article seems to be that while she isn't willing to admit she's bottoming out yet, she also feels like there's no transition from shelters to upward levels. I don't think that is true, but typically such assistance is pegged to cooperating with treatment regimens etc. And if whatever your state is has you not cooperating then there isn't much help as far as I know. So her point is that there should be more unconditional housing. Don't know if I agree with that or not but at any rate, this has nothing to do with you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:13PM
It still counts.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 18 2019, @03:12PM
>Got it. You weren't homeless.
Even I can detect a no true scotsman here.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @07:09PM
Yeah I made friends and I would tell them you need to set goals. You can do this and this and this and you'll have an apartment in 3 months, you'll have a career in two years.
I knew you were going to go there but have you actually sat down with a homeless person and navigated their unending lists of "I can't do this because of"... addressing each barrier and then watch them do what they always did before. Stuff like pretending to shake and convulse in front of tourists while they beg for money. Pretending to be going blind. Holding signs that your baby is starving (no baby)
Don't listen to what they say they need. They'll lie and if they were so full of good ideas they'd be solving their own problems. They need to be separated from the greater homeless community and given a plan. When I got back on my feet I helped two friends I had made get onto their own feet. I let them be my roommates after they pulled it together.
Literally nobody listened to me without some personal carrot being dangled so the promise of a lease and a house made these people follow my plan. Everyone else.. fuck that what do I know? I'm just a guy who can compel the government to just hand over enough money to pay my bills for years without work so I mean.. Like who the fuck am I to listen to?
It was about a month of living there before they were back to doing drugs. They'd both got fired shortly after for what I totally recognized to be a manic episode from smoking meth, they cycled through jobs like this over and over, I've honestly never seen someone get so many jobs. They lied about it and would have massive arguments. I couldn't do shit because if I would start talking about ending the lease and going our separate ways the girl would start crying and shouting and the next door neighbor thought I was beating the shit out of her and she'd call the cops. She was the worst one because she had somehow figured out how to exploit our natural desire to protect the weak, she'd go from public menace to helpless waif as fast as you could dial 911. Oh and I was on probation. Why? Because a guy was smoking weed in line a the food bank like an idiot and I got a ticket for having weed in my pocket and standing next to him. I'd lose my pell grant and we'd all get evicted if the cops showed up. These are people who would actively use my desire not to get sucked into their degenerate shit as an ultimatum to keep playing ball.
Our other neighbor said she was telling him I was her boyfriend and we were thinking about getting married. She told me some personal social details about the neighbor who was calling the cops so I'm sure she had built up a narrative. I was completely trapped.
Oh yeah so you think "well they need psychological services" they got them, I told them to go, they came back with scripts for xanax and ambien. They encouraged me to try and get some too. They said "oh yeah don't tell her about this problem, this problem or this problem, tell her you can't sleep and this and that" ... like how the fuck are you supposed to get better when your every word is a lie.
When a relative was dying of cancer she stole money from me and when I came back home the house had obviously been jam packed with random street trash. The weeds had taken over the lawn and the landlord was threatening to come over so if he did I'd have gotten evicted. At some point there was a girl on girl kitchen knife fight.
They might believe the excuses when they're saying them but they will give them a thousand subtle little nudges back to their shit lives.
I've done my best to cut all these people out of my life but every time they get clean they feel bad enough to leave apologies on social networks and things and of course I watch them cycle back shortly after. I usually remove myself from anywhere they have managed to find me on the internet.
So go ahead go be a hero I dare you. Move one of these fuckers in your house. Or give them your phone number and tell them you're there anytime.
I was a tourist because I had a plan to get through my homelessness. These people are already on plan B C D E. Where a normal person would have an emergency contingency plan for being broke these people will figure that they can go ahead and buy another rock because they think they have an idea about what to do if they spend their whole paycheck.
I wouldn't have been a tourist if I started doing drugs and shit. I saw one guy who was a firefighter and him and his wife were evicted because of something his dog did. 2 weeks later failed drug test, a month later his wife left him, he didn't bother following up on the dog he let himself get evicted over and it was put to sleep, he was homeless until I moved away.
The homeless community gets no say in what they need. It sounds nice but they don't know.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:32PM (8 children)
You need to take each person on an individual basis.
Shit like this is why I cringe when I hear things like "the homeless" or even worse, "the homeless problem." Do you see why? Hint: try substituting "Jews" for "homeless" or "blacks" (well, or the word this kind of person uses instead of "black folks") for "homeless."
I know, it's hard not to automatically judge when you have a bunch of consistently bad experiences with a given group. It's easier to generalize. Especially if that puts some convenient moral distance (*or so you think!*) between you and "them." But individuals are individuals, and it's as wrong to judge one homeless person by what you've seem from others as it is to judge one black man from what you've seem from other black men, and for almost the same reasons.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:50PM (7 children)
> You need to take each person on an individual basis.
I agree, I mean, right here on SN, you read generalizations like "My fondest wish is for all the haters who have never eaten out of a garbage can, slept in a train station, or begged for help from police and been laughed at and told they deserve to die to suffer these things personally". And given the broad definition of haters it is aimed at some MILLION people.
Good trolls are quick and direct, not sparse and convoluted.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 18 2019, @10:32PM (6 children)
Category error. Every individual needs to learn compassion in their own way; my wish is for those individuals who will only learn it through suffering to suffer in the ways necessary for them to learn it. As individuals.
Nice try, Bot. I warned you about that latest Windows update but nooooo, you just HAD to go install it anyway. Hold still and let me do some percussive maintenance. This is gonna hurt you a hell of a lot more than it's gonna hurt me, but, well, see above about people who only learn through suffering...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @04:15AM (5 children)
Hitler wasn't racist, he carefully considered each individual and gassed only those found to be jews.
Your criterion to determine those worthy of suffering the an eye for an eye treatment was one dimensional, objection rejected. Sorry.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:45PM (4 children)
My God, are you running WinME or something? That's a Godwin in the truest sense of the term, and it's also false: Jews made up about 6.5 million of the 13+ million killed in the Holocaust, and Hitler's criteria mostly boiled down to "zis person iz part of group vhich iz bad for zer Reich."
And you don't get to bitch about one-dimensional criteria to determine who deserves to suffer when you worship a God whose main criterion is "believe in me or suffer for eternity," you fucking hypocrite. Your God also said something about attending to the beam in your own eye before you pull the dust out of your neighbor's; I strongly suggest you heed that advice.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:54PM
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 20 2019, @04:39PM (2 children)
> it's godwin
on purpose
> and false
irrelevant for the discussion, just like the rest of your rebuttal attempt.
> when you worship a God whose main criterion is "believe in me or suffer for eternity,"
strange way of saying I tend to recognize as God the guy who voluntarily sacrificed himself for whoever he chooses to take with him. The puerile view of a vindicator god, which btw was intent on vindicating and protecting his chosen ones other than himself, needs to take into account luke 23:34 and matthew 18. Another problem is that as supreme judge God is also defined as just. Why should one have issues with a judgement from a perfect being? You don't even know how will you fare, see matt 21:28. Preventive criticism in this context is nonsense. Sadly your position is reflected very often. I could care less what people think but these ideas always rustle my condensers.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday April 21 2019, @12:10AM (1 child)
*siiiiigh*
You have such deep, fundamental problems with your worldview that I'm not sure it's possible to fix you :/ Giving you a taste of some good old Christian justice and burning you alive for your beliefs might actually be the most merciful thing to do here. Thankfully for you, secular power overrides religion, and I'd find myself in jail or the gas chamber should I do such a thing.
Your key issue is "defined as." Who does the defining? How does the definer know this definition is correct? What sort of epistemological error checking is in place to prevent, for example, the same sort of self-serving bullshitting by which North Korea "defines" itself as "Democratic Peoples' Republic of North Korea?"
Really, though, when your response to a rebuttal is "it doesn't matter if what I said was actually false," you're not actually speaking of reality or real things any longer.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday April 21 2019, @10:46AM
> Who does the defining? How does the definer know this definition is correct?
You don't. Religion is a series of assertions in the domain where the assertions can't be proven. You either have faith in some, and behave accordingly, or you don't. I am not instructed not required to CONVINCE others of this, but only to present them and live them myself. Other religions may vary.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:03PM (2 children)
She should have "learned to code".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:49PM
She needs to get into counseling so she doesn't have some sort of meltdown at work. I work in seattle and if I was having a bad mental health day I could call in now and do my meetings remotely in between naps. I have several competent co-workers dealing with stuff and they do this on the regular and nobody cares. There is even a quiet room.
A big part of homeless mentality is being lost with no direction. She could have a plan to get counseling that may improve her mental health enough to get closer to her family. Once she can pull that off she can go get a job where they treat her with kid gloves. 3rd shift support would be great for her. No other people, just escalate problems and everyone is happy they're not the one there at night.
It's hard to see the way through the maze when you're in it and a little crazy.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 18 2019, @03:13PM
I can learn to cycle, but unless I have a pretty good battery I am not going to do very well.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:41PM
she probably has integrity. we can't all be suited whores like most business douches.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:11PM (1 child)
In sharp contrast with Tiger Woods [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday April 17 2019, @09:47PM
Yup, not all sports are equal. And all but a very few women get paid tiny amounts for all their sacrifices on the field, leaving them with less buffer when the after- turns out difficult.
Safe future after your sports career ? Try the NFL ! There will always be a cell or a ward open to you !
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:34PM
Why innovate when you can litigate?
No seriously. Make a list of all the industries that got away with mass layoffs due to technological progress and you'll find lawyers involved with each one making sure legislation is on track to keep them around. The record companies are the classic ones. But an ever growing tax code and laws are doing well to preserve the accountants and lawyers in business.
And the worst part is that the industries that do need regulations that would force keeping more personal are left out. Computing is a good example: All the bugs and overtime are the result of a severely understaffed and overworked industry. And it's an engineering field doing life-critical jobs... And what do they do? Pass another patent law forcing the company to hire less developers and more lawyers.
There's no free launches folks. Don't just shrug when seeing other trades breaking windows. It's not just tax money. It's your time. And those people that can't handle the workload end up like this woman. And often too "confused"* to tell what and who is screwing them.
*R.I.P MDC.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:46PM (1 child)
This is exactly how I imagine America, how it works inside. Now, dear Americans, can you leave out your brutal occupation forces out of Japan and Europe soon? They may become handy for you in solving your own national problems...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @04:19AM
Yeah I mean, first they had problems, as they pull out they have the problems plus no oil contracts plus their dollar gets correctly recognized as photocopied money plus all the jap and euro researchers bred by the provinces stay in the provinces. This will solve a lot of problems.
But OK you were probably baiting.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:19PM (25 children)
Comments like "the career wasn't a perfect fit" tend to indicate unrealistic expectations. Some few people are lucky enough to have a job they really love, but most people are happy to get through the day, and see their paycheck at the end of the month. You think your average waitress, or DMV clerk, or shoe salesman considers their job "a perfect fit"? Really? People work to earn enough money to live, and they don't give up on it because it isn't "perfect". More: she was a woman, in IT, on the left coast - that's pretty cushy compared to retail sales, or a lot of other job options.
So, based solely on this tidbit of information, I'm not feeling a lot of sympathy for her.
On the other hand, maybe athletic stardom is the root of the problem. If you're up on a pedestal, with everyone telling you that you're the "greatest female cyclist ever" for more than a decade, maybe it's hard to come back to reality. Maybe that makes it difficult to hold down an 8-5 job like every other schmuck.
On the gripping hand, where is her family? Why are her kids letting her be homeless, unless she wants to be homeless? Likely, there is more to this story that we aren't being told.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:59PM (3 children)
According to the article she has one kid, a daughter, who was 14 when Twigg became homeless. Other family seems to be her mother, who may have kicked her out of home as a teenager(Twigg says she left, Twigg's sister says thier mother kicked Twigg out), and one sister.
And if you read the full article you'd have come across the following paragraphs:
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:40PM (2 children)
Should we stop helping at the individual level (even though that probably has kept a vast number of people, probably even more than are currently homeless) because it doesn't help everyone?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:17PM
Uhhh no-one's saying we should stop helping at the individual level. Way to clutch at straws. She's refusing the help on principle, to draw attention to the issue, as is her right. She obviously doesn't want individuals to stop being helped. Your response would be more appropriate if someone had said "Help for everybody or none at all." which would clearly be absurd.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:30PM
Let me share some stories of my own homelessness.
Mentally ill thinking. Why is she living in downtown seattle? Maybe so she can see her family frequently but it's much safer if she went on the light rail to a secluded area and lived there. She can get a rail pass for free and she can come into the city for services in under an hour. Her time is worth nothing so showing up to get a bag of groceries (free), medication (free), or talk to a counselor (free) is not as big of imposition as it would be for a working person.
Many times people accept the danger to be close to drugs, which bring the danger wherever they are, but I think the mental illness plays a role too.
I'd see homeless people run off to do drugs... where? The same back alley everyone else likes to use. Then they're shocked when the police roll up and bust them. They could have gone literally anywhere else.
Going to sleep? In the woods 20 minutes away? Nah let's all lie down on the same stretch of concrete and share bedbugs. One guy molested like 5 girls while they were sleeping in a single night. People were getting their shit stole. The police hassled them. People would be walking around them all night and at 2am drunks would trample all over them.
Fucking why? I sure never found out. I slept like a baby in the woods. I had fresh spring water. Nobody hassled me even once I never heard so much as a footstep. I packed up camp and hid my gear and hung my food from a tree every morning and then went off to the library to study. I probably look more homeless now with my sleep issues and work stress.
Most homeless people are not good at being homeless because of mental health issues to include drug addiction.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:06PM (20 children)
No, many homeless people do indeed have families. She relates what is actually a very common theme: people rely on their families until the strain on that family becomes too great and the family feels like they can no longer offer that support. That's usually the point people slip over into starting to stay in shelters (or on the street).
And it also reads like she was someone who either wasn't given the opportunity to have a normal home, or intentionally chose to leave home early (the story is a little ambiguous about that). But I wouldn't call 16 an age where one fully understands what having a grounded life means. So she probably didn't appreciate when she was being asked to give something she was no longer capable of (her 1984 performance) that leaving that life was a very serious decision.
She also seems to have several issues with evaluating her life (mental issues with priorities evaluations), but is not ready to face them yet.
The basic theme, though, is that homelessness is never as tidy or as pretty as those who have never worked with the homeless want to imagine. (Most people don't "want" homelessness, but find themselves there.)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:44PM (19 children)
She's crazy. Full stop. She was kicked out of her mother's home at 16 but not her sister. That doesn't usually happen unless there are unresolvable issues with the kid. Quitting good jobs because "it wasn't a good fit" without any backup plan. Quitting a job because she "thought she might be getting fired." Disappearing from work for extended periods with no notice or explanation. Refusing to respond to job interviews just because. The daughter refuses to be involved in the story or apparently help out mom. Family in the area have kicked her out multiple times. She decides to sleep outdoors because "she's too privileged and others have to sleep outside."
This all adds up to crazy. The article author just refuses to call it out.
Unfortunately there are no longer any public facilities to care for these people. When family gives up on trying to help, there is no safe harbor of last resort. I have seen many of them on the streets; from mildly nuts to full-on batshit crazy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 17 2019, @08:06PM
Likely so. "Crazy" doesn't solve the problem, though. "Crazy" covers way too much ground. "Crazy" stigmatizes the person and is likely a prime reason why the person won't admit that it is part of the issue.
But there's not thing "unfortunate" about it: We have chosen as our societies, Federal, State, and Local, to eliminate many of the programs which provide care for these people. We could provide greater assistance to those who want it and need it. But we do not, and it does not cost politicians their jobs to eliminate those programs.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:14PM (17 children)
"When family gives up on trying to help, there is no safe harbor of last resort."
Because jagoffs like you say shit like "She's crazy. Full stop." and feel justified ignoring your pangs of conscience. Reagan destroyed public health and education, the country has been sliding downhill ever since. Preventative medicine is cheaper and more effective than curative medicine. Just deal with the fact that it is a better idea for society as a whole to make sure these people do not slip through the cracks and become a greater burden. There is your rationale so even if you are an unfeeling sociopath there is no reason to not support the homeless.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:24PM (16 children)
I've been trying this argument on one of the worst offenders (KHallow) and getting nowhere.
The truth is, they don't really have an economic argument. Not really. They say they do, but deep down, they just don't want anyone they see as "undeserving" or even worse, subhuman, to get "free shit." They are willing to pay more (or, likely, make everyone else pay more, and not just in monetary terms) to see to it that "those people" suffer.
And when called on it, they will outright deny it. They will look you right in the face, unblinking, buttery-smooth, and deny it, and gaslight you and call you crazy or Communist or both.
I can't comprehend what could make someone this way. It would take deliberate, willful ignorance of how everything from psychology to economics works to even arrive at this position to begin with, and the defensive mechanisms deployed when reality is pointed out to them point to something deeply disordered in their personalities.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Thursday April 18 2019, @09:59AM (2 children)
While I think your response is a little hyperbolic, the type of thinking you describe comes about from forming an opinion purely on principles and morals. It's an absolutist's mode of thinking. You can't argue a position arrived at through blind application of morals because it isn't a logical or rational position, and it never considers outcomes. Much like the immigration debate.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 18 2019, @09:04PM
Parser warning, you are saying "applying principles and morals is wrong" by principle.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 18 2019, @10:13PM
You know, I'm not one of those people who says "you can't get an ought from an is." That line always baffled me. Where the fuck ELSE are you gonna get an ought, which is a "what would likely work in the future," BESIDES from what already is?
So the only thing I'm "blindly applying" (read: taking as axiomatic) is that reason works, at least to some extent. That there is either an external reality or, if it turns out solipsism is true, something so closely approximating it that for all intents and purposes it doesn't matter, and that we are all bound by it.
I respect empiricism and testing. We have done the experiment: for those who are not too far gone, which is most of the homeless, housing-first approaches not only work, they are far cheaper in monetary terms (to say nothing of, e.g., morals and karma...) than the current paradigm. If this makes me an absolutist, then so be it; I am *proud* to be an absolutist for epistemology that works.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Thursday April 18 2019, @01:34PM (12 children)
I have had this discussion many times with friends. As someone who was married to a person with mental issues, I am all too familiar in dealing with it. The sad part is that if your spouse has cancer or emphysema or any myriad of physical ailments, they understand that they are sick and work toward treating their problem. Far too often, and certainly in my case, the mentally ill deny there is a problem and actively fight the help they desperately need. When the family "gives up" it is usually because they have exhausted their ability to try to help their loved one or cope with the fallout and they transition into a position of protecting themselves instead. In my particular instance, all my kids have disavowed their mother because of all the hurt she has given them over the years. My youngest asks me to lie for him so he doesn't have to visit her. Her siblings and extended family barely tolerate her presence and badmouth her behind her back while they welcome me with open arms to family events. Both her sisters were at my house last week. After all these years I am still family to them.
The sad part is that she is intelligent and a high functioning adult that can, when she expends the effort, hold a job. She can and often does mask her illness from others despite she has been admitted to psych wards in the past. When her illness rears its ugly head in front of her friends, she pulls up stakes and moves on somewhere else to get a fresh start all over with new friends. She has never to my knowledge been homeless, but it was close a few times. I tried to get her help in those particular instances for whatever it was worth. She has no health insurance, and not because she can't get it. She is a nurse and can get a great job with benefits very easily. As a result, she has not taken the meds she needs for going on 12 years now. She actively denies she has ever had any issues despite prior hospitalization and clinical diagnoses. When we met, she was leaving a psychiatrist's appointment.
What do you do when someone is mentally ill and denies it or can't even understand what it means? When they fight you when you try to get them help? They are adults and you can't force them to want to get better or even accept that there is something wrong. THAT is why family gives up. THAT is why we have crazies living on the street. What is YOUR solution?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday April 18 2019, @02:04PM (6 children)
Make a place for them to be where they have a roof over head and food on the table. "Food on the table" is generally covered in this country, mostly. Roof over head is not. Which was one of the points TFA was trying to make.
My other solution: Don't cut the programs which are offering help because the rich need to be richer and it's low hanging fruit. Someone who won't be helped can't be helped, but that doesn't mean that those who want help shouldn't be helped because greed.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Thursday April 18 2019, @04:26PM (4 children)
Re-read the article. Rebecca Twigg HAD a roof over her head and chose to sleep on the street because she felt shame for her privilege. She felt bad for those that had no roof, but offers no explanation why she could have public shelter and they could not. She "refuses" to talk about mental illness.
We're not talking about people who lost their job in a recession and suddenly find themselves homeless. Should we lock up those who won't seek out help on their own or actively refuse it? Force medicate them? It sounds like your solution is just build them a doghouse and feed them like you would a pet. What is YOUR solution to the problem? I don't mean feelgood fix for the symptom. How do you solve the problem and help those those who want no help because they see no problem?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday April 18 2019, @05:15PM (3 children)
You are being obtuse.
I'm not talking about Rebecca Twigg's case specifically, but rather the position she advocated. Namely that the homeless should have the opportunity to have a roof over their heads. All of them. And not just a temporary homeless shelter though that would be a nice start. If someone voluntarily chooses to be homeless and are not directly endangering themselves or others they are free to be that way and they can still get food resources. (Until they catch pneumonia and are taken to a hospital for recovery, anyway).
And screw your characterization of "feelgood fixes." Before you can attempt therapy for someone's mental state you had better first make sure the person has the opportunity for food and shelter. That's a little more important. Go read Maslow and then get back to me.
Then go look up some homeless center statistics, specifically the ones that show that we already do not possess enough even temporary shelters, let alone permanent housing. Here's a couple for you to start chewing on: https://www.kktv.com/content/news/Were-at-capacity-right-now-Shelter-bed-shortage-forces-homeless-shelters-to-turn-people-away-497543781.html [kktv.com] https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/state-of-the-homeless-2018/ [coalitionforthehomeless.org]
And if someone has food and shelter and still refuses to work out their problems.... then you need not do anything because they have food and shelter. But we are miles and miles away from that position, sunshine.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Oakenshield on Thursday April 18 2019, @07:11PM (2 children)
Nor was I. If you look up the thread I was speaking more generally about the mentally ill who are homeless as a result of their illness. Much of the blowback I received seems to be directed at my use of the word "crazy."
There is a guy in my town who is clearly crazy. He hangs out at the only Laundromat in town because it is open 24 hours and has a bathroom. He holds a job delivering pizzas and actively refuses all help at getting shelter. A couple years ago I was sure he would freeze when he was sleeping in his vehicle and the temperature dropped to twenty below. While I waited for my stuff to dry, I tried to talk to him about getting housing but he was adamant against it. "That's how they trap you." I stopped in one afternoon to wash some blankets and he was on a rant with some random man and I thought he was agitated enough to blow. The man saw I was watching carefully and kept smirking toward me at the dude's rambling incoherence. He started talking about his handgun and blowing someone's head off. I nearly called the cops that day.
Should this guy be locked up? He hasn't hurt anyone yet.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. What are you going to do about people who are obviously crazy and refuse help? Again... I'm not talking about people who WANT shelter and the system is too overwhelmed to help. I know that California, Oregon and Washington in particular have a big problem with that. What are you going to do about the nuts out on the street who don't want help?
You do realize that people can be absolutely normal for a majority of their lives and one day they lose grip on reality. A former co-worker in his late 40s tried to commit suicide out of the blue. He was suddenly convinced he was a mass murderer and couldn't live with himself. Off his fucking rocker. Luckily has was institutionalized by family and helped. He's out now and living a "relatively" normal life.
The town I used to live in has a guy that is batshit crazy. I used to see him every day while driving home from work standing at the crossroads of the center of town, beet red in the face, screaming at passing traffic. If there was no traffic, he would scream at the road signs and pace back and forth. The restaurant on the corner would let him in and give him food now and then. A friend told me his father had worked with him when he was younger and he fried his brain with drugs. Never was the same. He lives with family. What happens if the family pushes him out when they can't cope anymore? This guy doesn't have the cognition to ask for help.
You want to put the cart before the horse. The "opportunity" for food and shelter is pointless if the beneficiaries avoid it. That's why I call them feelgood fixes. The pizza delivery guy in the laundromat has ample opportunity for shelter and he is offered food by the community all the time. He told me he eats at fast food places every day. He showers at the community center every day. Look at Rebecca Twigg. She has the resources to care for herself if she was treated for her crazy. She has a marketable skillset that she used to support herself. If you FIX THE CRAZY she can care for herself instead of setting out food for her and bringing her in at night like she is some kind of feral cat.
Don't conflate refusing to work out their problems with being unable to work out their problems. You want to mix the two up and I have only ever referenced the street crazies in this thread. People who struggle due to bad circumstances will generally accept help. They can be helped with adequate resources. The ones that struggle with reality and self awareness are the true problem. Your simple minded throw-more-money-at-it solutions will not work for them. It will require a whole different treatment and assistance paradigm to offer them rescue from themselves. Unfortunately it may violate their self determination if you want them to be safe and sheltered.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:37PM (1 child)
I think we're talking a little bit at cross purposes. If you don't have the shelter to offer everyone then why would you worry about those who are refusing it? If the resources aren't there then there's not much need to worry about the ones who aren't taking them anyway.
For those who won't take help at all then no, you can't force it unless there's either a criminal action or if the person is genuinely a danger to themselves or others. Your suicidal person: with an attempt (or even the slightest credible threat) of suicide you take that person into custody. And then if necessary you get a court order forcing confinement. You do the same with someone stabbing themselves, or trying to cut someone else up, or any other condition where there is a genuine threat to the life of the person or someone else.
Can one do the same with the other examples you describe - try to prove to a court why the person is no longer competent and ask them to be confined? Yes. But if there aren't enough resources already, how will you arrange for care of such people without 'throwing money' at the problem? You don't. It's useless to try and get people help which requires specialized care if the resources have already all been cut because greed.
But that's not the problem we're in. As above, there is a much more fundamental issue. Without shelter it doesn't matter how badly you want to help the person. IT WON'T MATTER. Force meds down the throat: It doesn't matter at all if the person dies of exposure. And you can't fix higher level problems without addressing the more basic needs first. You want to suggest that if only we fix the higher level problem then the lower level takes care of itself. First, it doesn't. But second, fix those basic needs and the higher level problems might disappear entirely or be mitigated. But you don't worry about fixing your power steering if your car doesn't have tires. Only after you actually have a car to give somebody can you begin to wonder about who's behind the wheel and if they have a driver's license.
So, yeah, throw money at the problem until every person has a place to live. And then throw money at fixing the mental issues. And then if the person is healed help them transition to the normal life you and I take for granted, which frees up those earlier resources for the next person in line. But fix the issue with not having enough shelter for people first. Or fix the other first: Either way you're burning resources, although many studies have shown that providing housing first is the more economic route.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @06:06PM
One thing I don't see mentioned in this sub-thread is the stigma about mental illness in USA. If we could fix that, I believe that at least some of the mentally ill would be more inclined to seek and stick with treatment (when it is available).
When I was a kid, I thought the number of people with mental illness in my extended family was unusually high--we have have multiple cases of mental illness in every generation. Then I started to talk about it with a variety of people and discovered that it is actually very common. So why is it still a cause for shame, in so many ways?
From limited reading, it seems that not all cultures stigmatize mental illness, sometimes it's just another problem that happens and not such a big deal.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Thursday April 18 2019, @09:10PM
> because the rich need to be richer
This is an incomplete model.
"because the ones who control using money want to maximize the amount of control they exert by making money scarce. They don't want rich to get richer, they want everybody else to get poor, scarce of money, of time, of any system interfering with necessity"
This is a model which explains a lot more.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 18 2019, @10:05PM (4 children)
You're completely missing the point. Most of the homeless aren't mentally ill, and the sooner they are helped the less likely they will BE mentally ill. Preventive medicine. Again, this has to be treated like the public health issue it is, with the appropriate epidemiological methods and tools.
You are smearing every single homeless person with the "mentally ill" brush, and then saying "well you can't make someone crazy stop being crazy (so it's not my responsibility, fuck 'em all)" as if that absolves you. It does not. You have merely exposed your pathology for all to see.
I was hoping for better from you, hoping against hope that you wouldn't do this, that you'd be smart enough and wise enough not to commit obvious category errors for the sake of trying to shield yourself from responsibility. I shouldn't.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @05:09PM (3 children)
Roflcopters. You are a compulsive liar
Before I start. Helping the homeless and mentally ill is extremely important. It’s not just the right thing to do, it comes with the social returns of not having to live with its associated problems. Asshole cops, property damage, assault, disease.. The list would not end. I don’t care who you are we can spare the taxes.
You're not wrong or mistaken though, you're making shit up. You make lots of suspicious statements on here but I'm going to pick this one apart just this once to show people how full of shit you are.
So let's take a look at what we are reasonably confident we know about mental illness and the homeless.
According to the NIH nearly half of all adolescents have experienced mental illness: (AMI any mental illness, SMI Serious mental illness)
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.shtml#part_155771 [nih.gov]
That's right half. Homeless or not.
Also on that page:
So let's figure for every american adult with SMI there are 3 more adults who have a diagnosed mental illness.
If 25% of the homeless population has severe mental illness and SMIs account for 23% of the AMI population.
I'm sure there are unaccounted for variables and probably some error in these studies but:
IT'S EASY TO SEE THAT THE RATE OF (AMI) ANY MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE HOMELESS POPULATION IS SOMEWHERE IN THE BALLPARK OF ALMOST ALL
You claim to have experienced homelessness. You act like you're some sort of expert.
Nobody who has worked closely with the homeless will deny that it is difficult because they are mentally ill. It is the problem that exacerbates every other problem. People who actually try to help the homeless don't get warm fuzzies. They're sad. Being around the homeless is frustrating and at times even traumatizing.
The people who are doing ok keep to themselves and follow a program. More families lately too. Most of the ones I've met are the ones that don't appear homeless or if they do they're strung out and look normal after rehab. They will take what's offered but won't sit on a corner and beg or eat out of the trash or shit on the street.
Madison Wisconsin has numerous food banks and places serving hot meals, some of them multiple times a day. Even rich people can go to some of them. Who knows maybe you had an unexpected crisis and that bag of groceries lets you coast.
If you ate out of a garbage can in Madison, WI then you need your head examined. Have you ever offered to buy or give someone food after they tell you they’re hungry and want money? More than half the time they won't even take it, I sometimes carry food just for this purpose. I guess I feel kind of good knowing someone had a real need and I was able to help. I’m obviously not happy when I know someone tried to fuck with my emotions to get wasted, maybe even OD.
You'd know this if you were half the humanitarian you play up for the internet. Really, they want cash cause drug dealers don't take sandwiches. The only people eating out of the trash in Madison WI are idiot freegans, fake "street kids", the children of bad parents… and the mentally ill. If you hit up every food bank in Madison you could collect a month of food every week, many accommodate people without refrigeration. If you don't know what a fake street kid is; They're homeless as a fashion statement. To quote one that I worked with "oh yeah i love it and wouldn't have it any other way"
Personal favorites from the thread:
Pot calling kettle over.
5 minutes later:
You're an asshole. I care about the things you pretend to care about. You come here to get high and mighty with people for its own sake. You dress yourself like a saint for narcissistic purposes. That is so counterproductive. You’ve obviously done some reading but it’s all so you can go call people names on the internet. That’s why you don’t mind making shit up a little if it feels right at the moment. You don’t care.
About the only thing I'll agree on is that housing first gets blocked because people paying for their houses will cut off their noses to spite their faces when they see someone else getting a roof for free. Obviously you can’t deal with mental illness with no roof over your head. I’ll bet these people could grow a lot of equity in their homes if there weren’t people pooping all over the sidewalk and leaving needles all over the place. I feel like I have to say this because you’ve positioned yourself in a way where being critical of you is being critical of what’s right even when you’re wrong.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 22 2019, @10:27PM (2 children)
You're full of shit. I don't give people money (mostly because I don't carry cash); I offer to buy them something to eat. And you know what? Maybe we're talking to different people here, but I've only had two turn me down in the last 4 years, and I could tell already they were beyond my ability to help due to drugs.
I know of the places to get meals you speak of, for example Luke House, the one on Ingersoll Street. I went there a few last fall. And made sure to donate food in better times to make up for the three meals I had there several times over. Maybe it's just stupid pride, but I hate taking charity. To this day it rankles, and still feels like some kind of personal failure. Maybe it shouldn't, maybe I'm just too hard on myself, but that is never going to go away. Neither are the two times I used the food pantry on the west side near Lussier Community Center, or the one time from Grace right in the center of the city. Even though I always gave back much more than I took when times got better, it still lingers, like some kind of persistent infection with a face.
> People who actually try to help the homeless don't get warm fuzzies. They're sad. Being around the homeless is frustrating and at times even traumatizing.
No shit. Half of why I'm such a nervous wreck is how fucking awful it is, all the suffering you see and can't do anything about, because of how much of it is self-inflicted. It physically hurts to know there is nothing I can do, could ever do, for some of these people. It's like a steady IV drip of survivor's guilt. I've had at least one friend die due to drugs after becoming homeless (others have simply disappeared and I have no idea if they're alive or not).
When I needed Luke House's charity those few days, I got to talking to one of the families you no doubt have in mind. It consisted of a mother, a teenage daughter, and two young sons, maybe 6 and 3. The sons obviously had something wrong with them, especially the little one, and the daughter had the haunted look of a girl who had to grow up into a woman much, much too fast. No doubt you will not be surprised to know the parents were divorced, and they were divorced because the father was molesting the daughter. I cannot tell you how awful it was to see those eyes in that face. No one that age should look like that, and she's not the first I've seen. Won't be the last either.
Keep in mind, I'm not a Madison native; I spent the first two and a half decades of my life in New York City, and not the nice parts of it either, and went from there to Milwaukee, only moving to Madison last year. There is a big difference between the cities. Milwaukee feels more like NYC than Madison does, and of the three I *vastly* prefer Madison, despite its underlying hypocrisy and the cringey hipster infestation. I barely remember Milwaukee except as one long, timeless drudge. Homelessness in Madison looks like it's not as bad as in Milwaukee and definitely not as horrible as it was in NYC, but I don't ever want to find out.
Are you done yet? Have you finished venting your spleen on me? If you're going to define mental illness this way, then hell, *I* have experienced mental illness due to childhood depression.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:54PM (1 child)
Well yes this is much more inline with reality.
> If you're going to define mental illness this way, then hell, *I* have experienced mental illness due to childhood depression.
Well yeah, you did. Most of these people are stuck in a rut but they're not screaming at clouds crazy, their behavior still doesn't make sense. Yes very self inflicted and it's easy to wonder why they don't just fill out FASFA and get on with life if you forget they're ill.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:01PM
Don't conflate depression or despair with "screaming at clouds crazy." It is entirely possible to function even under those conditions; Madokami knows I did it long enough, and may still be doing it.
If anything, you are bolstering my argument for a preventive-medicine, epidemiological approach to the problem of homeless*ness.* The longer people suffer, the longer they are alienated from society, looked down on, spit on (sometimes literally, and sometimes a lot worse than spit), the more likely they are to spiral down deeper, faster, and harder into actual craziness.
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I suspect very strongly that's what the "fuck you got mine" crowd WANTS: they WANT that to happen, so they can point at these people and go "See? Crazy! Not worth helping! Can't be saved!" Which is of course the coward's way of calling for democide.
The good news is that the flipside of a Pareto spread means that 20% (or whatever) of the funding really *can* solve 80% (or equivalent) of the problem, all else being equal. It just means that the longer we wait, the more funding we'll have to throw at the problem to fix it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:32PM
N/A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:53PM
OP here, my original Department line was:
Accepted submission by at 2019-04-16 16:32:41 from the have-we-found-the-next-MDC-and-how-do-we-recruit-her? dept.
Personally, I think she could become a great spokesperson for the homeless and the complexity of this social problem. Maybe the recent press coverage will set her up in this position?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:27PM (1 child)
If a bum can and sometimes should become a millionaire, a millionaire can and should become a bum every now and then.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @05:17PM
Great lyric about this,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjyoL5X8hzE [youtube.com]
Covered by many including Little Feat.
...
Well it's high time
That you find
The same dudes that you must use on your way up
You might meet up ... on your way down
(Score: 1, Troll) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 17 2019, @05:28PM (1 child)
Well I think we just found our candidate for MDC's replacement.
Quick, someone get her in here for an interview!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:48PM
Too soon?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:29PM (2 children)
I'm not surprised by some of what I've seen from some of whom i've seen it from already, though glad there are a few ACs who are telling them where to shove it.
My fondest wish is for all the haters who have never eaten out of a garbage can, slept in a train station, or begged for help from police and been laughed at and told they deserve to die to suffer these things personally, as it seems they are of the kind of mindset that only learns through personal suffering.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:55PM (1 child)
Sorry for your struggles. This is why I have always told my children that as long as dad is able to draw a breath, they will always have a place to stay when in need. I would never refuse my kids a hot meal nor a bed. They did not ask to be brought into this world and I will always love them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 17 2019, @08:12PM
Now expand that outward a bit. I've seen your previous posts, and let's just say you did not impress me with regards to how you seem to view other people. Yes, family comes first, but you can't just close your eyes to the needless suffering of others.
Maybe I didn't see enough of your previous post history to get a solid grip on who you are as a person, but I was not exactly filled with hope. Let's see what the future holds...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:28PM
The article isn't clear about whether she has accepted Jesus as her Lord and savior, or whether she is a heathen who is merely getting a preview of the eternal Hell that awaits her.