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LANDFILLS OVERFLOWING, FOR SOME REASON
People laughed when George W. Bush unveiled his ambitious homelessness plan, but look at the results:
Three years after the launch of the most aggressive nationwide strategy in a generation to solve homelessness, there is evidence that it may be working: The number of street people in cities across the United States has plummeted for the first time since the 1980s.
I was homeles for exactly one night, once. I slept on a Perth beach and woke to a glorious sunrise. I like telling this story.
Posted by Daniel San on 2006 05 15 at 04:36 AM • permalinkWhere are you hiding them all Wronwright??
Posted by Hank Reardon on 2006 05 15 at 05:07 AM • permalink#10 Did I forget to mention that at the time I was a recovering crack addict with 4.5 multiracial children and a husband in jail for high treason?
I am now blonde, poised, well dressed and the children are kept locked in the basement, ready for their Oprah moment. The husband hasn’t been seen since 2001.
Would it be unethical to hunt them for sport?.
Posted by Daniel San on 2006 05 15 at 08:22 AM • permalinkThis is all too much pressure. I’ve never popped a sprog and my husband fled the country last month. Note to my publisher: please let me keep my advance, I’ll come up with a better story tomorrow.
But then, if I were going to name four children, Bailey, Riley, McKeznie and Madison do come to mind… cre8tively spelt, of course. Tempting, very, very tempting.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t it been established that the homeless are mostly crazy people who wont accept help when offered?.
Posted by Daniel San on 2006 05 15 at 08:38 AM • permalinkCorrect me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t it been established that the homeless are mostly crazy people who wont accept help when offered?.
Yeah, that’s been found to be pretty much how it is here in Cleveland. I believe San Francisco’s problem (for example) is largely due to the benefits offered by the homeless living in the city, etc.
#18: I believe a lot of them are former mental patients who were released from hospitals and treatment centers as a result of well-intentioned but misguided concerns over their civil rights. I have a vague recollection that William Tucker wrote an article on this subject many years ago, but can’t remember for sure.
Yes, Paco—the mental institutions (many of which’s staffs treating their patients cruelly) were shut down to allow the patients their “rights” as citizens. Now they live unprotected, unmedicated, as prey for criminals…
As for a solution, I got nothing.
When I was a kid, back in the ‘60s, one of my friends’ mom worked at Pennshurst, kinda notorious. She said the general public didn’t know that there were actually some real mutants warehoused in there, people born with scales, looking like fish…
#12 Are you the recovering crack addict/author Andrew Deign-to is putting on a pedestal-er interviewing with Aunty tonite?
Couldn’t just be a mere run of the mill author ..it HAS to be a recovering crack addict.
Tonite ABC news whilst detailing the Feds’ anti drugs campaign- a guy (unidentified but probably Kezza’s grandson) was twice shown rolling weed and inhaling with great effect.
Also did anyone catch the Sandy McHucheon Austraya Talks Back recently when a dipshot -presumabably on delay- was allowed to make the comment on air “John COWARD is a LYING HUNT..that’s an ANAGRAM”..and dear Sandy said thank you very much…..@27 Didn’t Mediaswatch bag a commercial tv station recently for running promos on screen BENEATH a programme (was it Whale Rider?) and they thoughtfully provided a mini rerun sans the flyer because it was so “meaningful” a film.
So they will be cutting to ABC about the low level flyers for Peking to Paris,which have been appearing over the top of the credits and even during some programmes won’t Nanny Attard!I imagine it would be a shock to most liberals to find out that homelessness didn’t plummet during the Clinton years.
I was homeless for a month once, slept on the couch of a friend in a luxury apartment building on Wall Street. Homeless in a nicer apartment then I ever could afford on my own.
Posted by tim maguire on 2006 05 15 at 10:24 AM • permalinkPlenty of rooms, er, room, I mean, in our landfills in NJ.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2006 05 15 at 10:28 AM • permalinkMental institutions : Erving Goffman wrote a book _Asylums_ in the 60s, the point of which was how people adapt to institutions of any sort ; a wonderful book, written by a sociologist who was a master of ironic observation.
The book was misunderstood as about how doctors preyed on the patients, and the social construction of the medical model for them. As if there was an alternative.
So anyway they all got shut down and the patients are as you see them today.
From _Asylums_ http://home.att.net/~rhhardinl/goffman.underlife.txt
More Goffman, on Merry-go-rounds : http://home.att.net/~rhhardin8/goffman.merry.txt
On apologies : http://home.att.net/~rhhardind/goffman.apology.txt
A guy worth reading.
22 & 25: The striking thing about the story is that the desperate, presumptively incompetent bottom 20% of the homeless who were dumped on the streets after their custodial care was shut down are, under the program, being taken off the streets and placed in (guess what? no, go on, guess!) “permanent supportive housing.” Um, custodial care, anyone?
Plus ca change ...A lot of homeless people are what they always were: drunks and drug addicts who prefer to spend what money they have on drink or drugs instead of shelter.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 05 15 at 06:22 PM • permalinkI imagine it would be a shock to most liberals to find out that homelessness didn’t plummet during the Clinton years.
And a lot of folks expecting to move into Whitewater were particularly inconvenienced…
Here in LA we had a model homeless program, run by black activist Ted Hayes, that was actually working. Then Ted received an award from a Republican group and the Democratic landlord immediately revoked their lease. He told Ted to his face, “I’d never have rented to you if I’d know you were a Republican.”
To its credit, the White House ordered HUD to take over and relocate the project within 24 hours of the announcement.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 05 15 at 08:32 PM • permalinkGenerally speaking, if we’re talking about a given night of homelessness (mine were usually spent in a variety of junkers that I drove), about 1/3 have mental/emotional problems, about 1/3 have addiction problems (with some overlap between these two groups of course), and about 1/3 are down on their luck.
If we’re talking about long-term homelessness, it’s more like 40+% in each of the first two categories and less than 10% in the down on their luck category. This is why homelessness is such an enduring problem. Probably 75% or more of them prefer to be on the street to their other choices (and they do have them).
In the US it has been illegal to forcibly remove them from the street unless they’re ‘a danger to themselves or others’ which is not much help given that a street person in NYC was allowed to remain on the street after twice attacking passers-by with concrete chunks, severely hurting one.
And I believe that in Denver three long-term homeless have been shown to create about $1M per year in health costs (emergency room visits, multiple hospital stays, etc).
Quite a system.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 05 15 at 10:43 PM • permalink#37 Now in my dotage, reading your post, I begin to recall just how many times I was homeless (and why, which will remain sub-rosa) and how I “made my own luck”.
Example: I once took a job as a dog agitator (ok, so I’ve got thrill issues) to buy a warm coat and enough food to get me to the next province, to pick fruit to get me to the nearest port to sign onto the neaest vessel to get me to the next country, to wash dishes to get me to the next building site to pour cement to get me back home to get a job roughnecking to pay for university to get me where I am today.
A dog agitator.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 05 16 at 12:33 AM • permalinkOh yeah? Well I was a cock teaser at Rooster-rama! My job was to enrage the bantams before the cockfights ...
[/firesign]Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 05 16 at 06:04 PM • permalink
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Yeah but we ‘know’ why don’t we ;)
GWB’s grinding them up and converting the poor buggers into fuel his carrier fleets.