Police shoot homeless man in downtown Miami

[ali25extreme]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

If you help them, feed them, provide shelter for them (or at least blankets, plastic to make tents, whatever) they will continue to stay around there, and further, they will have no incentive to change what they are doing. If anything, it will attract more homeless people, and marginal people (who have a place to stay) might spend their days down their collecting free food rather than actually looking to get ahead.

The best help you can give many of these people is to stop helping them continue to be homeless or on the margins. Feeding them and keeping them just barely going makes it worse, not better.

I like helping people out as long as they want to help themselves. I can understand why not feeding them but in this area..no one lived there or so it seemed..it was nest to a homeless shelter in the first place so I dont see why not help to give them food. it is hard to get off your feet with an empty stomach and with out a clean shave.

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by ali25extreme

I like helping people out as long as they want to help themselves. I can understand why not feeding them but in this area..no one lived there or so it seemed..it was nest to a homeless shelter in the first place so I dont see why not help to give them food. it is hard to get off your feet with an empty stomach and with out a clean shave.

It's hard to get them motivated to get on their feet and get a shave when they have a full stomach and a dry place to sleep.

[Forest]

Alex

you are obviously clueless to the plight of some of the people on the street. many of them have sever mental issues where they are not able to care for themselevs. Yet the state has deemed that they are not worthy of govt assistance ie hospitalization. While this is not the case for all but it is for a very large %. so what are they to do? rely on the families that want nothing to do with them? Turn to the state who has said no to them with 0 recourse? where are they to go? Maybe you should volunteer at a soup kitchen sometime to get a glimpse of real poverty and social outcast.

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by Forest

Alex

you are obviously clueless to the plight of some of the people on the street. many of them have sever mental issues where they are not able to care for themselevs. Yet the state has deemed that they are not worthy of govt assistance ie hospitalization. While this is not the case for all but it is for a very large %. so what are they to do? rely on the families that want nothing to do with them? Turn to the state who has said no to them with 0 recourse? where are they to go? Maybe you should volunteer at a soup kitchen sometime to get a glimpse of real poverty and social outcast.

Forest, there are a percentage of the people who have severe mental issues. Some have marginal issues. Others have issues that they attempt to self-medicate with booze and drugs and fail badly. Those are one group of homeless.

However, regardless of their mental state, giving them food and supporting their homelessness isn't going to make them better. All the do-gooders on this track are just prolonging the misery, as these people can be functionally homeless for years and NOT get the help they need. The money spent to feed these people would likely be better spent working out some way to help them with their mental issues, such as providing better "in the community" services to help them get the medications that can help their conditions where possible, and in pushing state and federal governments to do more to help the mental ill people on the streets. The issue isn't homelessness or hunger, but rather that this class of mentally disturbed person is left loose in society to do damage to themselves and others.

Feeding them just makes it easier for them NOT to deal with the issues for another day, and another day, and another day. It might make YOU feel better, but it just prolongs their issues.

Homeless come in many classes, from the mental patients to the teen runaways to the people who "lost their homes / jobs" to people who just check out of society and decide to do it differently. To mark them all up as mental patients is sort of looking down your nose at them, isn't it?