Moral obligation to homelessness

BigFatFurryTexan

Appreciate the comments and the heavy insight. I look back on the time I did this and I am sure part of my issue is that I am about to make a major change. Substance and PTSD therapy are challenging to say the least, but there is something wildly difficult ab emergency health care work. I loved it...absolutely loved it. So now I will press on with new ambition.

XtroZero

Couldn't agree more...it's so simple and yet we as society make it so difficult. We dehumanize the problem so gracefully that it doesn't even resemble our concern or issue anymore. I honestly look at like I look at weight loss...which is something I struggle with a lot

The concept of me losing weight is ridiculously simple...so simple that it's up in my face. Carefully and safely reduce input of bad items, increase output and generally live healthier. And yet after years of trying this following the Air Force I am still fighting and making it way too difficult.

I do have to agree to a point with your last paragraphs. We've taken the situation and made it virtually forced. Altogether, the problem shouldn't even exist in the first place, but it does and so be. But yeah I kind of agree that we've quantified and qualified it so much that we don't even see the human faces behind these ghastly numbers. I know I've fallen victim to it before and probably will again if I don't take a breath and slow down.

Spiramirabilis

Yeah I am not a bad person but I have grown to admit a lot of things about myself and one of those things is that I have let myself fall prey to the idea that these men at some point didn't deserve my concern anymore. This is a part of why I am leaving to move into behavioral health. I guess what I wrote back to others still stands as an important question...

EVEN IF these few men are truly not mentally ill, shouldn't we perhaps wonder what brought them to act out/survive in this manner in the first place? The core of the concepts of Freud/Erikson ((though I rather follow Jung more in my own training))...damage young, manifest old. What you suffer young you may live through old. It works even with adults sometimes. Nasty things happen and then you are left with a person who has to find what society might define as "unhealthy" coping methods when really as described several times in this thread might just be raw survival.

I have never hidden many things about me. I do love to keep certain private things private but otherwise I just don't care. Now I don't intend to posit that I am some genius nor am I seeking validation by any means but I personally have been diagnosed, and am being treated for, GAD and Bipolar I. I have ben quite stable for several years on a proper course.

To what BigFatFurryTexan responded to you, yes mental illness is vastly undercounted from what I have seen. Though I do not personally speak to all medical cases as I am mental health solely and not an MD/RN, I am usually notified if a medical case has even a minor mental health complaint so I am able to toss out a few potential helps. The shocker is just how many times I see diagnoses come up that are indeed mental health related. Granted, some of this can be overdiagnosis, but it seems so damn prevalent and yet we never really talk about it openly. Why?

I, Kyo, suffer Bipolar disorder...there...did it end my career? Did it harm me? No...

But that's the thing...in many cases it CAN harm a career. In many cases, people hide the scars because they know they will be judged so harshly because people seem to think mental illness is a weakness

Homelessness too. It isn't weakness is circumstances have led to such a situation. But again people don't really like to look at it from a human perspective.

Enough soap box now...back on point

Zngland

Wow thanks for that addition…

NorEaster

Amen...I cannot stand how people can appear to judge a population or portion of people on a few negative cases. WBC in my opinion is evil, judgmental and disgusting. But that doesn't mark similar faiths as the same. I don't regret my time. I am going to try hard to walk out of the ER on friday morning and not look back, but get real Kyo, I know darn well I am gonna be an emotional mess even though I know it is time for me to leave for my own health and that of others

Yours is a star-worthy post for recognition that a five person sample does not taint a population

Spir/BFFT

There are generally three diagnoses that can mix mood issues with legitimate psychosis such as paranoia, hallucination and delusion.

Schizoaffective disorder carries with it psychotic symptoms during mood related problems. So in this case, when someone is manic, they will also undergo one or several psychotic symptoms.

What many don’t know is that Bipolar and Major Depression can also carry with it psychotic features during extreme depression or extreme mania. The typical difference is to look at affect ((how they are physically responding in relation to their mood))

Mania brings with it excited and unstoppable energy that feels invincible. Everything is great and grand and perfect. Also, mania can bring with it intense irritability and anger. Schizoaffective features often carry a flat affect. So even though someone may be manic, their face and body won’t show it. It will be dull and listless. But yes, bipolar and MDD can have psychotic symptoms

LadyGreenEyes

I agree…and part of the problem is the extreme loss of beds. When I was a medic intern in the trauma center, I saw crisis workers who had a TON of psychiatric hospitals, each with dozens and dozens of beds to choose from. Hospitals were clamoring to try and fill beds. My own state has 9 stated facilities. Now, on my overnight shift if my main hospital is full, I have approximately 27 facilities inside this rather large state with a rather large city to choose from. Almost invariably I will hear the words “at capacity.” Now we only have 5 state facilities left. It’s ugly…very ugly.

So that became an impetus for the push towards reclassifying what “unable to care for self” means. Nowadays, for me to involuntarily admit someone for “unable to care for self,” I have to show that this person has not eaten, bathed and left the house for weeks. Then when I DO have that criteria met, labs are ordered ((which are ordered for all mental health emergencies)) and then because finally after two weeks they ate a muffin or banana to satisfy their families, their potassium level is over 3.0 and the court says “well her potassium and sodium are fine…she must be eating!”

It’s mindboggling…

GiulXainx

I am going to have to disagree on several points here…graciously as I am able of course

1. Veterans with true PTSD do often turn to alcohol…very true. But even with alcohol I will RARELY get them to even mention they were IN the war let alone chatter on about the war.

2. Yes veterans often do lie and they have damn good reason. You CANNOT ever, for the safety of any traumatized client, request or push for them to detail a story until they are extremely prepared and ready on THEIR terms not ours. It is dangerous to the client to force any details unless they know of it, are ready and have been given safeties to get out of the story when it is too much. I specialize in PTSD and during my time with the hospitals, in training sessions, in client-paired sessions and my own therapy sessions, I learned real fast that even when, after ages, a veteran or trauma survivor is prepared, it may and does often take multiple sessions to get safely through the details.

3. No offense, but “leaking the information” isn’t going to change anything at all. It isn’t awfully difficult to read someone not giving you a full story on something traumatic. If you are delving into a life story or even glossing things, certain facts will be completely void or filled with massive holes. Every one who lies when it comes to mental illness, trauma, whatever WILL trip at some point. There is no perfect liar. Yeah it may take a while, but it'll come. Instinct is powerful and I do not in any way pretend to be some master reader of people but when enough people lie to you over time you know the drill. You don’t have to have a degree to know when something is off or when a trauma survivor is filling you with BS. The good liars are going to be effective whether you leak said info or not to be honest. And there is no one way to tell a PTSD survivor whether it be war, personal assault or disaster related. I’ve seen the gamut that ranges from the flattest affect I’ve ever known who had the deadest eyes, to all fake smiles, to tearful and labile and expansive and to the explosive anger. PTSD does not fit into a single neat category of outward and inward signs. It’s is quite variable even in the true cases of war-related PTSD.

With that said, I absolutely agree about perception of homelessness and how and why residents get kicked out. Sometimes it is utter BS and sometimes it is wholly justified. In one week we lost two at our shelter for stealing. One guy straight up stole 9 tablets from an electronics store whose protection levels lacked the capabilities of big box stores and the other stole several pops from a gas station on camera.

I’ve seen the panhandlers as well and several of them are really good at not smiling or laughing when getting a payout despite the fact they live in the suburbs in a 300k house.

originally posted by: KyoZero


Gosseyn

I have been what I believe to be very pleasant here. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking for subjectivity. Look around. In the first two pages I have had three people who have lived what I am curious about send me a wakeup call and that is good. My issue with your post, not you, but with your post is that recognition of inequality, while a massive reality and quite true, unfortunately right now does not solve the problem because people in society as a whole would rather just toss a few dimes at the issue and look towards the luxury condos of Brazil and not the favelas.

Either way, there is nothing at all wrong with this thread or any, including my own, responses. I asked for a dose of reality, but mostly I was seeking a bit of subjectivity to give myself a chance to get over myself, and move on. None of these answers will supplant in my mind and cause me to directly live through other eyes, but this sort of discourse is a good thing. But how am I a victim? If anything aren’t I the perp in some ways? Yeah I can admit to having previously closed notions right? I can man up and say that this, among other life moves are my methods to wake up and serve the greater good

I wasn't trying to be unpleasant, it was just a cold and detached observation. I think having chosen the kind of work that you do shows a lot about your character. You could have chosen to sells shoes and make money but you have chosen to help people who are in psychological distress, and in the f****d up world that we have created for ourselves, it's almost heroic. That plus the fact that you ask yourself if you do enough and if you should do more..

What I wanted to tell you, and why I brought some objectivity in all this, is because you can't fix the world by yourself. Your influence on the world around you is limited. And the problem is not just 2 homeless guys who come to harass you, but it's a systemic problem that we are not going to fix with 3 more beds here and free breakfast there. Once you realize that, it should sooth your guilty feelings. You do what you can and that's all you can do. I think only objectivity can calm subjectivity, at least it works for me. I mean by this that if we don't confront our subjectivity to reality from time to time, we can start to feel bad or guilty about a lot of things and there's no end because there's no end to human imagination.

a reply to: gosseyn

Well I am going to apologize...I took your second post as angry but there is a touch of personal crap going on that had me pinging that day

I really wish we could have prevented the problem in the first place but obviously we are well beyond that point. So I do what I can, when I can and how I can. But at this point I think it is best, both for my career and personal life, to move

thank you dearly for the response and please please accept my apology for responding in that way

a reply to: KyoZero

This makes so much sense. Sometimes the very best, most compassionate healers are the wounded healers Kyo

It can harm your career - because so many people working in mental health don't actually understand what they're dealing with - they're on the periphery, dealing with rules and regulations and they don't have the same kind of knowledge as people who are more directly involved. Mental illness is a weakness - same as diabetes. Fortunately the world is (slowly) starting to see that this is how we should look at it

I'm so glad you are still working

originally posted by: swanne

An ideal society should have a roof available for every man, women and child of the said society, regardless of their finacial state.

In my opinion, food and shelter should be not be privileges. They should be rights.

If you believe food and shelter are "rights" then what form of slavery must you impose to force people to produce the food and shelter for those who don't produce it for themselves?

a reply to: Jamie1

What makes you think people have to be "slaves" and "forced" to produce food and shelters for the starving and homeless. You must assume that all humans are selfish beings, only looking out for themselves, That's sad.

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: KyoZero

An ideal society should have a roof available for every man, women and child of the said society, regardless of their finacial state.

In my opinion, food and shelter should be not be privileges. They should be rights.

a reply to: Jamie1

This is THE point to make in that argument. If you make material property a right, then how do you provide for that right? If i, as an individual, refuse to provide payments to fund that right, would my refusal be seen as a civil rights violation?

People do not have a right to happiness. They have a right to pursue happiness.

It is a real problem, and I have mentioned it before around here: as a human, I belong to the only species on this planet that must pay to exist. Refusing to pay to exist will get me put in a prison, or a mental hospital. Humans, as far as the mob rule of law is concerned, is the only animal on earth that is forbidden from behaving in a natural manner.

I agree that in a perfect world, basic necessities would be a right. But this isn't a perfect world, and people themselves aren't perfect. People are on the streets for many different reasons. And to be honest, I only feel badly for children and veterans that are homeless. Before you jump on me, hear me out. I live about 20 minutes outside of downtown Columbus. And the two recent times I've been to Columbus, I've noticed a real problem. But downtown Columbus (at least where I've been) is shops upon shops and businesses upon businesses. It cannot be THAT hard to find a job there. There are laundromats that have signs up that say "If you need clean clothes for an interview we'll clean them for free." And some places will allow you to put a homeless shelter down as your home, if it's not far away from the business. But these people... They sit there all day long on the side of the road. And it saddens me. The thing is, we as people can only do so much to help others out. They have to want to change for change to happen, though. If they don't want to take what things are given to them, and make them into bigger things, there's nothing that the rest of us can do.

What I do to help - I carry prepaid fast food cards on me, if someone asks me for spare change because they are hungry and need to feed themselves or their children, I give them that. Facts are, we don't know where these people came from, or what they do when they get money. And if they have a bad habit, I don't want to enable them, so if I give them a card to McDonalds or something, at least I know they are really getting food.

As for your job - I get it. My boyfriends mother works in an E.R. and she always tells us about how they have to give up beds to people who are drunk, or homeless because they are a threat to themselves or others. And it drives me crazy. It's not the job of the E.R. to take care of these people. It's just not. And when they take care of these people, it makes someone who really needs help have to wait longer. Which isn't fair in the slightest.

It also shouldn't feel like we are obligated to help these people. From day one we should have been helping them. Maybe then, homelessness wouldn't have gotten so out of hand, and some of these people wouldn't be so far gone.

I never said I am an expert or someone with a phd in anything. But I have heard true war stories from my grandfathers a lot when I was young. And the the way they told the story to me all had the same theme to it. I have heard so many told from a handfull of people to know when it sounds true and when it just makes them appear to be traumatized in order to get something from you.

Every person reacts differently but when you are surrounded by professional liars for most of your life through various jobs like I have you tend to pick up on lies rather quickly. Lies from a workplace to lies from friends and some other family members. Being surrounded by liars allows me to decipher truth out of their lies. A lot of what they do is combine a small amount of truth with a bunch of lies clumped onto it.

For me most liars tell a story that fits this projected image to me: Try selling me a false replica of a priceless guitar and you will do anything to mislead and confuse me into its validity.

On the flip side I have been through traumatic events myself including being betrayed by my best friend. I have seen death. I have seen my own flesh, I had been laid in a pool of my own blood helpless before in a really bad accident that involved construction materials and a bicycle.

And most of the time I get war vets to act differently around me when I ask them about theirs.

Especially when it comes to adding details to their own stories I do as a liar does with his own stories. I have heard so many different types of constructed lies that when ever I speak with a true ptsd victim.... they have a very different reaction to me. From mood, attitude, tone, use of specific words, and physical disposition.

One thing a liar can never do is come back out of a trance when they have entered into that part of their minds in frantic search of something. I catch onto that cue rather quickly.

So maybe the ptsd victims here are much different than what you have come across, but for most of the lying veterans.... they turn out to be fake people who bought an official looking jacket from a thrift store. I have seen a shop that sells them just a few miles from where I used to live.

I have thought about this before and came to some conclusions.

First, in our society you have to learn to take care of yourself. This means that you have skills and can make a living without help from others If you can't take care of yourself, then you are a burden to others.

Second, you need to be able to take care of family. There may be those in your family who need a little help from time to time. This could be a spouse, children, parents. When you have the ability to take care of yourself and your family, then you can consider how to help others in society.

However if everyone practiced the about two steps there would actually be few people who need outside help.

The question then becomes how do you help. Do you give money to the guy with the sign by the shopping center? Most likely that will go straight to drink and drugs.

I think that the best way to help is to donate money or time to the local food banks and/or facilities that aid the less fortunate.

I don't think that this is a moral requirement but rather it is just a good thing to do

The best way to donate is not your local food bank, or change box in your favorite petrol station.

The best way to donate is to bring your donations directly to the homeless shelters, missions, or where the homeless gather for the bus to pick them up.

Where I am homeless we need socks, underwear, work boots, work pants that are not cargo or carpenter in style, beanies, gloves, and food. A lot of the homeless people will eat whatever you give them including fruit cakes. But make sure it is something you can eat without cooking. At most places they don't have more than one microwave and there are no stoves.

What ever you bring will be accepted. If you have sweat pants they will be taken no matter what. Even if it doesn't fit. Also don't forget some homeless people are in the 42 and way above on their waistlines. So if you have any triple x jackets or pants bring them.

Another thing... our facility doesn't have dominoes anymore. And our monopoly game is missing money. So if you have an old board game lying around then bring them to homeless shelters. Believe it or not it distracts people from going to the bar. We also have a dvd player that everyone keeps real nice. But the vhs part stopped working. Old dvds are appreciated.

We also love coffee. So any cheap coffee will do except that stupid no cook coffee mix that tastes way too bitter. No one drinks it. But some places could use a coffee maker. Ours works but someone broke the piece that secures it.

So yeah, take your donations directly to the homeless shelters.

a reply to: GiulXainx

Why not donate to the food bank? It's not just the homeless who need food.

This is not a criticism, just a question: you suggested that people donate a variety of things directly to the homeless shelter but never mentioned job training, education, jobs or housing. I'm curious as to why you didn't mention these things. If someone is staying in a shelter they're presumably being fed. Wouldn't those other things then become priorities?

I believe that the majority of homeless have had opportunities to get on their feet, and if truly in need should have family or friends to rely on that may help with a leg up.

If a person finds that they have no friends or family to help, then (at least where I live) there are ample social safety nets eg; social assistance, shelters, food banks, etc. to assist in getting that person back to a productive member of society.

Chronic Homelessness seems to stem from the person burning every bridge along the way.

I am not saying this is the case in ALL instances, but the majority. Most of these people have devolved to a point where honesty and truth are gone.

originally posted by: GiulXainx

Another thing... our facility doesn't have dominoes anymore. And our monopoly game is missing money. So if you have an old board game lying around then bring them to homeless shelters. Believe it or not it distracts people from going to the bar.

Sorry, but it's not our job to distract homeless people from going to the bar. This notion that it's the responsibility of anyone other than the person choosing to drink or drug is a huge part of the problem. If they have enough money to buy alcohol and drugs, they have enough money to go to Goodwill and buy a used board game.

a reply to: KyoZero

Don't stress yourself out about it. There are a few case I certainly don't care about some homeless people. And I say that as a person who was homeless in downtown Seattle a couple years ago.

The homeless share one thing in common: no stable housing or social support network.Beyond that, the reasons why they are there vary widely. And the degree of which they can be helped vary. Most homeless people really are victims of some tragic circumstance that led to them being on the streets. (Financial crisis, severe untreated or poorly treated mental health issues, substance abuse issues, family conflicts, domestic violence, sexual abuse, old age, severe illness, ect) There is a chunk of people that are straight up bad news. Those are people that will reject, or repeatedly screw up every attempt to rehabilitate their situations. And then there are those who are career homeless.

One way to find out what part of the spectrum the fall in is to actually talk to them, get a feel for them, find out more about them. Especially if they are drug users,as druggies are often self medicating.They might be very jaded if they have been on the streets a lot. But you never know.

I am giving suggestions on what to bring to facilities because of the mindset you just posted. And I got a little bit mad when you posted about us having a few dollars and going to good will.

What this tells me is that you think homeless people dont give to other homeless people. When in fact we give a lot to others. I have spent over 120 dollars so far on cigarrets alone to give them to people suffering from withdrawal.

If I told you to donate a pack of cigarrets you would scoff at me for that. When over 50% of homeless people suffer from withdrawal of nicotine. They don't have nicotine patches or cigarrets between each other. In fact in homeless shelters cigarrets are equal to 5 dollars buying power. Yeah believe it or not cigarrets and weed have the highest value inside of homeless shelters for those who use, or need it to remain normal. It may seem #ed up to people on the outside, but I want you to imagine what it would be like when you yourself are homeless and have to suffer through their withdrawal symptoms through the night. You have no idea what it is like to be awoken almost every other half an hour in the night because someone is coughing, someone walks over to another bunk because they want weed, someone is trying to steal, someone got up to use the rest room, someone snoring too loud, someone turning off their cell phone alarm, someone's watch going off due to neglect, someone yelling in the next room for getting kicked out, someone wanting to open a bag, or open a tupperware box. Seriously distracting them from at least drinking or smoking weed is a good thing. It helps the homeless. Everhthing helps out OTHER homeless people.

You telling us to go to good will with the money we get from street corners to buy others a board game is like me telling you to sell your car and use the money for a 5 year bus pass. You won't do it. Everyone succumbs to greed. But one thing people never expect is actually receiving something that helps them.

Aside from that I tell you not to donate to food banks and to give your donations strictly to the places you want them to go because I have taken up a position working in so many different jobs that one of them included working for the food bank of first bank. And what I dug up is their way of selling some of the goods to thrift stores to make up for wages of the delivery driver to take the goods to the place, insurance costs for the day, gas, and if it requires overtime to transport the goods. Yes donating to a food bank means someone is hired, a truck is considered rented, and the expense is all paid for by the goods that you donate. I have seen the paperwork. # food banks. If you are too scared to spend an extra 45 minutes to donate directly to the source then you are making it that much harder on us. Donations at the actual shelters and facilities offering food an services CUTS OUT THE MIDDLE MAN.

I have seen paper work that still requires payment for services rendered for delivery of donations to a shelter. Either they use the goods you donate, or they charge their customers for it.

Want proof? Read into the fine print of all food drives, look into the third parties, research their company policies, and not their so called technical jargon to make themselves look good in court, and put the pieces together.

I find it funny how so many people will donate money to third parties because they think it actually pays their 15 cents they throw into a plastic change collector 100 percent towards the charities they claim to be. When the people who truly need it most only recieve less than 45% of it. If you can spare 45 minutes time, and in some cases less than 1 gallon of gas to actually drive to the places for donation, then you would cut out that 55% they never see.

But your perception will always be that instant gratification of "oh they have a donation center here" when you should be thinking "oh, I wonder whose job this is to do and how much they pay him for charity work."

Don't get it twisted, it creates one job. But for being able to create a means of rehabilitation that is more effective is a farce.

It has been proven that more is given to the homeless when someone makes the delivery themselves other than a third party. An expiriment that I did whilist at the homeless shelter proved to be a lot more effective than a food bank. When it comes to food banks the company has to go through a pre screening. In order to prove that they are an organization that does provide for the homeless we have to prove it through legal papers. In most cases it takes MONTHS for this process to finally be accepted by a food bank. Some food banks take priority to children. I am not against that. But half of the problem is that what you donate at your local food bank, it may end up in a state hundreds of miles away because no one in their own state gives less than -10 dollars to homeless shelters. That's right -10. Negative ten dollars. They want to be paid for their donation, or receive compensation. Which makes perfect sense to me. No one ever wants to give anything up nowadays. Everything has a price tag.

If you think the food banks take it to local shelters then you are mistaken more than half the time.

I am not against this, but at the same time if somehow another state has priority because no one within it's state cares enough to donate their extra bread, or almost expired milk, to their own local facilities then someone needs to step up finally. I'm talking about any company in Idaho, Arkansas, southern Carolina, Michigan, and Kansas City. I have seen enough food come from Colorado shipped out to those states because no one in those states never seem to care enough to care for its own problems. Yeah I am calling out the states back from 2009.

Instead of living the stereotype that us homeless people place on you, why not prove us wrong and actually take the time to properly donate to a homeless shelter. Even if it is just for the winter season. What ever you donate is accepted. I can say that the einstien bagels near our homeless shelter has kept giving us bagels. But that is the only company who knows how to do it propper.

I recently asked my neighbors’ little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, are liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?’

She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’

Her parents beamed with pride.

’Wow…what a worthy goal.’ I told her, ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that! You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.‘

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ’ Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50? ‘

I said, ‘Welcome to Conservatism.’

Her parents still aren’t speaking to me.

a reply to: GiulXainx

That's quite a rant. So you spent $120+ dollars buying cigarettes for people. It seems to me that there are lots of ways that money could be better spent: on food, on shelter, on clothing, on looking for a job, on the desperately needed board games. Maybe the addicts should stop smoking. Ever think of that? Yes, you can bet I'll scoff at you if you suggest that I donate a pack of cigarettes to a homeless person. Not going to happen. I'm also not donating alcohol or other drugs. Cigarettes and weed have the highest value inside homeless shelters to "keep people normal"? It's not normal to value cigarettes and weed over all else. I have no idea what it's like to be awakened by someone coughing because they're a smoker or asking for weed? Dang right I don't. And If I did I certainly wouldn't give either to them.

You told us that donating board games to shelters will keep the homeless from going to bars and drinking. Are you kidding? It's not my job to keep the homeless from drinking. It's their job.

I'm very familiar with the operations of the local food bank. It works very efficiently and people who need the food, including the homeless who live in shelters and those who don't, get it. They do have to show up to get it, of course. I guess you expect delivery service.

I found your following comment to be hilarious, "But your perception will always be that instant gratification of "oh they have a donation center here" when you should be thinking "oh, I wonder whose job this is to do and how much they pay him for charity work." This comment of yours was preceded by a list of homeless instant gratification demands. Did it occur to you that those people working at the food bank are being paid for actually working and you want to take those jobs from them? Perhaps you could apply to work at the food bank.

If anyone is stereotyping homeless people, it's you. You have painted homeless people as having a sense of entitlement that borders on demand. This sense of entitlement includes not just real needs like shelter and food but cigarettes, board games and delivered meals.

I wonder if others feel as I do that you're doing the homeless a disfavor by expressing this attitude.