reading through a thread about obesity someone noted about europeans joke about the fat homeless persons. well that got me thinking. i live in a large city and we have many, many homless. we have the local annti-poverty groups acting as well.

now the first thing is that many of the beggers, and panhandlers, are actualy quite wealthy. in fact we had one infamouse lady given uop by the media. she was known to do things like attack someone who didn't give. they did a small exposae on her. turns out she lived in a decent place up in the suburbs and came downtown to "work".nice cars ect.

in another instance a few years ago a guy died on newyears eve. from the bad cold we had gotten. there was a hugh and cry about the poor victom of poverty, nowhere to live and such. well the police made a statement that the guy had enough CASH on his person that "he could have paid for a lavish apartment for a year". and not to even ask about his bank accounts as they didn't want any "lost family and friends" trying to get their hands on it.

there are many stories here like those. but yet there are still many who could use help. quite a few are mentaly disturbed, because they can't be locked up in mental institutions they leave and stop takeing meds, which starts the process again. some of these can be quite dangerous like one a couple of blocks away decided to burn down an appartment building (he succeeded that building has been empty ever since). how can you solve that problem? without locking them up which is cruel? how doese one REALY help them?

then you have the drunks and druggies. much the same as those with mental dissorders, many infact are mentaly messed up wheather from their addictions or before. i know one personaly that makes sometimes a couple hundread a day. which he uses to buy his drugs. again you can't force help on them as that is cruel as well.

you also have many who are truely down on their luck and desperatly need help. i have been there myself. the only reason i didn't end up on the street is that my parrents paid my rent. i came close to haveing hydro cut off, my cable was cut and my phoneline died so i had to cancil it as i couldn't pay for a repair,lost my internet. i was gathering cigartette buttsto re-roll so i could smoke them. it was hell. i even had to beg food off of friends so my cat and i wouldn't starve. but how do you know the differance in them?

i ended up in the hospital to seek help as i was suicidle and generaly freaking out. luckily my work bennifits were still in place to get meds, not all he wanted too as insurance does not pay for some meds. they tried to get me some wellfare, but as my parrents were currantly paying the rent and since the rent was more than i would recieve, i was unelligable. i had used up my unemployment insurance. i just fell between the cracks due to an accident that wasn't even my fault. i couldn't beg because of the pain i was in. how do you figure out who needs help badly and those who acctualy have money. if it wasn't for my parrnts i would have been compleatly screwed. we do have foodbanks here, but how does someone get to them?

there are those that need help but many more who are scam artists, (guess who actualy gets money). how to get to those that realy need it? there are some mighty big cracks in the systom that people fall through. shouldn't people get the help they need BEFORE they become homeless?

there are those that need help but many more who are scam artists, (guess who actualy gets money). how to get to those that realy need it? there are some mighty big cracks in the systom that people fall through. shouldn't people get the help they need BEFORE they become homeless?

Absolutely.

I was homeless once. Had nothing to do with drugs, mental illness, or anything like that. I lost my job, which i was barely surviving on, and had no friends or relatives to help me out. And I was unaware of any resources available to help with this problem. I got a job to replace the one I lost, but i did not make enough money from it to pay rent on my place.

Generally, welfare wont help people out like me. No money to help with rent or utilities. I really wasn't looking for handouts. Just a temporary loan to help me hold onto my place until I could fix my employment situation.

We don't need to have a full fledged welfare system. Just sort of a fund for people on the edge of homelessness to temporaily help them out, which can be paid back when they get back on their feet.

alot of homeless people come from just losing your job no fault of the person just companys downsizing or sending our jobs over seas to pay lower wages why we starve. i think more and more people as well as whole familys becomes homeless today because of that fact. just go to the homeless shelters or the ymcas and the ywca and other instutions out there trying to help get these familys back on their feet. its not easy today to keep a job that pays enough to survive on. its a known fact most of us live paycheck to paycheck what happens when you get the flu and have to miss work for a week or two its very hard to get caught back up. some people go homeless though cause of mental illness theres something blocking them from actually working maybe they cant get along with people. or they been in a war and seen things that just wont let them become the normal citizen that they should be. could be they were sexually abused as a child they really changes a person. no matter what that person will never be the person they could of been.