Moral obligation to homelessness

Chinese Company Showcases Ten 3D-Printed Houses

Chinese company WinSun Decoration Design Engineering has constructed a set of ten single story, 3D-printed homes which it produced in under 24 hours

Formed with a cement-based mixture containing construction waste and glass fiber, each of the houses cost just $5,000 to build

And the criminals who are in power have us believe that in todays world with the technology and resources we have available there is legitimate reason for housing shortages?.

My country, the UK recently spent over 12 billion pounds, thats over 20 billion monopoly dollars on two nuclear powered warships. Both named after our Head of State, the queen and her husband who just happen to live in the finest palaces on the planet.

Over 20 billions dollars of our money is being used for that OR they could build 4 million homes. Pretty sure if they put that to a vote people would pick housing.

Insanity.

a reply to: KyoZero

As I grow older my idealism is getting tempered by experience and reality. I've started to notice that there are some people who take way more from life, and others, than is reasonably fair. They draw on people's emotions, they overwhelm resources and they don't really give anything back - parasites.*

The guys in your scenario sound like they're using your attention that could be sincerely, usefully required elsewhere. They're using the resources and offering nothing in return. You could probably devote yourself to their needs and make little or no headway; all at the cost to other vulnerable people.

You also run the very real risk of losing your own humanity when personalities like this have sucked it all out of you. You can clearly do a great deal of good and have a good heart. You are questioning your own morality, ethics and conscience and for what? Why? Chiefly because you're a decent person, but how much reflection are these guys giving themselves?

This is what I mean by 'parasites.' They take your energy away with barely a second thought.



* as opposed to the weak, vulnerable and unfortunate. Assholes!

I think the way you are phrasing the question actually answers it - or telegraphs what you think the answer is... and that is "No, it is never okay not to 'care' about the homeless.

Note the emphasis on the word 'care' which in the context of your question appears to be an emotion.

I think one should always care about the homeless regardless of the whys are wherefors. With that said, I think there are circumstances where the availablity of services can be denied without 'personal moral' qualms. 'Societial morals' are a different thing.

The hospital is the place of last resort for these individuals and that is, IMO, the moral error. We used to have state mental facilities for those unable to minimally function in society where they were cared for and treated but they no longer exist. The rational being that 'their freedom' was stolen from them, that 'charities' would care for them, yadda, yadda, yadda. That didn't happen and you see what we get now.

I know a fellow who sort of falls into this catagory as well who isn't homeless. He's lived in a decent 'board and care' (on the taxpayer dime - which I don't have a problem with) for some 17 years. His basic needs are met however he has learned that saying he's suicidal (and he has been) will get him several days of hospitalization, with personal attention and care.

In your position, you could become an advocate for these people that need to be 'held' in treatment facilities for their and our benefit as the existing systems do not serve them whatsoever.

So - No you can never not care about the homeless and mentally ill but enabling them in the illness is not always in anyone's interest. These are cronic cases not acute ones that do need immediate attention.

originally posted by: Meldionne1
You can go ahead and shoot me for saying this.....BUT....I personally don't feel any moral obligation to ANYONE ( homeless or not) who's cheating the system at the tax payers expense.

Cheating the system - in what ways might you cheat the system, everybody does it. Do you somehow cheat on your taxes, do you drive over the speed limit? However, you may justify it, everybody tries to game the system.

originally posted by: CranialSponge
a reply to: Calalini

Liberal extremism, it's like a cancer in the USA now.

Actually, arrogant anti-humanitarian apathy is more the disease running rampant these days.

It's seems to be most commonly spread through "city folk" - with no vaccine in sight.

People who are the most indignant in their moral posterings are usually always the ones living in the most fragile of glass houses. I love how you ended your comment with the smug emoticon. Here's one for you -

OP: Society has no moral obligation to these people whatsoever. Never did. Never will.

originally posted by: buster2010
Yes everyone does deserve a place to live. Right now we have enough empty houses in America that we can get rid of the homeless overnight.

Even pedophiles

Well, go ahead then. Invite them in, feed em, cloth em, fix em up if you can. Sounds like your love and kindness is all they need. Maybe you can save their souls, as well.

a reply to: swanne

What it comes down to is who pays for it.

Everyone is willing to fund prisons and wars but not fund building homes and feeding people who need it.

War, check.
Prisons, check.

Education, no.
Food, no.
Homes, no.
Space program, no.
Healthcare, no.

You see why this world sucks for the majority of people on this planet?

Moral obligation to a point.
There are homeless, legit people who have it rough. Then there are panhandlers. Fake homeless people who make 50k+ a year from begging on the street.

There are cheap affordable houses that can be built (read top of this page), and other ways to make affordable houses as well (such as renovated shipping containers). There needs to be a structure in place that helps these people but also doesn't coddle them. Give them a place to live, the basic necessities they need to live. It costs a lot of money to arrest, jail, and prosecute homeless people (it happens a lot). Once the basic necessities are covered, especially for children, then there are social workers to help the affected to get back into society, be it mental health care, substance abuse issues, job issues, etc.

There are families out there that have no food, no home, no warmth. Some of these are children. Damn right they deserve a home, and food.

Here is an example of the -right thing- to do when it comes to homelessness. Sure there are those that take advantage, and we cant help those who wont help themselves. Most people want to get out of that situation though.

Medicine hat on brink of ending homelessness

The idea behind Housing First is to stop focusing on temporary shelters and instead make it a priority to get homeless people into places of their own — without imposing rules such as staying sober. The policy was first tried in the United States and Great Britain.

The report says 1,147 people used emergency shelters in Medicine Hat in 2008-2009. That’s a big problem for a city of 61,000 people, said Clugston.

But 672 people have been brought out of homelessness since the city adopted the Housing First strategy five years ago — including 220 children — according to the Medicine Hat Community Housing Society, which is overseeing the program.

About 72 per cent of the participants have succeeded in the program and maintained their housing.

The shelter use had fallen to 849 by 2012-2013, says the report.

The only people -really- cheating the system are the central banks, military industrial complex, and the global companies that screw the people out of taxes every year. I don't care about some guy content to live on welfare (the minority), i do care about the thieving of resources from our entire planet(from us) at the benefit of a handful of people. There's a big number that proves we're all slaves. its called the national debt.

a reply to: KyoZero

I was homeless for eight years, the majority of which I was functioning well enough to take care of myself and provide for meals and shelter accordingly. Things eventually escalated and my battle with schizoaffective disorder became severe enough that I was involuntarily (but gratefully) admitted to crisis centers when I couldn't hold myself together any longer.

Twenty years and more facilities than I can count (both ER and inpatient) and I will tell you straight out that I hate when my condition surfaces to it's extremes because I have to wade through the system. And nothing is worse than being full blown paranoid-delusional and trying to get help these days. It compounds stress to an already stressful situation.

ER are full of cynics who are just plain tired of the fakers....these are trained nurses who are more familiar with blood draws and physical ailments than mental cases, and if they don't see your skull showing from beneath your scalp, you're "obviously just fine". I've been told as much just not as politely by several over the years in different locations.

My husband and I have had to wait upwards of three hours during severe psychotic breaks that are very disorienting and traumatic while the skeleton crew determines I'm not just looking for a free ride to a inpatient facility. The nurses can be very rude and condescending sometimes during the wait, if they check in on you at all. I'll spare the horror stories though.

In the ER's defense however, I will state that there is a plethora of drug abusers around here and they tend to come and go up there because they're all on state assistance and it's a free ticket for "treatment" and free drugs. Plus, they're trying to find a inpatient facility that has a bed open, and around here we are in severe lack of such facilities to accommodate the influx of everyone needing (or claiming to need) assistance. We have no homeless to contend with to speak of locally, it's a small enough town that the charities established for them are more than enough to help out the lost traveler. Here, it's drug addicts.

It is exceedingly difficult trying to recover from a week long stretch of intense mania and terrifying delusions in our local inpatient centers, because the staff there are also jaded and tired of being overrun with attention seekers and drug hounds. I'm forced to follow schedule (up at 7am for routine, regardless of how much time I've had to sleep and recoup from the manic phases) and many of the treatment teams are harsher with me because they think I'm just another faker trying to score free pills and a cheap state funded hotel room.

Nothing could be further from the truth, of course - but I estimate that 90% of all the other patients in the facilities I've been in the past decade and a half are little more than pathological liars, attention seekers and druggies. I estimate in ten years I've run into only five actual people who have serious mental health problems that are legit on the wards I've been assigned to. Most deal with severe depression and they're easy to spot. They aren't smiling and bouncing off the walls with hyperactivity and incessant chatter. They aren't running around comparing notes on what kind of mental health disorder you have and what they symptoms are. Those with genuine issues are content to sit silently and work things out internally most of the time.

The real patients have an profound distaste for the players, but we're usually so deeply under the influence of our medications getting ourselves back in order that no one even bothers to call out the wannabes on their b.s. They've got more energy and love to create drama and just fight - which leads me to believe they're more pathologically dysfunctional than anything else.

They also tend to be the only ones who seem genuinely happy to be there, and tend to relish the attention from the nurses and staff...which takes time away from folks who could really use some genuine help.

The only positive thing I can say about the centers locally is that most have integrated a healthier food program - which is a bonus for those of us coming out of crisis...I frequently forget to eat for weeks at a time when things hit hard, and getting proper nutrition is very important....but sadly, this is just another cherry on the cake for those feigning illness and yet another reason to keep up their lying ways.

Seeing how traumatic the whole ordeal is for someone like me, I can't imagine why anyone would turn the Mental Health Ward into some fruitcake idea of a fun way to spend a week. Hopefully that will get it's diagnosis soon enough and they'll build a separate facility for those people where folks going through a genuine rough times with the mental demons can get proper treatment away from that sort.

The whole mess is extremely infuriating and I completely understand your concerns.

I believe everyone is entitled to food, housing and medical care as a human right. The homeless fall into two general categories: those who have fallen on hard times and need a hand-up and those who have problems such as drug or alcohol addiction, mental illness or, for lack of a better term, a degenerate nature and do not respond to a hand-up in the same way that the first group does. The solution to help the first group is obvious: they should be separated from the second group and assisted in finding permanent housing, jobs, medical care, etc.. However, there is inadequate money to help them because most of it is spent on the second group.

The overwhelming majority of money spent on the homeless is spent on the second category and those people are run through various social service systems again and again with no positive outcome (at least not from the point of view of the majority of us). After sucking the system dry, they simply return to the streets and their old ways to await another round. This raises a question: can we forcibly remove people from the streets and house them (in institutions, if necessary) against their will? Keep in mind that housing them with "regular" people often creates huge problems for those "regular" people.

I would argue that if they are not harming anyone or causing problems for anyone, we can not do that. However, as is the case with most of them, they do cause problems for others and, in some cases, directly harm others (including each other). In that case, society should have the right to forcibly remove them from the streets and institutionalize them. They should not be housed with "regular" people.

Anyone who has had the misfortune to encounter or deal with the second category realizes that kindness, understanding, and a hand-up is, sadly, not the solution.

I think we live in a world where morality is a completely subjective and heavily manipulated ideology that doesn't really mean squat to most people. We also live in a world full of politically manipulated hipocricy...

The current federal government, through agencies such as HUD, the Dept. of agriculture, and the Health and Human Services division loudly tout their statistice of how many millions of Americans recieve federal aid, unabashdly patting themselves on the back for this "service." Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior puts signs up in all National Parks and Federal Wildlife Trust Lands that state "DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS" because they will become dependant on the handouts. See the disconnect here? On one hand we have comparatively unintelligent critters that science has proven will learn to expect the handouts and stop working towards obtaining life's needs for themselves and on the other hand we have comparatively highly intelligent critters that supposedly won't learn the exact same lesson as they are provided for by the work of others.

guess what I'm getting at here is that you have to set your own moral thresholds and obligations, and base them solely on what you feel is right for you. If someone else has an issue with your theshold, screw 'em! Their opinions shouldn't matter to you so long as you're comfortable with your own choices.

Hello fellow crisis worker! I do the same job. After a while, it is obvious who are the ones who play the system, get freebies, and have a ridiculous sense of entitlement, while at the same time, have zero motivation to improve their lives, reach out and accept the help offered, and / or stop their insane drug and alcohol habits.

Every time I go into the ER, there is a 3 in 5 chance it's somebody wanting to be sent to a state-paid hospital. All they have to do is say the magic words "I want to kill myself" and they're set. Most of them float from house to house, leaching, then getting an attitude when they're asked to either pitch in or get a job.

My God, it gets so tiring. I have become jaded and I have lost my sympathy for these folks. Mentally ill people, and addicts, are often highly adept at manipulation, lies and acting.

Some genuinely need, and want help. The rest are floaters, working the system and everybody who comes near them. That's the sad truth. Because it is truth, I do not apologize for it. I help those who need and want it. The con-artists and the lazy, self-entitled ones, I wish they'd float on by down to some other place.

originally posted by: FissionSurplus
Hello fellow crisis worker! I do the same job. After a while, it is obvious who are the ones who play the system, get freebies, and have a ridiculous sense of entitlement, while at the same time, have zero motivation to improve their lives, reach out and accept the help offered, and / or stop their insane drug and alcohol habits.

Every time I go into the ER, there is a 3 in 5 chance it's somebody wanting to be sent to a state-paid hospital. All they have to do is say the magic words "I want to kill myself" and they're set. Most of them float from house to house, leaching, then getting an attitude when they're asked to either pitch in or get a job.

My God, it gets so tiring. I have become jaded and I have lost my sympathy for these folks. Mentally ill people, and addicts, are often highly adept at manipulation, lies and acting.

Some genuinely need, and want help. The rest are floaters, working the system and everybody who comes near them. That's the sad truth. Because it is truth, I do not apologize for it. I help those who need and want it. The con-artists and the lazy, self-entitled ones, I wish they'd float on by down to some other place.

What solution would you suggest?

Before I begin to answer your question I am going to share with you my experience of being homeless and how much information I gathered from other homeless people. And yes I currently am homeless and have lost my ability to stay in two different homeless shelters.

To keep things fair I can not say where I currently reside. Using my profile information for my location is misleading. I am not even in the state listed in my profile.

After getting evicted back on December 7th 2014 the first night was terrible. I had to spend over 200 dollars to put my stuff in storage. And I advise anyone who is about to become homeless to do the same for several reasons. Unless you don't own anything more than 2 pairs of pants, a few shirts, 2 pairs of socks, underwear, and some snow gear to wear particularly during the winter AND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE... Then don't get yourself a storage unit. Get yourself a unit that allows 24 hour access. And remember don't sleep in there or you will ruin it for every homeless person.

If you have a smart phone... hide it every night. Never take anything into a homeless shelter that you seriously can not lose or break. I had my phone stolen, and when I confronted the suspect? She threw it on the floor and said "# you."

If you have a wallet... sleep with it inside your underwear. It is the only way to ensure it doesn't fall out of anything.

For my first night I slept behind a defined fitness outside of the trash cement walls. Don't sleep anywhere inside those walls unless you know when trash day is. Buy yourself 2 beanies, a face mask, scarf, gloves, and thick socks. Unless you do find a shelter. Luckily the next day I searched for a homeless shelter on my phone after traviling on foot to the nearest mall to charge my phone. Definitely get yourself a bus pass. In fact if you know you are going to be homeless you have to have at least 400 dollars. If you have to pan handle for money do so for only an hour at a time. And never after 5 pm. Check with the city civic center for a panhandlers license. They will tell you where you are allowed to panhandle.

And believe it or not it is the worst place to try and pan handle. Basically no one ever likes seeing a homeless person. So expect the zones allowed for panhandling to be close to county borders. And to look almost uninhabited.

If one person uses their cell phone to complain about your panhandling methods you automatically get a ticket and fine with a court date for panhandling. Usually 200 dollars in the state where I am. All it takes is one call and everyone found near that intersection gets a ticket. I did and I didn't do anything wrong except become homeless because the job I worked at had older people who were scared #less of losing their job so they kept setting me up to fail. So I got fired over bs.

Back on shelters I can tell you what to expect. Expect to never get sleep. You seriously are put into a room with 39 other people. And if one gets sick, everyone gets sick by the end of the week. Why? No walls. You have 1 security guard watching everyone overnight and sometimes they really don't care about any one of you due to what other homeless people have done to them. Everyone is separated by gender. Men go to one facility and woemen go to another. I had money taken out of my wallet, my socks stolen, one of my beanies went missing, and my snow pants disappeared. Don't bring anything you can't lose to a homeless shelter.

Every morning we get kicked out at 5:30. You can leave earlier if you want to but the guard has to wake you up. You have to turn off cell phones but I advise you to never have a phone inside. Once you are kicked out you must be taken by bus to where you want to go. So again a bus pass is a must. I would suggest that you never let anyone see that you have a bus pass because mine got stolen. Thank goodness it was only a day pass.

Sometimes these facilities have busses to take you to get food. But don't expect much food from the places. Expect to get 1 16th of an orange or an apple, 1 small sausage link cut in half, a piece of shredded bread smaller than your hand, and a styrofoam cup for coffee. You can get back in line but you risk having one of the crazy homeless people getting on your back about it. If you miss the doors to get food by a minute too bad. Once you have had your fill they want you to leave. At the mission I go to there are near a thousand people coming through. I counted around 650 before I gave up on counting.

Once they kick you out of the mission it is 7:00. The next place and time to eat food is elsewhere, and is at 12:00 and it is the same meal you had at breakfast.

Find a library to go to and you will find out every homeless person goes there. At every single store, shop, gas station, and mini mart they post up that stupid sign. "Restrooms are for customers only."

If you have never been homeless yourself then you can't imagine what it is like to be broke, without a car, and you have to use the rest room. Because some homeless people ruined it for everyone it makes it harder to get into a restroom. But I found out a trick that most of them use. And it is a razor. They don't appear homeless but they are. Over 80% of homeless people don't look like the stereotypical homeless person. They don't. But that stupid sign people put up because they don't like cleaning restrooms has made me give up on ever going to any store that has such a sign. I remember having to walk about 1 mile and a half just to use a restroom at the library.

I say if your store has that sign "customers only" tear it down. Because public bathrooms are public bathrooms. Not customer bathrooms.

Homeless people are not allowed to re enter a homeless shelter until after 530 pm where I am. And curfew for this one is 9 pm. If you don't get there by 9 pm you not only have to sleep outside, but you lose your bed. And no you are not allowed to sleep on the floor.

To make things worse trying to find work anywhere is almost impossible. And never at any point of your interview, or during any of your shifts if you have a job, admit to being homeless. Not even to someone you think is very trustworthy. Because everyone's thoughts about you change at your job once you do so. I don't get any shifts now because they think I don't shower, I don't take care of myself, and they think I am stealing. Everything sucks about being homeless with a part time job. I got transferred to another store because they didn't like me. And the other store is just as bad. I got fired for something I didn't even do. They placed guilt on me by association. Seriously I did. So this new job I have I don't talk to anyone. I just work.

When it comes to the people who are homeless... only about 15% percent of them ever fit the stereotypical profile that people say about homeless people. 15%. Remember, I am homeless and I don't fit that profile people make up about us.

The ones that you do encounter are the ones who have tried everything, or are fed up with the way the world works. The drunk homeless person who gets in your face is the one who thinks he is better off dead. And wants to die. The ones who steal have been jobless for more than 6 months and have become used to it. But they haven't eaten for more than a week.

Since no one ever donates any of their left overs, over stocked bread, or even soup homeless people have nothing to eat.

So never stop caring.

a reply to: FissionSurplus
They 'cheat' the system as you say because they themselves feel cheated by the system. They have no reason not to cheat a system that they don't trust, a system that don't trust them neither and they know it. If you had lived their exact same lives, their exact same experiences, you wouldn't be different than them.

The real problem here is inequality, everything else is just noise. I tried to show the big picture to the OP but it seems what he wants is a subjective answer to a subjective question.

a reply to: KyoZero

I help each month at a local homeless shelter. What I see is epidemic of cyclical mental illness. The homeless I see should all be in treatment of one sort or another. Society is sick though when the for-profit-prison industry profits off the mentally ill through punishment rather than treatment. The mentally ill homeless I see are breaking laws like robbing a store and then just waiting for the cops to show up to get arrested to get a hot shower, a roof over their heads and some food and maybe a little medical help for a weekend before being thrown back out on the street to repeat this cycle. Primarily they do this because funding has been cut to every other safety net. All the while people like Justin Bieber are getting effin airplanes for Xmas. There is something seriously and extremely wrong with the apathetic masses who think is normal and we should lock up anyone advocates actively for preserving this as Normal.

Caring about it should always happen. But one issue we do have is that, from an aid perspective, there is no way to distinguish between those who choose to be homeless vs those who are victims of it.

basic housing and food should be a right that each and every person on the planet should have access to should they want it.....that at least is what i would call a civilized society....this dog eat dog world we live in can only get so far till it destroys itself

a reply to: GiulXainx

I'm sorry that you're homeless. What specific solutions would you suggest regarding the homeless who are just down on their luck and, the other category, the homeless who are addicts/alcoholics, mentally ill, and/or criminals?