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Thread: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

  1. #21
    IronBrig4's Avatar Good Matey
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    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    If they're begging in front of a busy mall or intersection, I look to see what they do if someone helps them. I was at a red light and there was a homeless guy who was going from car to car. Someone in front of me gave him a burrito. He actually sat down and ate it so I knew he was hungry. I pulled up to him and gave him a banana. He politely thanked me for it. Seemed nice, lucid, and rational.

    The fakers tend to be at the higher class shopping malls. I saw someone give one of the panhandlers an actual meal and she tossed it aside once the good Samaritan drove away. Others beg for food but still find money for a carton of cigarettes. Still others have track marks along their forearms, indicating heroin use.

    Homelessness is generally not a moral failing. My family was very nearly homeless when I was a kid. There was a severe economic recession, my Dad was laid off, and then he had a heart attack. On top of everything else, we couldn't live with relatives because my extended family is all sorts of messed up (LONG story). And it wasn't just us. There were many good, skilled, educated people in my home city who just fell through the cracks. We eventually got back on our feet but it took time, and quite a bit of government aid, for that to happen. If it hadn't been for government support we might have gotten deeper into poverty or genuine homelessness, or we might never have gotten out of that.

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  2. #22

    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    Quote Originally Posted by IronBrig4 View Post
    If they're begging in front of a busy mall or intersection, I look to see what they do if someone helps them. I was at a red light and there was a homeless guy who was going from car to car. Someone in front of me gave him a burrito. He actually sat down and ate it so I knew he was hungry. I pulled up to him and gave him a banana. He politely thanked me for it. Seemed nice, lucid, and rational.
    Better to give to a service that helps the homeless. Any idiot can pretend. They're incentivized to pretend by free food and 100$ bills.

  3. #23

    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    Quote Originally Posted by RangerGxi View Post
    Better to give to a service that helps the homeless. Any idiot can pretend. They're incentivized to pretend by free food and 100$ bills.


    Many charities have administrative overhead well in excess of 50%, and some less than reputable ones are 80% to 90%... Heck, one local charity was 99.8% administrative overhead and it ultimately more or less failed after enough local media attention was focused on it.
    "God is, as man conceives Him, the reflected image of man himself." Albert Pike in Morals and Dogma (33° AASR)


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  4. #24

    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    Quote Originally Posted by ByzantinePowerGame View Post
    Many charities have administrative overhead well in excess of 50%, and some less than reputable ones are 80% to 90%... Heck, one local charity was 99.8% administrative overhead and it ultimately more or less failed after enough local media attention was focused on it.
    Just do research before donating.

  5. #25
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    Quote Originally Posted by antaeus View Post
    For me this question confronts me on a daily basis in some for or another (not literally this question, but often the same discussion about another situation).

    As a designer I bridge the gap in public information between planners and policy officers. They approach public issues from very different perspectives. This leaves me having to form a message that balances the needs and requirements of both those with higher and lower than average empathy. To this day, I find this part of my job to be an exercise in constant crisis management.

    How should we balance the views of those with excess empathy, with those who view the world very much in black and white? How do we solve issues like the title one when we can't even agree on why people find themselves there?
    Antaeus,

    Having lost our home and business my wife, baby son and myself had to go and beg for accommodation from the council which eventually we got so we know a little bit of how the anxiety of being homeless affects a person. Situations can be very different but the effects just the same so my heart goes out to anyone who is in that situation regardless of why. No one should ever have to live on the street in any society that thinks itself civilized.

  6. #26
    Muizer's Avatar member 3519
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    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    Quote Originally Posted by antaeus View Post
    For me this question confronts me on a daily basis in some for or another (not literally this question, but often the same discussion about another situation).

    As a designer I bridge the gap in public information between planners and policy officers. They approach public issues from very different perspectives. This leaves me having to form a message that balances the needs and requirements of both those with higher and lower than average empathy. To this day, I find this part of my job to be an exercise in constant crisis management.

    How should we balance the views of those with excess empathy, with those who view the world very much in black and white? How do we solve issues like the title one when we can't even agree on why people find themselves there?
    Evidently people can think differently about the responsibility of individuals. Whatever that moral judgement is, however, it is a mistake to try to scale that up to the level at which policy has to be made.
    There are many lot that reason along the lines of "it is not my responsibility that others are in trouble, so any problems they have, they should fix themselves". From which it is a logical step, once the problems of others start to affect them,to look towards defensive/repressive policies. Then there are people who find such a situation inhumane. Who feel poverty is the unjust product of circumstance and should be addressed as such. In a sense they make that same mistake of trying to "scale up" their personal ethical stance to policy level.

    The reality is that it is not a good defense for any policy to just say that it is "the right thing to do". That is the wrong battleground to fight on. With things like welfare, basic healthcare, rehabilitation of criminals it is neither here nor there whether individuals deserve it or not. What matters at policy level is how to create a livable society. I'm sure standards have been developed for it: few people living below poverty line, decent education and health across the board, low crime levels. It is acceptable if in the process, within reason, some get what they don't deserve and some give what they don't owe at the individual level.
    "Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca -

  7. #27
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    Muizer,

    I remember the days when family took care of its own meaning that there were not the same amount of homeless people as there are today. I am well aware that however there have always been the homeless for whatever reason but as I am trying to get across in this day and age surely we have enough to ensure a safety net and housing for such events. We can spend trillions on various other things without a thought as to the necessity for doing it yet we cannot find an answer to anyone fallen down on their luck as the saying goes.

  8. #28
    chriscase's Avatar Chairman Miao
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    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    If I'm a reasonable distance from my own place, I'll give something depending on how the situation feels. Sometimes I'll share some food, I don't give out much in the way of cash, largely because I don't carry it, don't like flashing cash on the street. Just recognize that this doesn't solve homelessness, it may provide some very temporary relief but most what it does is make the giver feel like a mensch.

    Near my home I don't give anything, because even a decent homeless person can end up just camping out at your door if they know you're generous and where you live.
    Last edited by chriscase; March 28, 2017 at 08:17 AM.

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  9. #29
    Muizer's Avatar member 3519
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    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    Muizer,

    I remember the days when family took care of its own meaning that there were not the same amount of homeless people as there are today. I am well aware that however there have always been the homeless for whatever reason but as I am trying to get across in this day and age surely we have enough to ensure a safety net and housing for such events. We can spend trillions on various other things without a thought as to the necessity for doing it yet we cannot find an answer to anyone fallen down on their luck as the saying goes.
    I'm saying that answer cannot be found by basing policy on what is right or wrong at the level of the individual. Just now I saw another person oppose a basic income because "it is wrong to get money without working for it". What he did not add, but should have, had he wanted to be truthful, is "and if that means living in a distopian society, so be it". That he did not, is because like so many he can't get over insisting that what they believe is right at the level of the individual must scale to with what is good for society.
    Last edited by Muizer; March 28, 2017 at 05:17 PM.
    "Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca -

  10. #30
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    Muizer,

    Given that capitalism outstrips all else in the making of prosperity and that a society is only as good as its poorest person, surely it is not wrong to suggest that homelessness and poverty can be eradicated if there really was a will to do it?

  11. #31
    Muizer's Avatar member 3519
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    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    Muizer,

    Given that capitalism outstrips all else in the making of prosperity and that a society is only as good as its poorest person, surely it is not wrong to suggest that homelessness and poverty can be eradicated if there really was a will to do it?
    Where have I suggested otherwise?
    "Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca -

  12. #32
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: When you see a homeless person, do you see someone who is lazy, or someone who is a victim?

    Quote Originally Posted by Muizer View Post
    Where have I suggested otherwise?
    Muizer,

    Perhaps it was your first sentence in post 26 that gave me that impression. However if I am wrong accept my appologies. The older I get the more frustrated I become because the same old excuses keep getting rolled out for not getting to the root of the problem.

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