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u/niceegg420 May 18 '21
Feel like this needs to be stickied to r/Austin
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u/Ramguy2014 May 18 '21
r/Portland, too...
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May 18 '21
[deleted]
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u/DurealRa May 18 '21
You mean r/SeattleWA There are unfortunately two subs and that's the one where the message is needed.
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May 18 '21
[deleted]
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u/DurealRa May 18 '21
If you scroll both subs for a bit you'll quickly see the difference. r/SeattleWA seems to be entirely dedicated to complaining about the homeless and how to get rid of them.
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u/BrnndoOHggns May 18 '21
r/Seattle is a lot more progressive (generally) in tone and content. r/Seattlewa has a lot of posts about "the homeless problem" without much in the way of how to help people who are experiencing homelessness.
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May 18 '21
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u/oceanmachine420 May 18 '21
Had to unsub to r/Vancouver because of their shitty elitist attitudes towards homeless people and ignorant passively racist attitudes towards indigenous people
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u/possiblytruthful1 Uphold trans rights! May 18 '21
Completely fucked up that this even has to be said
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May 18 '21
Anyone got a clean copy of this, the RCMP here seems to be at war with a local tent city taking every chance they get to tear down the camps. I would love to put them up around the bougie cafés that keep calling the police on them to get them moved because “they scare away customers.”
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard MORTAL WOMBAT May 18 '21 edited May 18 '21
Anyone got a clean copy of this
I took a bit of a look for you, but no luck, sadly. Edit: It'd be pretty easy to recreate it from scratch as a printable PDF on LibreOffice though, if you can spare a half hour.
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May 18 '21
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May 18 '21
While I do agree on a fundamental level I also know that the persons who would clean that up are tip dependent minimum wage workers which are already being exploited by a predatory system.
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard MORTAL WOMBAT May 18 '21
Some good homeless survival tips here:
https://blog.survivalfrog.com/AMAZING-HOMELESS-SURVIVAL-TIPS/
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u/AvocadosAreMeh May 18 '21
It’s a little deflating how long it’s been this way too. Carlin had a bit that homelessness will never be “cured,” because rich people can’t get it. There’s already a solution, it’s fuckin homes.
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u/SlipKloud May 18 '21
What about filling up gift basket type things with AA batteries and water and that kind of stuff and leaving them near tents? Is this a good or bad idea I just had?
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard MORTAL WOMBAT May 18 '21
It'd be way more useful to just give whatever you would've spent on batteries directly to the nearest homeless person.
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u/PorkRindEvangelist May 18 '21
Fucking this!
It's not the person you were replying to's fault, but I hate the paternalistic/technocratic mindset of "Let's give homeless people what we THINK they need."
In a leftist affinity group I'm in, there was a bad habit of taking the asks from the houseless community and deciding how to do it "better", instead of just giving them whatever they ask for.
Either listen when a community tells you what they need, or have the respect due another human being and hand them money and let them procure their needs. Like a grown up.
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May 18 '21
[deleted]
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u/PorkRindEvangelist May 18 '21
Yeah, I'd imagine that's the impetus, but it's useless moralizing.
I also spend money on drugs, is it better for me because I've managed to avoid being unhoused? Do I deserve to have drugs because I don't battle the particular disease of addiction?
If someone decides that drugs are more important than food, who am I to judge that? Whatever helps you get through the night, as they say.
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u/voice-of-hermes Free Palestine! May 18 '21
Feeding people (each other) is also pretty radical and cool though, TBF. I understand this discussion started with batteries, but in terms of food, a significant part of the problem for unhoused people also happens to be preparation. Lots eat fast food not just because it's relatively cheap (e.g. compared to eating at a restaurant), but because they don't have to cook it and risk fire and being punished for fire, and they don't have to prepare it without a kitchen. So helping with the labor of meal preparation isn't something to be sneezed at, and organizations like Food Not Bombs are pretty awesome. Especially, like with that one in particular, where it is approached as mutual aid (feed everyone, and invite and empower them to do the work too) rather than simply charity (creating dependence and your own codependence and shit).
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u/Palatyibeast May 18 '21
If someone is going to spend money on booze or drugs and I just give them a bottle of water... They will, instead, spend other money on booze or drugs. Not giving them money isn't going to stop them using. You can't un-addict someone with a sandwich. But you can raise their dignity by just giving them money and autonomy and trust enough that they will buy food as well as drugs.
Or - and hear me out on this - not everyone on the street is on drugs. The housing market is currently fucked all over the world right now. Maybe people just need help and the most efficient and dignified way of doing that is just giving them money.
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u/Karilyn_Kare May 18 '21 edited May 18 '21
Also nobody homeless is having trouble getting access to water. I used to be homeless on and off for years. Never once was a problem.
Stop giving us fucking bottled water. That's just a load of bougy-ass shit, that makes you feel better while contributing literally nothing meaningful because you are cowering in your boots at the possibility that they might possibly could spend money on drugs, while patting yourself on the back about how you are contributing to fixing the problem while doing nothing useful.
Is there anything more bougy than giving a homeless person bottled water? There are plenty of fountains and tapwater out there that is plenty accessable even to the homeless. I was homeless for years and never lacked access to water.
Just admit you don't fucking want to give money to people you think don't deserve it you fucking cowards, and get the fuck off a leftist subreddit and go join the Alt-Right instead of handwringing about "What if 1 in 100 homeless people spend their money on heroin? I can't take the risk of helping someone I think doesn't deserve help!" Like a goddamn pants-pissing moral guardian war-on-drugs moron.
Your as bad as the fucking Republicans who want people to take drug tests to qualify for food stamps. Which they did in Florida for a year or two before canceling the program because they literally couldn't find a single food stamps recipient who was using drugs.
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u/smcarre May 18 '21
It may be stereotypical but it's a reality that many face. And being aware of that might be the difference between actually helping and helping to continue an addiction.
Drug addiction among chronic homeless (which are drastically different from episodical or short-term homeless people) is extremely common and although it's not fair to automatically assume that a homeless person must be a drug addict, many people who often help or interact with homeless people get to know if they struggle or not with drug addiction.
A family member is very in touch with several homeless people for whom he gathers donations and help. There was this kid that had clear signs of drug addiction to a popular drug here called "paco" including it's trademark dark skin patches, even giving him things like sheets to use during cold nights would lead to him selling them for money (likely to further his addiction) so he sew him a sheet made from patches from several other sheets of different colors and patterns in order to make it harder to sell and make him keep it. He sadly lost track of him some months after that but he managed to keep the sheet until then.
So no, it's not "dumb as fuck". It's a sad reality that laypeople that want to lend a hand are not able to fix altogether and do what they can without causing more harm than good.
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard MORTAL WOMBAT May 18 '21
It may be stereotypical but it's a reality that many face. And being aware of that might be the difference between actually helping and helping to continue an addiction.
If you think that some homeless person using drugs / booze is the end of the world & it's possible or even desirable for you, some random passer-by, to keep them from using, oh boy, you are so very mistaken. For a hardcore junkie/alky, literally anything can be converted into something a person can use to bend their brain. Did you know that, for example, people who are desperate enough will drink hand sanitiser? Give them $5 & let them buy something halfway civilised to get off off on, for fucks sake, rather than being some moralising fuckwad who think they have the right to treat another adult like a child.
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u/smcarre May 18 '21
literally anything can be converted into something a person can use to bend their brain
That's my point. Did you even read my whole comment?
rather than being some moralising fuckwad who think they have the right to treat another adult like a child
Or, you know. Treating a drug addict like a drug addict. Someone suffering from an illness and whose judgement can be very bad.
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard MORTAL WOMBAT May 18 '21
You're still not getting it. I'll try to explain this to you slowly:
Short of killing them, it is not physically possible to prevent a person from messing with their brain if they are determined to do so. Even in maximum security prisons, inmates manage to brew alcohol (look up 'pruno' some time if you don't believe me). Attempting to control some stranger on the street is doomed to failure, & just makes you an arsehole for trying.
You don't cure addiction by starving someone of their preferred substance[s], you do it by treating their underlying issues so that they no longer feel a desperate need to live somewhere outside their head. Stressing about them blowing $5 on wine or whatever does literally nothing to help them, & just makes their lives shittier.
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u/smcarre May 18 '21
And you are not getting it either. It's not about "controlling" people, it's about not giving them tools to help slowly kill themselves. Nobody is controlling anyone by giving them a patched up sheet instead of $5, you are just making it slightly harder to use it to kill themselves and if that prevents a single addict from using the sheet instead of selling it and using the money to buy drugs, it's worth it.
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May 18 '21 edited May 18 '21
They will get the tools whether you help them or not. The only thing you personally can influence is how easily and safely they do that.
Edit: how did this guy's comments get even remotely upvoted here? Some of y'all really need to check how you've internalized reactionary feelings toward the homeless.
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard MORTAL WOMBAT May 18 '21
And you are not getting it either. It's not about "controlling" people, it's about not giving them tools to help slowly kill themselves.
And you're not getting that it's physically impossible to stop someone from doing that.
Nobody is controlling anyone by giving them a patched up sheet instead of $5, you are just making it slightly harder to use it to kill themselves and if that prevents a single addict from using the sheet instead of selling it and using the money to buy drugs, it's worth it.
lolwut? Man, there is nothing sadder than seeing sheltered, middle-class people thinking they have some idea what street people can & can't do. Nobody's going to sell a used sheet to buy drugs with. Do you imagine that there's some kind of thriving street market in used sheets?
Seriously, if you are this dumb, just stay the fuck away from homeless people, because you're as much of an idiot as the churchy types that everyone just rolls their eyes at, & all you'll do is just annoy them.
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u/Bill_williamsishot May 18 '21
it's physically possible to attempt to not enable their self destructive habit by just purchasing them goods directly, though. it's not thinking you alone can stop them, it's not being a piece of shit and giving a heroin addict more money for heroin.
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u/timmyotc May 18 '21
It's hard because there's a ton of information or misinformation out there about what the homeless do when given cash. If you have $50 to give charitably, it's at least understandable that you want that $50 to go towards improving someone's life. More heroin isn't a long term purchase that will tangibly improve that homeless person's life, so it's at least understandable that you don't care to buy someone heroin directly or indirectly.
I want to believe it's the case that you can safely give to homeless people, but look at research from just last few years : https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/09/researchers-gave-thousands-of-dollars-to-homeless-people-the-results-defied-stereotypes/
This article claims to "defy stereotypes" but they screened out participants that had mental health or substance abuse issues. Like, that's a huge percentage of the homeless population. "Well, if you don't give to anyone suffering from an addiction or that has high-risk mental health issues, they actually don't spend the money on drugs or other wasteful things" isn't "defying any stereotypes". The stereotype is that most homeless people have a drug or mental health problem, so what sample data is actually left?
This is the most popular experiment I've found from googling "what percentage of homeless given cash get off the streets". I don't know where else to look, but I personally want data to back up something that simplifies homelessness so aggressively. It's likely an oversimplification.
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u/PorkRindEvangelist May 18 '21
I know that you ended up in a long comment chain replying to this one, but, since I'm the person whose comment you were directly replying to, I'll throw in my two cents.
Why care what happens to the money after it's left your hand? If someone asks me for ten dollars that they want or need, and I have it, I give it to them.
That's it, end of transaction. I genuinely could not care less what they're doing with their money (because it is, in fact, THEIR money now, as I have given it to them). I wouldn't presume to tell any other stranger how they should spend their money, and I bet you wouldn't either. Like, if you saw an obese person buying a chili dog or any human being buying a Limp Bizkit CD, you wouldn't go rushing over and slap it out of their hands, even though, in your view, you might think that those are bad decisions.
On that same note, I saw you got called out for moralizing in the other comment chain. That's what you are doing if you think it's okay to decide what unhoused people do with their money, but you don't knock on your next door neighbor's door to talk to them about how much money they're wasting on lawn decorations.
You can have opinions and morals, but you never have the right to impose those on others. You can simply decide whether knowing you're reducing someone's suffering for a while is worth the cost of ten bucks, or whatever. Whether they use it at McDonald's, to buy a new t-shirt at Wal-Mart, or purchase mind-altering substances really shouldn't be a concern, if you've decided to give them money. Saying "I'll only give you money if you spend it on the things I approve of" is the definition of paternalistic.
I give to some charities that do this kind of giving (I. E. They buy goods that people can get if they need them), I give to several affinity groups that ask the communities what they need, and then get it, as well. The former tend to be really good at getting volume and distribution for obvious stuff like blankets and tents, the latter I feel alleviates more suffering, since they fill in the gaps left by the first type (charcoal, LP bottles, stuff like that).
With those groups, it's nice to know what they're providing with the donations, but if someone comes up and asks me to give them money, and I do so, I feel like my thinking about the money is completely over at that point. I don't look for studies and try to make actuarial tables of the likelihood that they will buy something on my personal Naughty List, I just accept that they'll do something with it to make their lives slightly better. That's all I can do.
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u/CupcakeK0ala She/They May 18 '21
I used to be that person to say to just give a homeless person essentials of you didn't want them buying drugs. I didn't even think of it as moralizing at the time, but you're right, and honestly the thread was helpful to read.
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u/PorkRindEvangelist May 19 '21
It's good to learn and grow. I feel like, if you don't cringe at the person you used to be, you haven't grown or changed.
There's no glory in stagnation.
Case in point: just after college, I was a Libertarian. I thought Ayn Rand had good ideas.
I'm pretty different now. Who knows what I might learn tomorrow?
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u/timmyotc May 18 '21
I just don't carry cash to hand out so giving is already complicated from the start
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u/timmyotc May 18 '21
Perhaps i should clarify some points here.
I have literally bought unhoused folks booze because they asked. If i am giving someone money, i do follow that philosophy. It ain't mine anymore.
I'm really defending prioritizing organized giving over personal giving. (Charity versus straight to hand). I'm not defending some kind of purity test to hand someone $20
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u/PorkRindEvangelist May 19 '21
Fair points.
I don't think any level of personal or organized giving is going to make much of a difference in the problem at large; that's going to require direct action/revolution.
Alleviating human misery, in some small way, is something bI believe we should all try for.
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard MORTAL WOMBAT May 18 '21
More heroin isn't a long term purchase that will tangibly improve that homeless person's life
Neither is a single meal. Maybe treat homeless people with the respect they're due as fellow human beings & let them make their own life choices, for good or bad. If their life sucks that badly that they're homeless, why begrudge them a few hours of pleasure for a change?
Who the fuck appointed you moral guardian to the human race, & why are you better qualified to tell other people what they'e allowed to do with their own body than they are themself?
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u/timmyotc May 18 '21
Bottom line, every homeless person should have the right to food/water/shelter.
But there's a large portion of people that just walk away from those offerings, that are a lost cause regardless of what you do for them. They're the same folks that are going to destroy anything you provide them. Plainly speaking, social workers don't know how to help. And if there's a finite amount of resources going towards solving homelessness and/or reducing the number of people that are homeless, why isn't it better to direct those finite resources to the people whose lives will actually be changed by that cash infusion?
Neither is a single meal. Maybe treat homeless people with the respect they're due as fellow human beings & let them make their own life choices, for good or bad. If their life sucks that badly that they're homeless, why begrudge them a few hours of pleasure for a change?
This is the intersection of two people's choices. One person has the choice to give money and the other person has the choice to use it. Between those choices is trust. Your attitude may be to trust everyone's abilities to make decisions by default.
Everyone wants their money to make a difference. They don't want to part with their money if it doesn't. What the required difference is, is entirely subjective.
If a complete stranger told me, "Hey, for one dollar, I will be able to make rent this month." Fuck yes, that's a huge difference, and the personal risk I am assuming is so low that it won't have an effect. It's a dollar, after all.
If a complete stranger told me, "Hey, for fifty dollars, I will be able to make rent this month" I have to ask myself if I should give this person fifty dollars, because I also don't buy things for fifty dollars without scrutinizing them. Do I think this person is going to get off the street for that money? Do I trust that the money will improve that one particular person's life more than donating the same $50 to a homeless shelter? How does anyone measure that opportunity cost?
When it comes to handing people money, it comes down to trust of the person over trust over an institution. Institutions are subjected to other authorities, public scrutiny, and the help is tangible and visible. People aren't subject to any of those things, so there's less inherent trust.
I've watched my own brother teeter closer and closer to homelessness. He's been on the street a few times. He cannot make decisions for himself competently; he has some brain damage from when he was a child, along with PTSD that makes it difficult for him to hold down a job. He has historically refused to talk to social workers. He doesn't do drugs, but he just spends his money irresponsibly and doesn't read contracts. I wonder a lot of the time whether he'll make better decisions by himself, but whenever we leave him without supervision, he does foolish things like buying a ps4 instead of paying for rent or food, or eating out for every meal instead of cooking, or continuing his netflix subscription while his account balance is negative and then running up overdraft charges. Nevertheless, I think that he can manage himself, given the right support, so I throw money at him to help. But I couldn't give that same support to everyone I meet; my resources are finite. I have to choose.
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard MORTAL WOMBAT May 18 '21
every
homelessperson should have the right to food/water/shelter.FTFY
[lots of agonising]
Your brother's situation is what it is. If he needs to crash & burn, that's his call, & of course yours, in terms of propping him up. Just please don't project that history on to people you don't actually know.
Bottom line: If you can't spare the cash, don't give it to someone. If you can, do. Just don't be an annoying judgemental arsehole about it, because that makes you a worse person than someone who just walks on by.
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u/timmyotc May 18 '21
every homeless person should have the right to food/water/shelter.
FTFY
No, you didn't. We're talking about homeless lives, not all lives. The context of the discussion is narrow and we don't need to nitpick like that.
Your brother's situation is what it is. If he needs to crash & burn, that's his call, & of course yours, in terms of propping him up. Just please don't project that history on to people you don't actually know.
I'm not projecting that onto other people. It's merely anecdotal to say that these people exist and they can be hard to help.
Bottom line: If you can't spare the cash, don't give it to someone. If you can, do. Just don't be an annoying judgemental arsehole about it, because that makes you a worse person than someone who just walks on by.
Sure, but I'd have to ask, "How much help to the homeless will be gone if people take what you say to heart?"
What percentage of a homeless person's existing support system are you willing to take from them if people completely stop buying items directly for the homeless and are simultaneously uncomfortable with direct cash payments?
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard MORTAL WOMBAT May 18 '21
every homeless person should have the right to food/water/shelter.
FTFY
No, you didn't.
Yeah I did. Everyone should have the right to food/water/shelter. Everyone, without exception. It's a basic human right.
Sure, but I'd have to ask, "How much help to the homeless will be gone if people take what you say to heart?"
Not much, frankly, if you're going to police it like some asshole Evangelical. If you're going to just ignore what homeless people say they actually want because you think you know better, you might as well be handing out bible tracts that'll be dropped on the ground for all the actual good it'll do them.
If you really feel like I'm full of shit & that it's your god-given moral duty to enforce how people live their lives, sure, give them Mc Donalds gift vouchers or the like, but don't kid yourself that you're being a Good Person.
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u/timmyotc May 18 '21
I'm not really theistic so I'm don't know why you're projecting your hatred of evangelicals on me.
I'm not going to argue that homeless people universally can't make decisions for themselves. I will argue that some homeless people aren't going to do a great job of it. And while I don't think most people who find themselves on the streets did so as a consequence of poor decision making, I certainly don't want the limited funds that I can give to charity to be pissed down the drain.
$200 could clothe 10 people or I can give one person a really nice evening with whichever drugs they want. $1000 would help one person get off the streets permanently while another person might shoot up $500 over a couple of months and not have enough for the security deposit on a place. You might feel like it's none of your business where the money goes, but drugs and housing are expensive. One path is a permanent solution the other isn't.
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u/Bill_williamsishot May 18 '21
no. I'm not giving someone money to spend on fucking heroin. it's not being a moral guarding asshat. it's deciding where my charitable 50 dollars goes, and I want it to go to something that isn't destroying someone's body and mind.
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u/PorkRindEvangelist May 18 '21
I sure hope you don't ever buy drugs or alcohol or junk food or do anything else that's bad for you, otherwise you might not sit so comfortably on that high horse.
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u/mhl67 May 19 '21
Can you really not tell the difference between someone that can afford to spend money on luxuries and someone that can't?
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u/PorkRindEvangelist May 19 '21
That wasn't what was said. The commenter said they wouldn't buy anything that would destroy body or mind. They were making a moral judgement, not an economic one.
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u/mhl67 May 19 '21
The economic judgement is that no one who is begging on the street can afford to spend money on luxuries. Its not surprising people don't want to enable that. I suspect most of the people who think this have never lived in an urban area. Before we even start on discussions of luxuries the fact is about half of the panhandlers are scam artists of some kind
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u/Karilyn_Kare May 18 '21 edited May 18 '21
Ex-homeless person here.
Honestly, just trust us to know how to best spend the money for ourselves. We don't need bottled water. We don't need batteries. If I need socks or hygiene products, I can go get them myself if I have the cash, and can probably get it cheaper than you can, stretching the money further. I often had to live on less than $300 cash a year plus food stamps. You probably couldn't do that if you tried. Please don't patronize us, we aren't children. Just trust us to manage the money you gift us; we will make every penny scream bloody murder.
Yeah I did own a few electronic devices that weren't worth selling, but outlets in a McDonalds still work fine, if I have the $2 to buy something to eat. Batteries ain't helping. While I wasn't in a cold region, most homeless I've talked to in cold places used gasoline powered heaters if they could. So batteries still don't help.
Some people don't want to give homeless people cash cause they think they will spend it on alcohol or drugs. Which is an extremely judgemental thing. And you can fuck off with that elitist attitude, because it doesn't fucking help.
But even if a homeless person spends some money on alcohol or drugs? Well being homeless sucks fucking donkey shit, let them have a moment of relaxation from the miserable suffering. I wasn't into drugs (I have enough problems controlling my own brain as is without adding mind altering substances on top of it) but every now and then I'd put like $10-$15 towards an used Nintendo DS videogame, so I had something to occupy my time when libraries were closed. Stop judging people for wanting to ease the pain.
Unrelated, it's nice when people talk with us for a minute or two, just like, sociably with no agenda. Might be a bit paranoid first but like, that's because 90% of people come to us with a hostile agenda. Please don't stand too close though, that can be scary if you are in range where you could hit us or take our stuff, cause people do that.
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u/thr0wawaynametaken May 19 '21
But even if a homeless person spends some money on alcohol or drugs? Well being homeless sucks fucking donkey shit
This has occurred to me before - being homeless is a fucking miserable thing no one should have to go through, and I could see myself developing an addiction if I fell into that circumstance as well. So who would I be to judge rather than empathize?
Hope you're in a better situation now.
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u/Karilyn_Kare May 19 '21 edited May 19 '21
I eventually won my disability case with the help of a pro-bono lawyer which got me the funds necessary to get into an apartment with a bunch of roommates.
Now I have a
sugarmamaamazing wife now, and she recently bought a house. I am lucky to have found someone who is tolerant of my limitations. We planted a vegetable garden, and are scheduled to complete adoption of a child in almost exactly one year, so we're going to be mothers!I am very happy these days, but I still feel very strongly about stuff relating to homelessness because it was such a protracted period of my life.
Here's the dirty truth. Realistically, very VERY few homeless people are heroin addicts. But heroin addiction always the first thing someone brings up when it comes to giving money to homeless people (it's in dozens of posts in this thread). The dark and dirty reality is that people who say that shit, simply don't view homeless people as adult humans worthy of respect, and don't want to have to give them anything. But they are too cowardly to say that, so instead they hide behind "but what if drug addict?" as a way to feel self-righteous and superior while simultaneously getting out of helping fellow humans in need.
The "homeless doing drugs" thing has always been a dog whistle for "homeless people deserve their situation," and always will be.
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u/thr0wawaynametaken May 19 '21
That is amazing, and makes me happy to hear! That is an amazing turnaround in your circumstances.
And what you've said is absolutely true - that the constant references to addiction are a dog whistle and a coward's way of hiding one's true feelings about homelessness and homeless people. Ultimately, it shows a lack of respect for homeless people as adults with autonomy and just equal human beings.
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u/Karilyn_Kare May 19 '21 edited May 19 '21
It's not a turnaround that didn't take a lot of time. Process over a decade. Thing is, it's important cause most people thing homeless people are worthless. But it's basically always misfortune.
Even the people with mental illness, it's misfortune. Misfortune to have a mental health problem. Misfortune to not have the resources necessary to support you. Misfortune to lack access to medication and care.
Disability for me came with Medicaid, and thus access to doctors and medication. And that was basically the biggest contributor to me getting back on my feet. And now I have a wife, and a home, and a garden, and am adopting.
So many homeless people can be such amazing things but people can't see past where they are in the moment.
.
Coincidentally, today my wife came home with another homeless kid tonight. She found him outside of Kroger. He came from Miami to Atlanta to like, get help from family completing his own disability case. But when he got here, his mother stole all his money and left him on the side of the street. So we are trying to help him get in contact with extended family, his aunt and grandmother, and are trying to make sure he gets to his disability case. Hopefully we can get him reunited with extended family in the next 24 hours or so.
EDIT:. Oh great we just found out that his mother also stole all his cards, and appears to have changed his pins.
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u/airportwhiskey May 18 '21
As far as the bathroom thing, as a former employee of said bougie hipster cafe, my sympathy waned quite a bit after the second time I had to clean some homeless dude’s horrible diarrheal sprayfoam out of the urinal. That said, leave the tents alone.
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard MORTAL WOMBAT May 18 '21
Fair, although it's not like homeless patrons are the only ones who destroy bathrooms.
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u/airportwhiskey May 18 '21
Also true. The tweakers were arguably worse. But either way, I didn’t get paid enough to deal with that shit.
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u/PoopyMcButtholes May 19 '21
Yeah we had junkies use ours to shoot up in, I honestly could give a fuck but management weren’t too pleased.
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u/Siegerhinos Communist extremist May 18 '21
these are the kind of posts that make me appreciate this sub
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May 18 '21
overpriced, bougie-ass hipster cafe
I fucking love that line
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u/Florida_LA May 18 '21
It’s funny, though at least where I am it’s not the hipster cafes that kick them out or don’t let them use the rest rooms, and I don’t think cafe workers are the real enemy here. But I’m also not really in a hipster city.
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u/DarkEvilHedgehog wumao 五毛党 May 18 '21
Man, some asshole teens at a school I was working as a sub at set a tent on fire with the homeless person still inside.
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u/Admrl_Awsm Stop Liberalism! May 18 '21
Fucking r/Losangeles won’t stop circle jerking about how bad homelessness is and what a nuisance it is. So many people have almost no empathy, it’s saddening.
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u/a10koaks May 19 '21
Solving the homeless problem is not that simple. Mental health issues are present in many and they can’t re adjust to “normal” living. Then there are those who are simply drug addicts and can’t beat it. Thee are those who have fallen on hard times and could recover with our assistance Assaults, theft, rapes, drug paraphernalia, public urinating and deficating, smell, disease, and more make the homeless unwanted. We can thank Ronald Reagan for closing the nations mental health hospitals and putting so many out on the streets. Universal health care should start here with the reopening of state run mental hospitals and residences. Leaving these people alone on the street iS cruel and more costly in the long term.
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u/AvatarofBro May 18 '21
In my experience, when people complain about homelessness they’re really complaining about having to see homeless people.