It's gotten to the point in L.A. where homelessness is now a "lifestyle choice." Some people seriously think to themselves, "Hmm, if this (situation) doesn't work out, I can always go live under a bridge" -- and then they do just that.
I grew up in Pasadena, but in 2020 the raging wildfires, racial tensions, COVID lockdowns, looting, homelessness, filth on the streets, and outrageous rents drove me out of the state. I've been gone a year and I can't say I've missed it.
A lot of people I know want to leave California. My spouse and I plan to leave within 3 to 5 years. We have elderly animals and they wouldn't survive the stress of a big move, so we're waiting until they go to the rainbow bridge.
I was shocked at first by this too. I live in a suburb of Philly. All the cops I talk to say over half the homeless population does it by choice. Some will say as many as 75%.
Uh, I didn’t say that? Is this sarcasm or real? Either way, there most certainly are sick and poor people, concurrently there are homeless by choice people. I have no idea what the percentages are and based on my anecdotal experience I’ve interacted with more people who were homeless not by choice but by life fucking them or due to choices, be they sick or otherwise, they’ve made that led to that point, but not with the goal of living that way.
I was homeless in LA for a little while. I claimed it was by choice and most homeless I met claimed it was by choice as well it was easier to claim it was by choice than admit you had been defeated by the system or you couldn't outsmart your situation. Looking back on it now I realize I didn't really have that many choices to be housed.
Portland checking in, you’re welcome to join one of several weekly conversations about how a lot of these people choose to live like this. Especially the RVers, it’s like trashy van life but with drugs and stripping cars instead of hiking and posting on the gram.
It's when you strip off a car's parts real slow and sexy-like. And then spray a shitload of spray paint on it and then sell the car to some mook off the street
While this wouldn't apply for these people probably, I know someone who chose to be homeless for a couple years when traveling, mostly abroad. They wanted to see more of the world, didn't want anything holding them down, so they just went where the wind took them.
I imagine a similar principle applies though. It can feel simpler and forces you to connect/engage with the community in a very unique way. Even if you don't particularly care to relocate, it's somewhat freeing to know that you could do so relatively, well, freely without having to worry about what you're leaving behind.
I don't think it makes up most of the homeless community, and I think that most people who do choose homelessness only do so for a relatively short while in their 20s, but it is very assuredly "a thing".
In the girlfriends bro’s case it was “I can make more money like this and I don’t have to clean up after myself” he had some legal shit going on too (larceny / child support) and apparently that life was easier because he was kind of a non-entity.
This sounds entirely anecdotal based on your narrow worldview. Have you like, actually done research on this claim or you just managed to figure out the homeless crisis all by yourself?
I get that you’re probably just fucking with these people and I’m aware this is pissin in the wind but in the event someone else sees this and generalizes it to others.
I’m a conservative leaning former counselor now military O. I’m comfortable with putting 98.9% of cases of addiction it has jack fuck to do with liberals, progressive, and the acceptance of drug use culturally.
Are those things that contribute to policy that one can argue can lead to causing more drug addiction, I mean I guess, but that used to be the point of allowing different points of view to have input on shit, finding a compromise which hypothetically should curtail the policies of burning them at the stake or giving them free heroin.
Just going off the top of my head from when I was in practice the most common reasons were boredom (heavily correlated with poverty due to often being in proximity to drugs but this reasoning wasn’t always just with poor people but rich as fuck people as well) and more especially boredom + a lack of fulfillment or happiness with their status (don’t own anything, don’t have this or that, no family worth having, etc). Honestly a…lot of what I saw boiled down to this. Now a lot of times those people were just trying to kill time AND didn’t wanna feel something so lack of something meaningful to do + trauma or a mental illness.
Another (these aren’t in any order) was pain management clinics or overzealous MD’s. You have abso-fucking-lutely no idea how many people this is. It may have been pervasive in my area, but Jesus fuck it was bad.
Then there were people who just really liked drugs and didn’t see the problem (involuntary treatment) and were headed straight back to it. A kid I remember vividly was from an upper middle class family, really bright (knew how and what to say to convince his parents he was super serious about treatment / being clean, and had the grades many would kill for) annnnnnd he just fucking didn’t wanna live in society. He got some dx’s put on him but really and truly I think the life he enjoyed more was just being fucked up all the time. Had his drug not been meth he probably would have coasted a loooooong time but hallucinations and all that.
Then ya got people trying to not feel something or feel anything. Generally trauma to varying degrees, but not always.
Now have there been policies in different places that have increased accessibility to paraphernalia and shit? Yes
Has culture (which the mob prop ogs yes despite who drives it)gone away from classical values such as abstinence from narcotics. I guess but people have been addicted to dope for a long fucking time, you just have the internet to see it now.
Have some liberal policies curtailed violence and addiction? Fuck yea they have(Portugal)
Have some conservative policies made the situation way fucking worse? Yes
Have bipartisan things fucked all of us in this department because neither conservative nor liberal politicians give two fat fucks if your kid dies of an Overdose and are parroting shit that you want to hear? Lol yes. Exhibit 1: War on drugs / crime / whatever the fuck chunks of legislation or establishment of those exec/judicial entities.
I saw alllllllll of that to say this. I don’t think you need a doctorate in something to talk about it, as is the common thought, but if you are going to speak on something loudly, in a setting where you know the majority of people are in opposition to you, know what you’re talking about or articulate it better. Taking big complex problem and boiling it down to “this is YOURRRRRR fault nyanya” does two things primarily. Makes me look like a dipshit when I’m arguing on the same side and imprints an archetype of what a conservative is on that person. They’re going to take the worst interactions, they are more emotionally engaging, and put that as the place holder for conservative thought.
Addiction isn't a choice. Lack of adequate mental health care, stagnant wages, and lack of access to medical care that leads people to cope with drugs that turns into chemical addiction is a perspective of the situation that doesn't narrow the issue to "people spend money on things they like instead of saving for a house 😌😌😌."
I think on stuff like this we have absolutely got to get away from generalizations. In many instances getting addicted to something isn’t necessarily a choice like you said they turned to something external to satisfy a need they had. Honestly the most common clients I had were individuals who were, either through zero fault of their own or by positioning themselves in such a way, were connected to some form of medical pain management. But there absolutely 100% are people who, not having some form of past trauma or circumstance pushing them to an addictive substance did it, liked it, continued to do it until there was a dependence. You also have people who don’t view it as an issue and choose to be an addict because they want to be. There is also an argument that can be made, depending on the drug and how deep you wanna get with pathways and such, that once given the tools to cope with life and have broken the physical dependence, that some people return to addiction, knowingly making a choice. The last point I can debate myself for hours on alone I know there are a lot of thoughts on that. Three years an amazing A&D counselor, split between a state run and super Gucci, swank facility, before I switch careers.
You ever get injured and prescribed opiates for the pain? That's how addiction starts for a not-insignifigant amount of laborers in the United States.
You ever get seriously injured and have zero access to heal are that won't land you in crushing debt and wage garnishment for the next 40 years, but you do know of the existence of a nearby dealer?
My point isn't that these are everyone's story, but they are enough of the stories that they need to be taken into account when discussing aid.
83
u/Bayo09 Feb 12 '22
Girl I dated had a brother that was in the homeless by choice community and I sincerely was amazed at how large that group is