Jonas Long

Try doing your job after a week of barely eating, sleeping outside, living with whatever conditions they've been living with. And keep in mind you are a target demographic for serial killers and sexual assaulters, with vans often. Ever seen American psycho?

Health care, including mental health, rehab for addicts, support networks of some kind.

At least you're a homo.

yeah, well, again, mental illness. Or assuming you are luring them into your van to rape and kill them, which is actually a reasonable assumption on their part seeing as how exactly that happens quite regularly. What kind of work are you offering them?

Obviously homelessness isn't the defining characteristic of anyone any more than race is. I guess the term and the "othering" of it is intrinsic to the problem.

The first few layers are creating issues to fix, for me.

And if you want to make a capitalist happy, give them a job. (Obv there's no drug addicts or capitalists)

I don't know. Symbolically yes, or it feels like it. Ideas of issues.

No, there'd still be more issues to deal with for sure.

Let's just borrow a small fraction of the funding we give to weapons and military and invest it in affordable housing and ubi. Done. then we can say living without shelter is a choice.

Who gives a shit what they spend it on. If its a gift that come with conditions it's not a gift.

Why do people fall under their sway? I agree btw.

You don't see systemic power in the same way you don't see wind. You see and feel the effect of both.

I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of homeless people being too desperate to be sexy enough to sleep with or give 50$ to right now.

The emotion of "don't feel comfortable" is discomfort, I thought that was obvious. Anyway, I'm sure whatever you're saying is right, I just can't follow it right now.

Why does everyone think I'm gay.

Wouldn't you be even less inclined to help if your assumption was everything is in their own power so you don't need to do anything?

@Phil and @Mandy I don't feel comfortable stating that there aren't victims of systemic oppression beyond a person's control. Maybe in some pure interpretation or understanding this is somehow the case, I don't know truthfully, but I don't feel right venturing into statements like this.

I don't think it's either/or, but I don't know how to parse it really...there's systemic "power" and personal power, and it gets too tricky for me to say it's all in someone's personal power to overcome their systemic oppression. I haven't read that book to be fair.

It seems/feels more empowering maybe to say "I'm choosing to live this way" rather than "I'm a victim of whatever circumstances", especially if mental illness and drug addiction are factoring in. But if it were truly 100% a choice, I doubt anyone would live without shelter, reliable running water, etc. It also enables us to not prioritize providing better options.

I can see how from the outside one might assume people who live in the "most powerful and developed/sophisticated nation" in the world would only resort to homelessness out of choice, but that's just how sick we are and how misplaced our priorities. In reality, we could end homelessness, pretty easily too. I've spent periods of time without a house or apartment, sleeping in a tent for months, and it SUCKS. Also maybe worth noting, the drug addiction epidemic and the issue of mental illness are more or less one in the same, at least insofar as they relate to people ending up living without shelter. And as far as what they may say on documentaries or think piece articles, yeah, it's in our nature in part to sometimes claim our situation is strictly by choice and we are not victims of circumstances or society. It's pretty disempowering to admit that.

"Our method is science, our aim is religion" A Crowley

My mailbox is full of hornets, and still I get bills.

I don't like what my automatic text suggestions say about me.

First off I wouldn't trust a "doc" like that 100% personally, they often have an agenda of their own. But it does say something that anybody prefers to live that way, and I still think it's an issue of mental illness, but it sort of flips to where "society" itself is mentally ill.