San Fran wakes up

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 9:43 am

Seems SF is cutting benefits to the homeless. Guess the good burgers finally realised too much honey attracts only blow flies. Now the question is...where will the free loaders go next? (there now, I've conformed to Drakonas 3 sentence rule)

Testiculese · Post by **Testiculese** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 11:25 am

They can go west.

Will Robinson · Post by **Will Robinson** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:39 pm

Testiculese wrote:They can go west.

Lol

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 2:19 pm

Thats cold man, very cold.

What they need is job placement programs and a place where they can shower. Maybe a clean set of clothes. If they go nowhere, thats their fault.

Birdseye · Post by **Birdseye** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 2:22 pm

I don't think a lot of homeless people want a job. I think a lot them prefer being homeless to working.

Herculosis · Post by **Herculosis** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 3:00 pm

Birdseye wrote:I don't think a lot of homeless people want a job. I think a lot them prefer being homeless to working.

We'll make a conservative out of you yet, B

Birdseye · Post by **Birdseye** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 3:01 pm

I'm already in the real conservative party, the libertarians. Registered and voting for president Badnarik

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 3:18 pm

Birdseye wrote:I don't think a lot of homeless people want a job. I think a lot them prefer being homeless to working.

I work as a counselor for a program that distributes food to people who are 'temporarily' out of work. Part of my job is to assess what the financial problem is and to suggest remedies.

I have been doing this for 9 years now and I have a good idea of the number of freeloaders that come in looking for a free week's worth of groceries. It turns out that roughly 6 to 7 out of every 10 people that come in are such ... freeloaders.

While 6 or 7 are lazy @$$ed good fer nuttin freeloaders ... when we take the attitude that Birdseye expresses here then they get what is coming to them. However, there are 3 to 4 people that need and deserve our help. These people get lost in the noise and end up perpetually on the welfare roster when they would much prefer to have a job and earn their own money.

As a counselor I am responsible for assessing the bu||sh|t factor for each person that I interview. I do a good job of it and the others that counsel with me do a good job too. If we detect a bu||chitter then we ask them not to come back and document them in our files.

My point is ... why can't we, as a nation, come up with some sort of system that works similar to this one?

Well, the conservatives don't want it because it costs too much money (money out of their own pockets). They are too greedy to help ...

The liberal democrats don't want it because solving the poverty problem eliminates the power that they have over people. They are to controlling to help ...

Is there any party that gives a sh|t about those that need help? If so then let me know and I will vote for them. Otherwise I will have to bite my tongue and vote for whom I feel is the lesser of the two evils ...

Birdseye · Post by **Birdseye** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 3:31 pm

Ice, I'm on the same page as you. I said most. The trouble is, like you suggest, finding those that want to change but can't.

Do you have some more insight on how to change things?

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 3:34 pm

I have no clue how ... I don't think any party other than the Republicans or Democrats have a snowball's chance in he|| of winning. The Republicans don't want to spend the money ... the Democrats don't want their voter cocaine to dry up ...

[edit] I have no clue how to get the government to do this. However, I do think that if more people would take up the cause a lot of people could be helped. Maybe it'll have to be a grass roots thing ...

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 6:00 pm

Ice... Republicans are totally down with spending money to help the poor. They just would rather do it themselves than have the government do it -- I'd rather give directly to a food bank than have the government give 10% of it to a food bank and spend 90% of it in overhead. (Overall, Red states outdo Blue states in terms of per-capita and per-income charitable giving by a pretty good margin -- we're not greedy, we just would rather give to charity on our own than have the government force us to.)

I think this is where Bush's "faith based initiatives" thing would really help out. I know a ton of food banks (etc.) that are funded by churches and similar organizations, and a lot of them are not eligible for federal funds. If the government was willing to create a program wherein they'd work with these groups -- giving them more funding and access to certain resources if they're willing to be accountable in certain ways -- we could create the "national" program you're looking for simply by connecting the local groups already available and making sure they're all on the same page in terms of how they deal with freeloaders.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 6:07 pm

Govt. programs don't work to expectations. How long ago was the War on Poverty initiative started? Is poverty eradicated here in the states? No.

Birdseye · Post by **Birdseye** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 6:11 pm

Take the answer to this in the drugs thread, wood--The same thing has been done with the WoD and that's not working. What do think about that?

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 7:39 pm

Lothar wrote:I know a ton of food banks (etc.) that are funded by churches and similar organizations, and a lot of them are not eligible for federal funds. If the government was willing to create a program wherein they'd work with these groups -- giving them more funding and access to certain resources ...

I am all for that and I am sure that my church (who is funding this) would use such funding wisely.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 7:55 pm

Here in Portland, the homeless are a really mixed bag of people.

Some are lazy. Many suffer from some form of mental illness and are really barely capable of making a life for themselves. Some are or were well to do families or people that were perfessionals but were victims of Down-sizing or outsourcing. These genuinely benifit from help programs of which there are a number of here in Portland. There are those that have been homeless for so long that they are comfortable with it and extremem change such as getting a job and residence would be nearly too much of a shock, much like those getting out of prison after being locked up for 10 to 30 years.

I really believe that taking care of people, homeless or otherwise, is the communities responcibility. ergo (?) everyones.

The company I work for contributes to the state food bank every year and are in competition with our sister companies; about 10 of them. Last year, we donated something like 23 tons of food. The extreme weight as much of it was canned. Pallets of food. .. the sotres lock up now when they here we're on the move.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 8:03 pm

Birdseye wrote:Take the answer to this in the drugs thread, wood--The same thing has been done with the WoD and that's not working. What do think about that?

Same same

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 1:08 pm

Woodchip:

Govt. programs don't work to expectations. How long ago was the War on Poverty initiative started? Is poverty eradicated here in the states? No.

The war on terror seems to fit that catagory too. IMHO

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 11:29 pm

Yeah, youre right ... Lets just quit and let the terrorists have their way.