People who hate Homeless People rant

[Sequoia]

This bugs me big time:

This morning a co-worker and I headed over to the doughnut shop and outside was a woman with a baby carriage and a cute little baby in pink but also it was piled up with clothes and she gave them a dirty look and said "I know I might sound heartless, but if they can push a baby carriage they can get a job". I wanted to punch her out, really. But I told her, maybe they can't get a job, maybe they can't come up with the almost $2000 it cost for 1st and last and security deposit." Come on, you really think those homeless people want to be out on the street!! I can't tell you how close I've come to that situation with mean landlords trying to evict me for no legal reason.

[Lavender Brown]

1. There's nothing more sad than the idea of children being homeless

:(

[jpgray]

2. Yeah--try applying at Macy's when your BO has a physical presence

I would wager there does come a point where it is fantastically hard to get out of living on the street. The streets are like your mom's basement--live there too long, and eventually you'll be too warped to leave. :D

[Swede]

3. There but for the grace of god.........

Some people lack empathy.

[blondeatlast]

4. I work at a downtown library surrounded by a park.

The heartlessness I see daily kills me. I don't give them money (we are strongly warned not to) but I know many by name, and it never hurts to say hi and look them in the eye.

People are just awful to them sometimes.

[mr blur]

6. Can I ask why you're warned not to?

By whom?

[blondeatlast]

9. Our security. Sometimes the ones asking for money (most never do)

can get violent, and they want to discourage begging anyway.

Edit: Our security is of course city police, btw.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

5. They have a job

Being homeless is a job, harder than most. It just pays shit.

[ikojo]

7. There are many homeless people who DO work but still

cannot afford a place to live....

I read somewhere that the minimum hourly wage needed to afford an apartment in NYC is almost $18/hour! In most cities it is $12-$15 per hour that is needed to pay for an apartment. I don't know many service sector jobs that pay a wage like that.


http://news8austin.com/content/news_8_explores/working_poor/?ArID=92606&SecID=400


Working Poor: Working homeless and transitional housing
12/17/2003 5:00 AM
By: Karina Dominguez and Crestina Chavez


At any given time, more than 3,600 people in the Austin area don't have a home of their own, but you won't see many of them wandering these downtown streets.

Social workers call these types of families the "invisible homeless” and about one-third of them are working.

snip

...One out of three families make up the working homeless.

snip

Three-and-a-half million people will experience homelessness this year. They're coming from the pool of minimum wage workers in this country. The pool is 10, 10.5 million people," Richard Troxell, national chairman of the Universal Living Wage campaign, said.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

8. Seen it

Seen a young guy coming out of his tent in a Jack in the Box uniform.