
Groups of Homeless People - exolymph
https://acesounderglass.com/2019/04/03/5-groups-of-homeless-people/
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standardUser
As a many-decades resident of Santa Cruz and San Francisco, and a as someone
who has in the past been deeply involved in the street/drug scene and been
associated with and friends with many dozens of people who have lived on the
streets, I think this bizarre attempt at categorization missed the most
visible and important group of people on the streets...

People who choose to live on the streets. Go talk to people. Ask where they're
from. The people you're most likely to encounter (the ones being visible,
doing drugs visibly, camping visibly) are travelers of sorts. Adventurers
even. Sure, many are drug addicts or have mental health issues. But so do
millions of people with jobs and homes. Unlike those people, these people
choose to eschew social norms wholesale and live a nomadic lifestyle.

You see much less of this outside of the temperate climate of the West Coast.
But here, it's a growing problem. They have plenty of food and can earn above
minimum wage by spare-changing and are given adequate healthcare. And they
shit and piss on our streets, block sidewalks, litter profusely and otherwise
do whatever they feel like.

~~~
ghostly_s
Well then, sounds like a problem that can easily be solved with the meager
expense of public facilities, trashcans, and open spaces that aren't sidewalks
for the unhoused to hang out in.

~~~
ende
I think you’re missing the point. The people that OP is referring to refuse to
use all the public facilities offered, they don’t want to sleep indoors, they
don’t want to use trash cans, they don’t want to piss in mobile bathrooms or
take showers, they don’t want to be corralled into designated hang out spots.

They want to go wherever they want to, camp out wherever they want to, they
want to collect whatever garbage they want to and they don’t want to clean up
after themselves, they want to do as much drugs and alcohol abuse in public as
they want to, they want to piss wherever they may happen to be at the moment
because they don’t want to be burdened with the responsibility of thinking out
their actions.

This doesn’t describe every one exactly but it generally describes most that
fall into this category.

Ultimately these are people who refuse to play by the rules of society. No
amount of public support is going to change them because they simply do not
want to change. They are perfectly happy where they are right now, doing
whatever it is they want to do. Nobody can solve their ‘problem’ because as
far as they are concerned there is no problem.

So understanding that fact, society needs to decide just how much of that
behavior it is willing to tolerate.

~~~
pjc50
So, libertarians, but without the money?

(How do these people get into this state? Is this just a concentration
phenomenon, where people who think that all move to the same place?)

~~~
wasdfff
Many were bussed in by other cities to California

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joe_the_user
I am unclear what sort of research went into these categories. They seem
effectively anecdotal and subjective - there's no statistics or studies being
quoted that I can see.

Sure, something like "informal sociology" is something that I think everyone
does and I don't think that's a bad thing by itself. Such "studies" become
more problematic if they are presented in the form of science, especially in
situations like homelessness where average people's vague impressions of the
homeless can go into homeless policy - ie, where shelters should be, etc.

I mean, my also anecdotal impression is that a lot of people move between some
or all of the categories that are listed. That movement involves getting or
not-getting sleeps or medication, random walks between doing well and not
doing well, the rise and fall of relationships, etc.

But altogether, if any actual policy is being made, the best thing is making a
study what percentage of people will benefit.

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marcus_holmes
I experienced homelessness for a while in my 20's (back in the 90's, for
reference). And yes, there were a group of people who were homeless and did
not want to change. They would complain to everyone who could give them cash
or assistance about how horrible their life was, and how they were victims of
circumstance, but to other homeless people they were quite honest about their
intentions to stay on the streets.

I never experienced people abusing me or stealing my stuff, but they were
definitely difficult to be around. "ruiners" is a great name for them.

I moved on, getting some casual construction labouring work that allowed me to
get the deposit for a rental property together (90's remember, not sure that
would be possible today). And a friend let me housesit her place for a couple
of weeks, which really helped.

I'm not saying we shouldn't help the homeless... I got a helping hand up from
a construction contractor who didn't have to help me, and I'm grateful for it.
But maybe don't be surprised if earnest attempts to help the situation aren't
received well.

~~~
mav3rick
Do you have any ideas as to why they prefer to stay on the streets ?

~~~
codeafin
It's similar to someone complaining about their job or relationship, but
refusing to do anything about it.

Life can be comfortable if you keep thinking to yourself that you are a
helpless victim. You become your own biggest hurdle at that point but it's a
consistent predictable life people sometimes subconsciously fall into.

It's also still subjective to say not being homeless is all good. Some may
even prefer that "free" lifestyle of not having to have responsibilities.

~~~
marcus_holmes
I had a mate around the same time who was voluntarily homeless. A Falklands
veteran who'd worked on bomb disposal. They didn't know what PTSD was back
then, but after he'd seen too many of his friends blown up in buildings, he
didn't trust them much, and preferred living outdoors.

But that's a different thing, I think.

Totally agree, for some people painting themselves as innocent victims of
circumstance allowed them to avoid all responsibility for their lives, and let
them continue avoiding facing unpleasant/difficult truths about themselves.
Not all, obviously, but there were those who didn't want to change because
change would be painful.

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Aloha
I've known a bunch of people in Number 1-4, more number fours than anything
else. A whole bunch of the number fours are not seriously mentally ill - or
even mentally ill at all - they're just really shitty at making choices for
themselves.

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bellerose
I’m surprised people can even act like they care. We had one generation awhile
back made it so affordable housing existed for the young and where banks were
alright with mortgages being done. That very same generation that could obtain
a home in their 20s without requiring a degree. Now runs the show where the
young are being pressured into obtaining a degree and fill small rentals that
continue to rise in cost. People should be able to have a place they truly
consider their own. Mental health depends on it. People just don’t care.

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PopeDotNinja
I was a #2. Ask me anything!

~~~
umeshunni
How did you end up in that situation and how did you get out of it? Were there
friends or family that could help out and if so, why didn't they?

~~~
PopeDotNinja
This was in 2009. At the end of 2008 when startup financing dried up, I ended
up with pretty much no income. I was recruiting on an hourly basis, and I
couldn't find a new contract. I had about $50K saved up to pay taxes and an
S.F. studio apartment, and I decided to live off that money & try starting a
startup. A year later I had no money and no apartment.

I could have stayed with my parents in the burbs of L.A., but I figured I
would have gotten stuck in an area where there even less opportunity. I ended
up floor surfing at a cheap place here in San Francisco, the Harcourt Hotel at
1105 Larkin St. Basically I made newer friends faster that my new the friends
didn't want me crashing with them anymore.

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forgotmypw
Even using the term "homeless" itself illustrates how the author lumps
everyone who does not have a permanent building that they are registered and
in full "possession" of into one big category.

One could just as easily come up with five stories about "housed" people.
Reading this article makes me think that the author has based their knowledge
on researching Wikipedia and papers...

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jijji
changing the zoning laws is really hard when you have people in the hotel
industry spending huge amounts to not only keep it the way it is, but make it
even more restrictive. Cities are fining airbnb, using code enforcement to put
huge leins on property owners who try to accommodate low income housing in
neighborhoods... 20 yeas ago most places didnt even have a "code
enforcement".. its a racket. all it does is raise rent higher

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glangdale
The bit on 'ruiners' is overly judgemental, lumping people who are clearly
upset and mentally ill in with predators. Yes, there are sociopaths and
predators in homeless shelters, but a lot of the behaviors being picked out in
group 5 are just signs of mental illness and distress - just a severe point on
the continuum of group 4.

Also, a category that's neglected is people who could be served by existing
shelter or halfway house infrastructure but choose to avoid it: I know of
people who are 'homeless by choice' as a result of facilities being either (a)
too scary/chaotic or (b) too moralizing (e.g. 'dry').

There's also a good deal of youth homelessness which falls into many of these
categories without cleanly matching any one of them. Sometimes kids leave
households because they are 'wild', but frequently because the households are
dysfunctional and couch-surfing or sleeping on the streets is perceived to be
no more dangerous than being at home (or being shunted into foster care).

~~~
ericmcer
I agree with the 'ruiners' label though, especially living in SF, the vast
majority of homeless are minding their own business and trying to get by. If
you pass by 100 in your day and just one happens to be openly shitting in
front of you, you might walk away saying, 'the homeless are really ruining the
city', in spite of 99% of your encounters being neutral.

~~~
glangdale
I'm not convinced that characterizing people who are mentally ill as "ruiners"
is a particularly helpful taxonomy whether you're looking to understand
homelessness or help fix it. I think it just serves as a tough-talking
catchall category for "homeless I don't like" here (like we'll cut the 'bad
ones' out of the herd and then be nice to everyone else).

I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of labelling people as 'ruiners' \- even
when they have have behaviours that are in fact ruining cities, shelters, etc.
This is particularly pernicious because the author doesn't bother to separate
out predatory behavior ("robbing other homeless people") from mental illness
("painting the walls with poo").

It's like the author just ran out of compassion somewhere down the list and
said "fuck the rest of these guys".

~~~
treis
>I'm not convinced that characterizing people who are mentally ill as
"ruiners"

They're not. They fall into:

>4\. People who can’t survive the modern world without assistance

~~~
glangdale
I am aware that he says that people can be in multiple categories. However,
many of the things he describes in the ruiner category are way more typical of
mental illness, which to me is deeply problematic. The focus appears to be on
how bad the people in category 5 are. It's attaching a shitty, judgemental
label to very sick people at the very bottom rung of society.

Yes, there are scammers, predators and just plain assholes in the homeless
world (and these people should be in a much smaller and better thought out
'ruiner' category). However, the difference between someone who "needs a bit
of help to get through the day" and "someone who is painting the walls of
their room in poo" is largely a matter of degree (i.e. one requires massive
quantities more help to stabilze).

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forevertogether
Oh sure! Project your fears onto other people, and put them into psuedo-
categories. Much easier to do this than to humanize them. Bravo for your
technical analysis!

Oh boy! This sarcasm is what living in Britain for 10 years has helped me
master. I think deep down my sarcasm actually represents pain.

-

“We Americans stubbornly resist the possibility that what we do is profoundly
shaped by policies, norms, systems, and other structural realities. We prefer
to believe that people who commit crimes are morally deficient, that the have-
nots in our midst are lazy (or at least insufficiently resourceful), that
overweight people simply lack the willpower to stop eating, and so on. If only
those folks would just exercise a little personal responsibility, a bit more
self-control!” — Alfie Kahn

-

Seriously, what needs of yours are met by psuedo-diagnosing some of American
society's most vulnerable? And more importantly, what needs of yours are
unmet? What emotions do you feel, and what do you feel in your body?

I think American society has evolved into a culture that glorifies violence,
turns young girls into sex objects, sends young men to their deaths to ‘defend
America’, and indoctrinates it's citizens with bizarre nationalistic views and
a sense superiority that to me is completely removed from a compassionate view
of life.

For some reason, instead of having an empathic view on those people, your ego
has decided that it is actually better than these people. This to me looks
like a case of good old grandiosity! This seems oh so common in the great U.
S. of A.. Exceptionalism seems to be embedded into the culture overall.

I invite all of us to take a gentle look in the mirror, and I believe the
following video reflects our collective unconscious and our society’s
‘shadow’. It has helped me reflect, maybe it will for you too.

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”
-C.G. Jung

(In-Shadow by Lubomir
Arsov)[[https://vimeo.com/242569435](https://vimeo.com/242569435)]

-

Update - comment on prison:

"I don’t have a solution to ruiners that isn’t prison"

Have you watched the recent documentary 'The Work'? I think putting people in
jail is possibly the worst crime of all. Let's get them in therapy instead. We
can help to heal them by listening to their stories. The trailer for 'The
Work' can be watched here -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8OVXG2GhpQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8OVXG2GhpQ)

~~~
robk
You lost me at the "society's most vulnerable" rhetoric. Tired and misleading.
Bye.

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harlanji
Are you homeless? I am and have been for about 10 months, SF. I don’t think
this is a constructive list; I am working on my own, of course. For example,
there is a new group in Mountain View who call themselves transitional RV
housing. Nice try but not holding any water in my view.

Tangent, I am qualified for a lot of dev jobs.

------
_ikuh
I was pretty with it until 4 and 5. The premise that certain groups of people
without housing "can't survive without the kind of assistance that money can't
buy" is condescending and elitist at best.

~~~
dbcurtis
No, there are a huge number of people that are on the edge w.r.t. mental
health. Not quite capable of handling activities of daily living and/or their
own finances. Or not 100% of the time, and that fraction of the time that they
can't, their money evaporates, and/or relationships evaporate.

The crisis in mental health care in the US is shameful. It is true that in the
bad-old-days people were over institutionalized. So the pendulum has swung,
and now unless a person is very clearly dangerous to themselves or others, it
is nearly impossible to get a person resistant to treatment the help that they
really need.

We talk about people "falling through the cracks", but the "crack" is a mile
wide. It is pretty hard to convince me that a cardboard box under a freeway
overpass is better housing than the mental institutions of old. That said, I
don't think many of the mentally ill need to be forced into an institution
under the old model, but we really do need a mechanism to deal with ill people
resistant to treatment.

[edit: spelling]

~~~
DSingularity
Yeah man it’s serious. Someone asked me to help an individual recently and I’m
struggling to figure out how to help. He is a programmer who suffers from
schizophrenia. His hallucinations got out of control until he lost his job,
his life, and his kids. Social workers pretty much forced the one person in
his life who cares for him (his wife) to have him removed by the police. Now
he hates her. Then he proceeded to miss his hearing so he was arrested. Now he
is thrown in jail. I feel guilty but I don’t know how to handle this.

~~~
dbcurtis
I feel for you. Lacking appropriate training, it is hard for us to actually
help, even though we care. The first thing to remember is that whatever you
say or do will be processed through the lens of his reality. He will try to
fit it into the framework of his world. The eventual fit may be very skewed.
It is difficult to know how to be helpful in that situation. Sorry I don’t
have more for you.

