
Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer - pessimizer
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/being-homeless-a-struggle-even-with-a-100000-job-offer/
======
exhomeless
I was homeless for about a year and a half. The first 6 months were spent
sleeping on the streets, and when possible, in a shelter - but realistically,
in the area where I was, most shelters were not really a safe place to be, and
the few that were filled up early. The remaining time, I crashed at a drug
dealers house and helped sell in return.

I didn't have much more than the belongings that fit in a mid-sized duffle bag
and for a while I mostly survived by cleaning bathrooms at coffee shops before
opening hours where the employees didn't really want to do that part of their
job - and in return I would get some coffee and a bite to eat. Any money I did
get, I saved up.

Once I had access to the internet again, and at least a warm place to sleep at
night that I considered safe, I started making contacts on IRC. Eventually I
had enough money to relocate across country via Greyhound, a couch to crash on
when I arrived and prospects for a new beginning. I quickly jumped from $25k
to $40k to $60k etc and am currently at $160k with a whole new life and an
amazing career ahead of me.

It's possible to get out of the situation if what got you there isn't
addiction or mental illness - the system does little to help, and without
being resourceful it's easy to get stuck in that position for a long time. But
it can be done. Granted, I never had the ex-con/drug dealer status haunting me
in background checks, but I have been upfront in interviews before and still
got the job. Greatest accomplishment in life? Escaping homelessness.

~~~
buro9
Fully escaped?

I've spoken openly of my 30 months sleeping rough on the streets of the UK. I
may have "escaped" homelessness, but the mental scars accumulated whilst on
the street do still haunt me. I feel it, the sense of worthlessness, the self-
doubt. There's a feeling that I shouldn't be alive let alone here in this
workplace or surrounded by good people, a feeling that I don't quite belong.

One can put a roof over one's head, get a job, that leads to a career, obtain
an income that is above-average... but can one truly escape something as
traumatic as being homeless for any sustained period of time (covering 1
Winter at least)?

I'm less sure on that. I live in the hope that I'm wrong.

And of course, Christmas comes around and people return to family and those
who don't are the waifs and strays, an annual reminder that we're not the
same.

~~~
DanBC
May I ask: What would have helped? And what would help now?

Homeless people and people who are vulnerably housed in the UK have pretty
lousy treatment from "services", a lot of which is provided by faith and
voluntary groups.

There are huge amounts of stigma, and a lot of misunderstanding of alcoholism
and drug use and mental illness.

~~~
buro9
Small, safe spaces.

That is... I went onto the streets to escape poverty, violence and sexual
abuse.

For me a hostel was not a safe space, so I didn't even successfully make it
onto the first rung of support. It was hostels that distributed information on
where to get food and such, so I missed that too.

So there needs to be a better support system for those sleeping rough, and
that needs to recognise the flaws in the offerings today and also find better
ways to distribute information.

Then, I've made the argument before that we should have a better way to
migrate someone off of the street. It's not enough to give a council flat,
someone I knew at that time eventually committed suicide because he couldn't
cope, fell apart, and suffered from the isolation.

I think instead of that, there should be spaces smaller than a studio
apartment that are transition spaces. They should be private, but perhaps
clustered so that there is a support network there. People should be given
help on how to do things, simple things like how to shop and eat better, how
to take care of a home and manage the utilities and bills, how to basically
live normally again and construct those routines. How to not shrink into that
space and be alone.

I did meet a lot of people with mental illnesses, I don't believe anyone can
wave a magic wand and get them off the streets. But we can have the structure
in place to help them so that when they are ready, it's possible.

The vast majority of the people on the streets in the UK aren't there because
of drugs and alcohol, that's just a visible symptom of a small minority. Most
I spoke to had normal lives, good lives, but a trauma occurred and they ended
up on the street. There seemed to be a lot of divorced or widowed males. A lot
of the young who were physically and/or sexually abused.

Anyhow, a link [http://crackandcider.com/](http://crackandcider.com/) . These
people are good, it's no magic wand, but they will take monetary donations and
turn it into basic things to help keep people warm and alive even if they are
rough-sleeping. I like that they're challenging those misconceptions too.

~~~
tene
One thing I'm curious about, if you're willing to share, is what makes hostels
and shelters unsafe. There are several people on here who mention hostels or
shelters not being safe for them, and I've never quite understood what would
cause that, given that the entire point of a shelter is to offer a safe space,
isn't it? What are the common failings there? What makes the safety of a
shelter vary between different people?

~~~
buro9
What does a hostel offer?

A roof? Is that all a homeless person needs?

For me what I needed, because I came from a place that of violence and abuse,
was to feel safety of person and possession.

In many ways, that sense of security trumped everything.

And if you take a teenager that has gone through that and chosen the street
over a roof at home... then changing the roof and being surrounded by
strangers, some of whom suffer from mental illness and can be violent
themselves... a hostel doesn't deliver on safety.

I only stayed in a few, they were how I imagine US summer camps to be. Rooms
containing a number of bunk beds, anything from 4 to 8 people in a room.

The ones I experienced separated on gender as you would expect, but didn't
separate on age, or other needs.

When I landed on the street I was frightened, crushingly shy, a victim all the
way through. A hostel was a brutal experience, horrifying to me in those early
weeks on the street in ways that sleeping under bushes, on industrial estates
and on building sites just wasn't.

I had a different set of problems outside, namely the weather, shelter and
warmth. But what I had with some planning was a sense of security, a sense
that my possessions and myself were safe. That the very worst that could
happen would just be to be moved on.

Those were things I felt were in my control. I felt safer on the street.

I should note that I didn't spend every night of 2.5 years sleeping rough. I
was young, and learned fairly quickly to seek out Universities, find the
student union bar, arrive late afternoon and read a book, and then wait for
people to arrive so that I could chat to people. From there the opportunities
opened up, and there was a good chance that if I overcome shyness, didn't
scare them with the state of me, and everything was cool, that for one night
there was going to be a bed, a shower, and some toast. I became quite good at
this, but never stayed in a city more than a couple of nights before hitching
elsewhere so that I never overstayed a welcome and doing this meant I could
have a few nights a week on a sofa of someone my age who had a kind heart.

------
sdrothrock
In his case, it sounds like the problem isn't homelessness itself, but:

1\. A crappy background check system that reports him as an ex-con/drug dealer
when he's been exonerated.

2\. Companies using those systems and judging him without giving him a chance
to speak up.

~~~
nickff
Even the president is in favor of punishing people who have been suspected of
crimes; it seems to be a popular position that people are not really innocent
until proven guilty.[1][2] I find this trend deeply troubling, but it does
seem at least somewhat popular.

#2 is at least partly due to the fact the if the companies allowed him an
opportunity to refute the claim, they would be incurring various legal
liabilities. The rules meant to protect job candidates often result in them
being passed over at the first stage where it is realized they are 'complex'
cases.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/2015/12/04/can-americans-be-denied-second-amendment-rights-
because-the-attorney-general-suspects-theyre-terrorists/)

[2] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/2015/12/06/what-could-possibly-be-the-argument-for-allowing-a-
terrorist-suspect-to-buy-a-semiautomatic-weapon/)

~~~
sdrothrock
> #2 is at least partly due to the fact the if the companies allowed him an
> opportunity to refute the claim, they would be incurring various legal
> liabilities.

Interesting! I'd thought it was simply done in the name of efficiency.

~~~
kiba
You're too old. You have a criminal background. You're too overeducated. We
think you'll sue. You're too young.

It seemed that companies are loathed to take risk on employee. At the same
time, lot of environments contained toxic working conditions, so it's not
clear if their choice of employees matter much.

But people must find a job to keep themselves afloat or depend on someone
having a job. It didn't matter if you're bad at social grace or if you have
mental illness or if you're a felon, old or young.

Without food, shelter, and peace of mind, I think people would be hard pressed
to be economically productive.

~~~
raverbashing
At the same time, there are a lot of employees suing companies "just because",
so the feeling has some justification.

~~~
kiba
And where do those employees find the money to sue the corporation?

Don't forget that it doesn't prevent the creation of toxic working
environments.

~~~
morgante
> And where do those employees find the money to sue the corporation?

Often from lawyers who work on contingency and then take the bulk of the
damages.

------
Dr_tldr
This is part of the larger tech hiring culture of "it's better to miss hiring
someone good than to hire someone who might be bad." The guy in the story is
hit especially hard by this, but HR's paradigm of fear/incompetence/inability
to manage people after they're hired is a big piece of it.

It's not ever easy for someone classified as an ex-con to get a job, but tech
discriminates more than most other professions.

~~~
tluyben2
Well, HR / recruiters are a bit worse in most (tech?) professions; they seem
really lazy when vetting people and just go for the stereotype great employee
while discarding everyone else. So the only way back would be to go for a very
small company in a smaller town. In the EU he would be hired for sure; I would
hire him. I never cared about previous experiences/age/gender/race only about
current skills and effort and we did very well by it.

------
chatwinra
This just backs up why I think Finland's recent move[1] to give every citizen
a basic salary is the way forward.

You'd then give everyone that basic level of security and enable them to
progress in life. Yes there are potential flaws with the Finnish scheme (some
people on benefits may ultimately lose out, and millionaires getting the same
amount as poor people) - but crucially it would probably stop most, if not
all, of cases like this, where someone can't escape the pull of homelessness
even with opportunity there.

1 - [http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/finland-plans-to-give-
ev...](http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/finland-plans-to-give-every-
citizen-a-basic-income-of-800-euros-a-month/ar-AAg3Bn1?ocid=ansmsnnews11)

~~~
kuschku
Germany has something called "Grundsicherung", which is even below
unemployment benefits, but can be gotten by anyone, even without having a
place of residence. That means if your homelessness is not based on mental
issues or being too proud to accept help, you have at least a possibility to
get out.

------
tuxracer
Take someone who has already demonstrated the know how to make money selling
illicit drugs and, as punishment, ban them from legitimate employment for
life... That must be super effective! /s

------
crimsonalucard
Why don't wrongfully convicted people Sue for damages and use the lawsuit to
get there records purged? I sure there is a reason why people don't in general
I'm just not clear what exactly this reason is. Anyone in the know care to
elucidate me?

~~~
jrockway
Suing the government is not all that easy:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States)

~~~
johncolanduoni
It really isn't. A close associate of mine had a government official back out
of a contract he signed (in the government's name) in a way that was so
legally clear that it would have resulted in a summary judgement had it been
anyone else. His lawyer advised him not to bother unless he could afford to
pay the legal fees for a decade long court battle.

------
zodiac
Why is he failing background checks if he's never been non-wrongfully
convicted? Genuinely curious to hear from anyone with experience on the
employer side of this.

~~~
jzwinck
There are two kinds of background checks. The official kind done by a
dedicated team with access and knowledge to retrieve city, state and federal
data. And the HR kind, where someone without an investigative background and
education spends ten minutes doing web searches and online "stalking" to see
if the candidate has any untoward elements in their past.

The first kind costs hundreds dollars per candidate. The second can be done
for about twenty bucks worth of time. You can guess which approach most
companies use.

It's easier on most candidates, too, because a real background check requires
them to fill out paperwork. An ad hoc one they may never know about...unless
they fail.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _There are two kinds of background checks._

IBM. Wells Fargo. Frontier Airlines. T-Mobile. Experian. Daimler Chrysler.

These are some of the companies listed in the article. They are some of the
biggest in the world. They don't seem to me to be the type of companies that
take the latter approach to recruitment, possibly opening themselves up to
discrimination legal issues.

~~~
alistairSH
They probably do both. The official background check may come back clean. But,
as soon as the HR guy or hiring manager put his name through Google, they see
"So and so convicted of dealing crack."

~~~
ensignavenger
Surely one of the first things he does when contacting a company is to warn
them that a web search will find these things, but that he has been
exonerated, and to provide documentation as to such?

I just find it incredibly sad that the people conducting these background
checks at such large companies are so utterly incompetent.

~~~
alistairSH
I'm not sure I agree that this is a sign of incompetence. Instead, it's likely
a case of extreme risk aversion.

Hiring somebody is risky and expensive. The cost for getting it wrong is quite
high. At best, it costs the team money in lost productivity. At worst, the new
hire actually is a criminal (or whatever).

Given two otherwise equal applicants, it's only prudent to hire the one that
doesn't have nasty Google results.

------
alakkadshaw
He could try working as a freelancer, on websites like Elance/Upwork or
something and make some money. Then he could use that money move out of the
homeless shelter and then look for a decent job.

~~~
insanebits
The problem here is not a shelter but a previous criminal records.

+1 for freelancing idea, it might actually work if there are security jobs.
But I think security in it's nature is something that needs assurance that
person is capable of auditing the system.

~~~
jfoster
You're right, though if he's very capable at security stuff, there's probably
also other types of freelancing work that he'd be capable of doing.

------
meesterdude
Is there anything we can do for him? I mean this is just nuts.

~~~
jzwinck
Now that he's in the NYT he will probably be OK. The question is what to do
about other people in similar situations.

I once received an application from someone quite famous. But he was famous
because of a criminal case against him which was ongoing. We let this scare us
off, because as a small company we didn't want the exposure if we did hire
him. I'm not sure it was a very moral decision, but does your startup have
time to deal with that?

~~~
barsonme
> Now that he's in the NYT

Pedant: the article is in the Seattle Times :-)

> he will probably be OK.

I sure hope so. I always have mixed feelings when I read articles like this.
On one hand, things _should_ usually end up going well for the person
(assuming they're legitimate) because of the exposure. But, on the other, it's
sad to hear of them being in the situation in the first place.

------
lisper
I spent two years trying to get a homeless person off the street, and made a
movie about it:

[http://graceofgodmovie.com/](http://graceofgodmovie.com/)

------
imgabe
Are there charities set up that could help with something like this? I mean it
would literally take less than $5k to get this guy set up. A couple suits of
decent clothes, a security deposit and first months rent for an apartment, a
bus ticket to wherever his job is.

That is a bargain for removing a homeless person from the system. Local
governments and shelters should be jumping at the chance to do it.

~~~
jschwartzi
It's not just that. It sounds like he gets the offer, but it's contingent on
his background check clearing.

If that's all he needs though, where's the Kickstarter?

~~~
imgabe
Maybe I was confused. It sounded like some of them were possible but he had no
way of getting to the city where the job was. Or maybe he was just saying that
even if one _did_ come through he couldn't follow up on it.

------
morgante
One thing I'm curious about is how he actually ended up homeless. Before the
conviction, it seems like he was doing very well (BMW, townhouse).

Why did he not have sufficient savings to survive after he got out of prison?

(Not trying to blame him for anything, trying to plan for my own life. I
strive to maintain sufficient savings so that I would never be homeless even
if I never worked again.)

~~~
caseysoftware
I suspect any savings he did have would have gone to his legal defense. It's
an all or nothing thing, you wouldn't hold back if you were wrongly accused
and had everything to lose (as demonstrated).

~~~
jpindar
In the comments, if that is actually him posting under his name, he says "I
was in Debt and had JUST started that particular contract ,,an attorney wanted
10.000 up front and I did not have it !! ."

------
d_theorist
It seems like the conviction is what's preventing him from taking up the job
offers, not being homeless.

------
spyder
Why don't they do the background check before the interviews so they don't
waste eachother's time and money just to later have a background check fail.
Does a background check costs more than an interview and paying for the
flights?

~~~
manquer
Not a for a single candidate, if you however need to do it for all candidates
before they are evaluated it will be much costlier :). Doing it after the
interview for few candidates is much cheaper.

Also it may take weeks to do the full check, you will loose the candidate if
you wait for so long to do the assessment .

------
brotoss
What is this article actually about?

That he's getting $100k offers pending background checks and failing them?

Bad title.

------
SZJX
It's a bit weird though. Why couldn't he just rent a house/borrow money to pay
for a temporary residence, then pay off using his paycheck? If his case was
indeed already listed as exonerated, then he should be able to at least take
some loans. But indeed, whetehr he was truly guilty or not, the stigma put on
people via even just one conviction is just horrible. This seems such an
ancient and brutal practice in today's world.

------
pkaye
I wonder if he could start his own consulting company?

~~~
SwellJoe
It comes with a lot of the same problems as getting hired by a company as an
employee. Meeting with clients when you can't travel easily is a challenge.
Living in a homeless shelter puts you on the schedule of the shelter (there
are in and out times that are strictly enforced at most of them, if you aren't
in by the curfew, you don't sleep in a bed that night), which conflicts with
the erratic schedule of an IT contractor. You need a phone that is reliable,
and the ability to take calls and emails at any time, which being homeless
does not really allow; my friends who are homeless often live by day in coffee
shops and libraries and by night in shelters if they're lucky enough to get a
bed.

Also, though I don't like it, the reality is that black folks in IT are also
facing subtle discrimination on a daily basis. Getting hired as a contractor
often has none of the same protections that large companies have in place for
people of color being hired as employees (government contractors are an
exception in that the government has guidelines in place to help insure
minorities are well-represented, but selling to the government is a whole
other set of skills that he may not have, and may not be able to obtain given
his circumstances). Among people of color (and women) that I've discussed it
with, they tend to prefer applying for jobs and working jobs in major
companies because the HR processes are designed to be less discriminatory.
Small firms, even when they intend to not discriminate often make "culture
fit" decisions that exclude women and minorities. He's also older. Smaller IT
firms are infamous for hiring young and overlooking older candidates.

I live in an RV (I did it for four years, traveling full-time, and now I'm
back to it after a couple years of stability), and I'm being reminded of all
of the ways it makes a "normal life" difficult. And, I'm not dealing with the
kind of stuff he is: I have a vehicle and money to travel, I have a phone and
reliable Internet, I have a private home where I can have phone/skype
conversations with co-workers, etc.

Getting out of homelessness is really tough, is what I'm trying to say, and
being homeless makes a lot of things that are obvious solutions to problems
for you and I much tougher when you don't have the stability and savings and
such to fall back on that you or I have.

------
jokoon
Artificial selection at its finest.

------
ommunist
I believe the only clear way for him is to leave the US and land some
international job at some place good as Australia or Sing. Yes, the US will
loose a good cyber cop. But as you can see here, this is entirely the US
systematic problem. Simmons does not deserve to serve lifetime living in the
US, struggling for foodstamps.

~~~
cshimmin
How is that supposed to work? He can't even afford to leave Seattle.

~~~
ommunist
Companies pay relocation to a suitable candidate.

~~~
AYBABTME
They reimburse, you need the money upfront.

~~~
Symbiote
Not necessarily. I would have thought the company paying directly was
preferable, since then they can see invoices, and query costs beforehand.

My employer paid to transport my belongings, all I did was get a few quotes.
It was useful for them to be involved, since they knew about necessary
insurance etc, but an international move was new to me.

They also offered to transfer my relocation bonus to me as soon as the
contract was signed, but I didn't need the cash so I waited until I'd opened a
local bank account in the appropriate currency.

~~~
AYBABTME
You're right, it varies. I'd posit that most of the time however, you get
reimbursed.

------
Laaw
Seems like this story is more about the struggle being black.

------
kraftman
“I am very pleased to offer you the full-time position of Senior Analyst,
Security Compliance,” - so why doesn't he take that job? Or are they offering
him the job and then by the time he goes to take it they've googled him and
changed their minds?

~~~
MrApathy
Very likely the offer is contingent upon the successful completion of a
background check. A thorough background check (criminal, education, credit)
can cost a few hundred dollars, so firms won't proceed until an offer has been
accepted.

Even though he was exonerated, his prison stay and other convictions may show
up. He can explain, but a firm can rescind an offer for whatever reason they
want (outside of protected statuses, which does not include criminal
background). For a security position firms may want perfectly clean
backgrounds.

~~~
kraftman
Ahh, I was wondering why they would leave it that late, but avoiding extra
costs makes sense.

