Most of these comments are trying to determine why people are homeless, citing some anecdote of some person the poster met once. It bothers me that we are trying to determine why people are homeless so that next time we see a homeless person we can know why. That's simply not possible.
I was (voluntarily) homeless in San Francisco for a while (http://austenallred.com/voluntarily-homeless-in-silicon-vall...), only because I wanted to work on my company instead of get a job, and I had read enough Thoreau that I didn't care to give up the majority of my time in exchange for crap I don't need. So I could have gotten a job, but I deemed it not worth giving up my freedom for. Of course, that came with other sacrifices, but I considered it worth it at the time.
In doing so, I ended up hanging out with a wide, wide variety of homeless people. Some were punk kids who wanted to reject society/capitalism, many of whom were from broken homes. Some were mentally handicapped. Some had done enough of some sort of drug that they were completely fried. A few seemed very intelligent - one lost his job as a physics professor when he had sex with one of his students, and his family was so ashamed they wouldn't take him in.
Saying things like "homelessness is a choice" is true for some subset of people, but completely untrue for others. Most of the homeless I hung out with were very affluent and had iPhones and MacBooks (you don't find many forced homeless pitching VCs in Palo Alto), but when I was in the city it was a different story. More mental handicaps, more felons, and more people who had simply fallen upon difficult times.
The amount of willingness they had in the matter is a spectrum., as was the tech they used, the reason they were homeless, and their ages But they're all people, and most of them that I met were good people, with wants and dreams and desires mostly just like everybody else. Please don't try to say, "All homeless people are x."
This is so true. I meet a lot of homeless people through addiction recovery programs I'm part of, and there are as many reasons to be homeless as there are homeless people. If you want to improve your understanding of homelessness without actually being homeless, try sitting down and having a conversation with a homeless person. I'm sure you can find some wherever you live. Many of them are just so unbelievably lonely that you're really doing a lot by letting the tell you about their lives.
Man thanks for saying this. Nothing grinds my gears like people who talk about homeless people without actually talking to them.
Of course, there is the shitty thing where people are so disconnected that they attempt to talk 'to' someone but end up talking 'at' them instead... but at least then there is the chance for communication and understanding.
Yeah, that's why I emphasized letting them talk about their lives. But...there will always be those out of touch "why don't you just do x and then y and then have a house??" people.
Thankyou, the judgment in a lot of these comments really bothered me.
To me, this is the pertinent question: if people are homeless "by choice" - meaning they had some other option - why is our society structured in such a way that being without shelter and security seems like a better option than the alternative? How could things be different so that no one would "choose" to be homeless?
Structures cost money and we trade our time for money (and call it work).
To some, the value of doing what you want is greater than the value of the physical structure. That could be because they consider time extremely valuable, they don't value a home as highly, or because they hate the work. It's usually some combination of the three.
A lot of voluntarily homeless just see "society" as the entire list of rules of what you're supposed to do (go to college, get a job, buy a house, settle down, have kids) and reject the whole of it. It could be that you've seen enough to think that the entire system is flawed, so you just bail on all of it. It could be that those ideals just don't jive with you personally and are completely unappealing. That's how I felt when I dropped out of college and moved to China for no good reason. (Homelessness came after that). I was on track to be an investment banker or something, but hated the idea a little more each day until I finally said, "f this, I'm out" and started vagabonding around Asia.
Maybe there is an element of mental illness, I don't know. I had lunch with a psychologist once and he tried saying, "Seriously, listen to me, you are mentally ill." I guess he thought I was crazy - maybe I am - but I never went in to see him. I had no interest in altering my mind with drugs. I like who I am, even when it is difficult to interoperate with the rest of society.
When I was homeless, security was worthless. I still think it's largely an illusion, but that's a different topic. Freedom to do what I loved was well worth not having a home for. Working happened to be the thing that I loved, and I especially loved tech. I worked 16 hour days - I just wanted to work on my thing not someone else's thing. If I had enough runway to afford a House I would have done that, but I didn't. So living in a Honda civic it was. It didn't really bother me, to be honest. A bed is a bed.
Now I am married and have a baby on the way. I still don't care about security, but they need it, so ok I'm kind of reformed in that way. Luckily we're now funded so i still do exactly what I want all day. I don't know what would happen if the company failed. It's just not an option.
> Maybe there is an element of mental illness, I don't know. I had lunch with a psychologist once and he tried saying, "Seriously, listen to me, you are mentally ill." I guess he thought I was crazy - maybe I am - but I never went in to see him. I had no interest in altering my mind with drugs. I like who I am, even when it is difficult to interoperate with the rest of society.
Err. Psychologists don't use drugs. Perhaps you should reconsider this one.
Ah--it's not so cut and dry anymore. The Psychiatry profession, along with the drug companies are trying to climb out of a deep hole of bad science. The standard chemical treatment protocol is an art. There are no hard and fast truths in Psychiatry anymore.
Efficacy of drugs used to treat seriously ill Clinically Depressed patients; slightly better than placebo, and that might be stretching the data?
Drugs used to treat anxiety; the one's that work, for awhile, are addictive.
It seems like every few months, a researcher is questioning "best addressed chemically" approach. This month is long term use of antipsychotics on Schizophrenics: maybe these drugs affect the long term quality of life?
Of course. The question isn't "do we stop treating schizophrenia", it's "should we, and how can we, transition the patient off of drugs that are potentially harmful in the long term".
We've known for a long time that anti-psychotic medication is pretty horrible. That's why groups like Hearing Voices Network have been campaigning to educate clinicians and people who hear voices about different causes and different treatment options. There are other groups that campaign against purely medical models of treatment for other illnesses.
A well known tension in mental health treatment teams is between the psychiatrist (who stereotypically will want to medicate everyone) and the psychologists (who stereotypically will want to talk to everyone).
Maybe this will play better here if it's in the words of Steve Jobs:
"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
Luke 12:16-20, Seneca, or some time working in insurance might do just as well.
No matter what you've got it can all disappear outside of your own control. Such is life, and while most of the time it doesn't happen it will if it needs to.
No matter how much you own and how much you've got things secured in your life, all you need is one gravel under your shoe and you can fall and hit your head so as to never go back to the life you had. Wealth, job, relationships... they can all be torn down should things go majorly awry.
Security is an illusion of control, and in life you never really have any real control.
This is kind of a side issue, but I am committed to correcting these 'black or white' ideas of security.
The idea of 'security' should be represented as a spectrum, like white to black with grey in the middle. The ideas of perfect security or total insecurity— the white and black ends of the spectrum— only exist in our minds (Not in the real world.) Thats what you're talking about.
Don't focus on the extreme ideas- instead, think about the grey area of the spectrum with 'more security and more hassle' on one end, and 'less security and fewer hassles' on the other. Then you'll have a reasonable mental foundation to build your ideas on.
Interesting but I believe security is a feeling. You either feel safe or you don't.
It's true that there are lots of things that we cannot control, regardless of money or power, but when we have more options we certanly have more control over our own lives and those around us. Money is a very effective way of increasing our options in life but there are other ways too, like having more knowledge or developing a skill, more meaningful relationships.
There are compulsive travelers, who can't/won't stay in one place. Our society doesn't cater well to the always-on-the-move because it's both rare (most people stay put) and difficult to cater to (wanderers rarely earn much money)
There are also those that can't/won't accept responsibilities like maintaining a house, paying bills, etc. Our society caters poorly to these people because we are not full-on socialist; adults must accept responsibilities to function in our world.
In Brazil, there's something called "mutirão" which loosely translates to "a bunch of people getting together to help build something for a specific person in need". For example, someone in the neighborhood needs a second story on their home (many homes are multi-generational) and so this person or family gets the needed supplies then rallies other people in the neighborhood to help build the second story. It works because at some point, those very others will likely need collective help with something of their own. In the case of a social project, the neighbors might informally crowdfund it, then build whatever it is together. Regardless, the one in need usually offers a BBQ and drinks in exchange for the work.
I'm happy that the homeless in San Francisco have iPhones and MacBooks, but surely you must realise this sounds ridiculous to people outside of the Silicon Valley, right?
I invite you to here to Eastern Europe, to see homeless people who are alcoholics and drug addicts, usually without any mental function except for thinking about how to get high and drunk again. They shit and piss over themselves, mumble, and harass people. They refuse to go to a shelter because then they'd have to stop drinking.
So yeah, I will say all homeless people are drunks and drug addicts who choose not to fix their life, and telling me that I'm wrong while living in Silicon Valley drinking your starbucks latte just makes you seem stupid.
Across the UK an iPhone is a trivially* cheap item.
1 months' rent in London would buy you a decent spec MacBook.
3-4 months' rent in a cheaper city would do the same.
Many people seem to have the viewpoint that it's some sort of irrational decision to not prioritise housing above everything else.
40 hour weeks making others obese so that I can barely make the rent whilst my boss buys his next car?
Trivial choice from where I'm standing. I do feel for those who have dependents, though.
* It is fairly common here for people to 'call out' welfare recipients as owning big TV's, iPhones, etcetera; as evidence as profligate spending. From my point of view, luxury electronics are for the poor and rich, and excluded from the middle classes. Why? Because the poor can never expect to build capital regardless, and the rich have capital already. Only the middle classes actually need to think about expenditure, because they may eventually be able to own property.
Of course. The homeless in Palo Alto aren't anything like the homeless you're thinking of - the point was that there are many, many varieties of homeless people.
And I've seen it. I lived in eastern Ukraine (Gorlovka, Kharkov, Donetsk, Makyevka) from 2008 to 2010. I was a Mormon missionary, meaning I literally walked around all day talking with anyone who would talk with me. And yes, you're absolutely right, there are an absurd amount of people who live only to drink, especially in eastern Ukrainian mining towns after the economic collapse when all of the mines are closed. They would follow us around and harass us, try to pick a fight (didn't work too well when they were drunk) beat up the other bums (бомж), steal their money, and drink. Mostly just drink until they pass out in the park. I gave a couple grievni to a homeless man once who was asking for bread, and watched him literally take my money, walk to the nearest store and buy a bottle of vodka. He didn't even care that I watched him do it. It was my last time giving money to beggars. When we'd serve the homeless food from the church it was pretty much гречка (buckwheat) loaded up with salt, because we knew they were all either drunk or on a hangover.
But I also met Pyotr, a man who was seemed to be in his fifties. He was obviously incredibly intelligent, and had times when he seemed perfectly normal, and he despised alcohol (for ruining his family, he said). If he were diagnosed he probably would have been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; I'm no psychiatrist, but he would take bundles of sticks and obsessively clean out the walkways and stairways until they were spotless. If he saw somebody drop a bottle in the park he would literally sprint to pick it up and throw it away. He dressed in rubber boots usually worn by older women, and just went around cleaning stuff all day muttering to himself. All day, every day. I liked talking to Pyotr. He even recognized that he had gone a little bit crazy, and said he did so when he was studying higher math at a local university. He was working at a level of math that was very theoretical, and he just snapped, I guess.
When I first met him, I thought he was drunk or high or something. He had a little bit of a twitch and talked so quickly that his sentences slurred together (not like a drunk slur, just a way that was very difficult to understand as someone who had learned Russian as a second language). But as I talked with him, it became clear that there was just something mentally off.
So by and large, I'd say you're correct; it's pretty hard to be truly homeless in eastern Europe. Most are intolerable drunks. But some aren't.
The point I was trying to make is that there are many, many types of homeless people. Of course, the vast majority of homeless aren't like the voluntarily homeless in Palo Alto who could easily get a job if they cared to. Being homeless in a country that provides a pension and housing for all is especially interesting, but not all of them are drunk assholes either.
Hmm, not much, really. Mostly just knowledge and connections. Some would move back home to friends/family, which not all have the opportunity to do. That's a big deal mentally. Credit is a big one; they can grab a credit card and float, some homeless people can't.
Thanks for the reply. I ask mainly because if those that choose to live this lifestyle are not a burden on the already strained resources available to those in need, then what right does anyone have to judge them?
When I was in my 20's I knew and hung out with a bunch of hobos like these. They were all (yes, ALL) middle/lower middle class, white, fairly well educated (completed high school). They all lived this way by choice. They all could get a job if they wanted to, but thought normal life/capitalism/the system/wathever "sucked". And they all depended on the system/wathever for their basic needs, or when shit hit the fan (needing a hospital, or the police in extreme cases, which happened eventually). So yeah, they could get a job. But also, our society makes this lifestyle possible, and it does have its pros. They had lots of free time, lots of freedom to go anywhere they wanted to, no responsibility, no bills to match at the end of the month, etc. But they weren't there because "you don't know what it's like".
Also, the ones who developed alcoholism or serious drug problems didn't have the stuff before. They got it through the lifestyle.
You apparently "don't know what it's like" to have something in your life that causes their state of mind. We shouldn't condemn them for choosing this lifestyle. Especially not when their alternative is likely minimum wage with no apparent escape. It does suck and they're expressing just how badly it sucks by choosing to be homeless. Good for them.
No, you're not getting it. Most of the people I knew could go to college if they wanted to. Their families would have supported them, or at least helped them out quite a bit. To give you an example, two guys I knew wanted out of it. They got a job making minimum wage while they attended welding school. They make enough to live very comfortably these days.
Some, but only a minority, really had not much of a choice. Either their family was very fucked-up and had botched their upbringing pretty bad, or they had gone down too low on drugs/alcohol.
And I'm not condemning them for choosing this lifestyle. Like I said, it does have its pros. It can be a good, exciting life, especially since you're in the US, where you can get a lot of society's excesses for free, when they are discarded.
"Could have if they wanted to" is the core signature of ADHD.
Imagine knowing that there are lots of things you could, theoretically do with the resources you have at your disposal—but having none of the "willpower" thing that lets people do things that are even slightly boring or unpleasant in the short term.
Imagine wanting to learn skills that require practice, but being unable to invoke whatever mysterious forces cause this "practice" to happen.
Imagine being amazing at stupid skills that you got because their training mechanisms involve short reward loops (for example, video games) and knowing your own potential, and hearing over and over everyone around you tell you about that potential and encouraging you to use it, but just feeling a stab of "ugh" whenever you even consider starting that is utterly insurmountable.
Imagine, even, having skills that could get you a great, well-paying job (e.g. programming—something, as it turns out, that has a short-reward-loop method of learning) but then just not being able to work up the desire to apply for a job; to go to the interviews you applied for; to come to work on time each day; to do anything other than surf the Internet once you're there.
This isn't abstract to me—
I failed out of university. I was homeless on-and-off for a year and a half. I went back to live with my parents for a year. Then (at the age of 24) I got diagnosed with ADHD and put on a medication for it.
Now, two years later, I'm making $250K/yr working as a CTO for a financial startup.
Many people I met while homeless, looking back, also had all the signs of having had ADHD—or, if not that, then major depression, or a social anxiety disorder. None of them thought of themselves as having a condition; they just "didn't want to work." They didn't realize that what they "wanted" was in large part a function of what they would or would not flinch away from because of pain; and that their pain response to attempting certain things was not a matter of "character", not and not something they had failed to learn or needed to "work through", but a treatable handicap, like nearsightedness.
I wish I could take every one of them to the same psychiatrist I went to, but it took me eight months on a waiting list to talk to them. There are far, far too few practicing psychiatrists to help all the people that need help. Something about this needs to change.
Man that hits home, only I'm still 24 with a complete lack of motivation.
I keep telling myself that I'm using it as an excuse and that it's really laziness, but if I'm intellectually honest with myself I don't really believe that. It's like I miss some hormone that motivates me, similar to perhaps a gay person missing the sexual attraction to the opposite sex and not having any way to change that, in a world where nobody is gay and nobody gets why you don't have that genuine, inherent attraction.
Feel free to elaborate a bit on how you eventually got out of this if you'd like, I'd love to hear more. Perhaps it'll help me, too.
I used to struggle with motivation. Especially at your age (I'm about to 30). Motivation is a byproduct of discipline. You need to integrate some kind of discipline in your life.
Something huge that changed my work ethic was when I bought a whiteboard. I always have two lists on it. One of the lists is "Everything I need to do." This has things like 'pay my taxes by X date', 'call my insurance company and find y out', 'start this project', 'build that dream car i have always wanted to build'. Some of the stuff might always be on it, at which point I can start really looking at those things and figuring out whether I plan on doing them, how bad I want to do it, and if it's worth my time vs the other stuff I want to do.
The second list is titled "Today", and always leads with today's date. Under that are things that I should really do today, or at least try to start. Some times the things on it roll over to the following day, sometimes they get dropped back into the larger 'everything' list. But when I do something, whether it's "Take out the trash", or "Call Person X", I get to cross that thing off the list. It stays crossed out for the whole day until that night when I reassess my everything list, erase crossed out items, change the current date, etc. It has helped me stay on task and get things done tremendously. The whiteboard has had a tremendous impact on my productivity.
This is a completely separate problem than the GP poster described, and comes off as rather insensitive too, considering they described, yknow, getting on medication to fix their broken neurochemistry.
I'm serious sir/madam, few good insights ever come of the form "You have $difficult_problem, you just need to do X to solve it".
Personal example: I get done the stuff that I need to do, but for a good chunk of it, I hate every single minute of it. Example: I just got done with a number of uni assignments - they were not difficult, the material wasn't uninteresting, but I already knew the info, I already knew I already knew the info, so going through the motions to actually get credit for it sucks. As in "God, I wish I was doing just about anything else right now"-level sucks.
The way they described that bolt of "ugh" that stops any motivation to do anything substantial? That is my fucking life right now, and I can't put down into words how much I want to get that part of me changed. All the whiteboards and organized-ness and "discipline" in the world only ensures that you're getting things done (going through the motions) - it does nothing to ensure that you will enjoy the process or even necessarily the results of the process.
If you hate everything you have to do, what's the point in living?
How do you know IkmoIkmo has broken neurochemistry? People with ADHD struggle with motivation. But perfectly normal people struggle with motivation too. There's a difference, but can you see it in a fifty-word post on the internet?
As for the drudgery of University and crappy assignments- what, do you imagine "neurotypical" people love to do banal assignments that are below their skill level? Everybody hates make-work.
The risk with all this is that manic depression, ADHD, etc are mostly an extreme form of things we all experience, so it's not hard for people to convince themselves they have it.
As for finding enjoyment- University can be a slog. But I found once I had climbed high enough (and managed to drive myself to do the un-fun parts) it became rewarding. The thing is a lot of school is building foundations; the fun part comes later. That said, if your major is completely un-fun, you should reconsider your track. E.g., as much as advanced math was a complete chore for me, I knew I loved to design circuits, and I tinkered with them through all of University.
You haven't known "God, I wish I was doing just about anything else right now" until it's June, sunny, and 75 outside, and you are sitting through a four-hour-solid lecture on linear algebra. But it was worth it.
I called out the wrong post (actually it was derefr), but I know they have broken neurochemistry because medication greatly reduced the impact of the problem.
You don't understand what I'm saying here - there's actually "banal", and then there's applying that description to any action you could be doing at this moment.
A round of TF2? Meh let's try it.. nope, still bored. Go through my bug backlog on a couple of personal projects? Open the IDE and.. eww, forget that. Going for a walk? Boring.
All of these things are things I legitimately enjoy doing, it's just that more often than not, there's a lack of enjoyment there. Sufficiently stimulated, that problem almost completely goes away (large amounts of caffeine, energy shots, etc).
I really, truly doubt that this description of mental state is "normal" for most people.
> do you imagine "neurotypical" people love to do banal assignments that are below their skill level?
Actually, yes. I say this for the simple reason that dopaminergic stimulants make banal things fun, with a linear correlation to the degree of their dosage. Everyone loves cleaning their apartment on enough Adderall.
If the dopamine-receptor-deficiency hypothesis of ADHD holds true (and it's a far stronger hypothesis than anything about depression et al.), then dopaminergic stimulants will act to emulate the neurochemistry of someone whose dopamine "set point" is naturally higher.
Or, in other words, a person with ADHD, taking a properly-calibrated dose of an ADHD medication, should experience the same level of motivation as a neurotypical person.
Which implies that if there is something that a particular dosage of a dopaminergic stimulant makes enjoyable, then people who naturally produce the same amount of dopamine endogenously will also find that task enjoyable. There are people who just love cleaning their houses, love banal assignments, love paperwork and bureaucracy. ("Love" being a bit strong—they experience no pain from it, and can get into a flow state from it somewhat like a video game. They probably won't say they enjoyed it, but they probably won't say they feel like they wasted time, either.)
The weird insight one gets from this is: if dopamine-receptor imbalance forms a normal distribution (as many people have more dopamine than is neurotypical, as have less), then there are a whole lot of people walking around who really enjoy make-work. And some of them make policy decisions.
Not objectively/absolutely banal. Relatively more banal, compared to the things people with ADHD can enjoy doing. There is a margin of things that are banal to people with ADHD but not to neurotypical people, just as there is a margin of things that are banal to neurotypical people but not to manic people. (Have you ever seen a crackhead picking at the floor trying to find bits of crack they might have dropped? [A common sight in my city, if you're wondering.] They can do it for 30 minutes with no chance of finding anything, not getting the slightest bit bored. Banal!)
On another note, you argue 'few good insights ever come of the form "You have $difficult_problem, you just need to do X to solve it"', but right before that you say "getting on medication to fix their broken neurochemistry." Is that not an example of "you have $difficult_problem, do X to solve?" You sound young and confused. It will pass.
Maybe qualifying the phrasing makes it more useful: few good insights come of the form "you have $difficult_problem, you just need to do [thing that is easy enough to try that if you were interested in solving this problem you've probably tried it long ago] to solve."
Getting on a medication is hard, and frequently shameful. It especially requires acknowledging, first, that you have a problem to a degree where you should seek help with it, rather than that you just "prefer to" be lazy. Because of this, people who have motivational problems don't tend to try the solution "getting on medication to fix their broken neurochemistry" until a whole bunch of evidence piles up to suggest that's the way to go.
An economist would say that, because the market is efficient, there is no money left lying on the ground—if you think you see some, it's either a fluke that will correct itself, or an illusion. Likewise, there's no "one simple life hack" that will actually solve any common, chronic problem humanity faces. If there was, it'd have reached fixation as common wisdom long ago. (For example: brushing your teeth to avoid them rotting away. It's a "life hack" that works!)
The only time something can be both "one simple life hack", something few people know about, and actually work, is if it's really hard to put it into practice. Practicing epistemic rationality is a "life hack" for avoiding wasting time, but you have to read tons of things and route around a bunch of your own neural circuitry to make it happen. Moving to another country is almost always a "life hack" for getting better job and relationship opportunities, but it requires uprooting a lot of your existing life. Etc.
The only "easy/surefire wins" in the market of personal health/well-being/productivity, are the ones you'd never try on a whim because they have too much of an upfront cost. The art, then, is in convincing yourself to feel "desperate" enough to try those things early on, rather than wasting time with the patent-medicine-style life-hacks first.
Or, in short, and by analogy: in a nutrition store, all the stuff that is known to work, is locked behind the counter. Things that work, unsurprisingly, have side-effects; frequently the side-effects are in fact simply corollaries or restatements of their effect! Anything with no side-effects, no costs, is extremely likely to also have no effect.
A good book to read on this is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. While his experience was that of a writer overcoming difficulties with motivation and persistence, most of it applies very generally.
That's how I felt until I discovered low therapeutic doses of extended-release amphetamine.
Now I'm 26 and take a pill 1-3 days each week I'm working. If you experiment, I wouldn't take more than 20mg of Adderall XR or 50mg of Vyvanse, and I'd start lower than that.
Best thing to happen to me.
If the reactions of "Just do it" and "Just be more disciplined" and "Just try this one weird trick" feel worthless to you, it's because they are. Everyone seem to has a judgmental opinion on this subject.
That really scares me. For one, these drugs are usually relatively new, known to be abused, known to lead to cases of addiction etc. And I'm scared it changes who I am even if it would radically improve my life. I mean don't get me wrong, I know these are edge cases, exceptions, and that for many people including yourself they have been a blessing.
Beyond that, it's not something I can get (without risk of getting something wrong) without getting diagnosed first. And while I'm glad for that, I'm also really apprehensive to go through the whole process, of months of talking and self reflection and filling out personality forms and keeping diaries and speaking to psychologists. The lack of motivation I have is such a stupid problem because it kills any action towards solving it.
Really appreciate your post in any case, I've written it down and will look into it more.
Very similar story here. It had been suggested that I see someone regarding ADHD when I was younger but my dad didn't really "believe" it existed. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with old fashioned grit and character building.
Dropped out of college after losing almost all motivation to go to class or constantly forgetting things I had to do. This just started a cycle of self loathing and depression and feeling like a worthless fuckup.
Eventually landed a low paying job despite not having my degree and with the help of my SO, got through the long waiting period and other hurdles to see a doctor.
Got treatment, went back to school and finished my degree with nothing lower than a B in any class. Not making nearly what you are but where I live at least, the difference between $20k/yr and $60k/yr (especially as one half of a pair of "DINKs") is massive.
Medication to tweak the dopamine response curve isn't perfect but I have it to thank for at least enabling me to do the normal hard work of making it in life.
There was a recent reminder by Sam Altman about the guideline on avoiding negativity on Hacker News[1]. While I agree with the importance of 'checking one's privilege', I feel like calling someone a "rich ass spoiled kid" for sharing an insightful, topically relevant, and inspiring story of conquering their own mental health issues is in violation of this.
Also, since OP mentioned they are now receiving treatment for ADHD, its insulting to insinuate that you don't think they are capable of handling technology operations.
Yes, most of us here are quite privileged. Even homeless people in first-world countries are privileged compared to many living in third-world countries, and I think it's important that we acknowledge it. But your attitude does not help make this community a better place.
1. ADHD can come and go, like the major depressive episodes of clinical depression[1].
I had 5+ years of experience (I started programming when I was 11, in fact); my period of homelessness came after having already worked several great jobs (that I got no thanks to my parents—a retired tradesman and a gas-station attendant with a combined income of $20k/yr.) I've also built out a pretty good portfolio of work in realtime distributed systems engineering. I "burned out" of one job I had at the time, and just never looked for the next one. I lived off savings[2] for a year while trying to start a startup, until my savings ran out. Then I was homeless.
2. I was eliding a lot by saying that I was living with my parents. My parents are bankrupt, now divorced, and live in the country. (My father is bipolar, which drove much worse things to happen in their lives for decades—a string of half-baked entrepreneurial ventures each dropped after heavy investment whenever he entered his depressive phase, for just one. Moving out at 16 was a decision I still do not regret.)
I actually went to live with my grandparents, illegally, in their no-tenants-under-the-age-of-retirement condo, because they insisted that I stay with them even though they couldn't afford to support themselves, let alone me. (They certainly couldn't bail my parents out.)
This was a move that caused me to be two hours' commute from the nearest city of population greater than 10,000. While looking for a new job, I commuted that distance, both ways, nearly every day. It wasn't that I wasn't actively looking for a job; it was that each individual job application was, effectively, an arduous process it would take weeks/months to recover from. The strain I put on them was what made me finally decide I needed to see a psychiatrist.
That was only for the last few months of my "stint" at homelessness, though. Before then, I was just ducking my almost-always-absent landlord, effectively squatting in the room I had previously been renting, and trying to scape together a dollar or two each week to buy bags of rice and such.
Should I also mention that I mostly paid for living expenses while going to [community] college—for the year or two I did—by getting student loans and then avoiding spending them on anything non-essential, like textbooks?
3. I was never on welfare, or employment insurance, or on any government assistance programs of any kind. You know why? They were too much effort to get into! Also, they effectively required applications to their services to happen near-simultaneously with the loss of one's job. One of the most common effects of ADHD is putting off paperwork, homework, filing your taxes, etc. until it's far too late.
I was homeless, but I wasn't a beggar on the street. Instead, I was couch-surfing without a dollar in my bank account, tens of thousands of dollars in credit-card debt, no friends within a thousand miles of the city I lived in, and a rapidly-worsening state of health because I couldn't pay for my own healthcare.
4. I wasn't hired as CTO; the previous CTO quit, and I worked my way up. This isn't a big company, so just think "tech lead", not "guy in an expensive business suit who bosses around tech leads."
I've never mentioned having ADHD to anyone at any job I've worked at since beginning treatment for it. Medicated, I'm normal; just as a nearsighted person wearing glasses is normal. Effectively, in my mind, I don't have ADHD now—ADHD is a condition I would get (again) if I stopped taking my medication.
ADHD is a deficiency of an essential chemical my body cannot produce on its own—to wit, a vitamin deficiency. Do we say that people with scurvy always have scurvy, but were are just temporarily well as long as they continue to consume vitamin C? No; they're normal on vitamin C.
---
[1] I've almost come to believe that all the talk of "burn out" in programming is because ADHD is pretty common in programmers—or rather, programming is a pretty common thing to get into for people with ADHD—and so, to someone who has undiagnosed ADHD but to a degree that's normally manageable with self-medication through things like caffeine, a stressful+unrewarding job can heighten the symptoms to the point that it can't just be managed/brushed aside, and has to be addressed as a problem. But, since it required the triggering event (a bad job), it gets blamed on the trigger-condition instead of on the vulnerability it exposed.
[2] Savings amounting to a few thousand dollars. Junior programming jobs here don't tend to pay well, nor was I very savvy about what I should charge for the contracting work I did, nor was it very easy to get hired by places with money given my lack-of-a-college-diploma. I did figure it out the general solution, in the end: working remotely for US companies, instead of accepting the local prevailing wage.
>> † I've almost come to believe that all the talk of "burn out" in programming is because ADHD is pretty common in programmers—or rather, programming is a pretty common thing to get into for people with ADHD—and so, to someone who has undiagnosed ADHD but to a degree that's normally manageable with self-medication through things like caffeine, a stressful+unrewarding job can heighten the symptoms to the point that it can't just be managed/brushed aside, and has to be addressed as a problem. But, since it required the triggering event (a bad job), it gets blamed on the trigger-condition instead of on the vulnerability it exposed.
This is a really good point. A lot of burnout could be explained by untreated ADHD overcoming the power of legal stimulants.
I wonder if burnout is as common in other professions requiring a lot of focus. Do surgeons burn out? Business people? Lawyers? Others?
Personally I think that they do, but I also think that they have better coping mechanisms available. Surgeons and doctors in general, while having an absolutely bonkers schedule, also periodically get whole weeks off in order to compensate for that schedule.
Programmers, possibly because of said ADHD tendency, seem to never really give themselves time off. It's almost considered improper to even take weekends off. That's when you're supposed to work on your open source projects dummy.
If you don't mind me asking, how hard was it to find a job after being away for that long?
I graduated from university 2 years ago, but I haven't sent out even a single resume or job application. In a couple of weeks, I (also being 24) will be having my first appointment with a psychiatrist.
I suspect that within the next several months I will be attempting a job search, but I am worried that having such a large gap will make the process rather difficult.
I graduated from university 2 years ago, but I haven't sent out even a single resume or job application. In a couple of weeks, I (also being 24)
Ugh, same here. I've scraped by on a small-time one-man startup that just barely pays the rent. (as is seeing declining revenues).
Trying to muster up what it takes to apply for a job. I don't know why it's so hard for me. I'm fine dancing at a club or giving a presentation in front of hundreds, I'm not shy in that way, but I'm afraid of picking up a phone and making a call to a recruiter (hell to a store to ask if they're open). And I'm scared of putting myself out there, sending my CV, or hell even worse, getting the job and failing. I've got no clue what the hell is up with me, and I can't find any motivation.
But yeah same here, 24, 2 years out of uni, never sent out an application since. Let me know, if you'd like, how your meeting goes. Good luck!
> But also, our society makes this lifestyle possible, and it does have its pros.
I assumed you were calling for the end of some form of social aid. The minimum wage portion of my comment could be extended to student loans or anything else. The point is that society has yet to provide decent options to every single person. Further, it's hard to work on something when you feel it's just garbage work you have to do because you're poor. The choices made by people with relatively unsavory options shouldn't determine their merit for aid.
The homeless I have known are not their by choice. Yes, out of clinging on to the little dignity they have left, many will call themselfs Outdoorsmen, or Drifters, but they all had a valid reason for being Homeless.
Mental illness--yes.
I have not seen drug abuse as the sole reason for homelessness in my area.
I have seen Buddist monastery kick out 50 year old woman for not earning her keep.(yes, in liberal Marin this happened! She join the monastery when she was 17.)
As to using the system--what system? The one's I know don't see a medi-cal doctor when sick, and when they do, they are stigmatized, "He will probally sell the medication".
They all need dental work.
Yes, they use the Catholic chow hall. That is the system. Section 8 is closed. The one's I know don't even apply for food stamps.
The common denominator among the homeless I know is Lack of Suppport from family members! Most of us have had some rough patches(nervous breakdowns, gaps in employment, addiction issues) and usually have some family member that helps out. These people had no one to turn to.
Oh yea, I have seen family members do horrid things to brother/sister/mother/father. It usually involves manipulation of by a greedy member over Money. The greed in some of these stories is staggering. There is a complete lack of compassion in some families, and then there's the denial. "I had a bad childhood, I owe that women nothing!"
"That kid has leached off of me too long!". "Let her sleep under the house, for now!"
I have head all these quotes. I don't know what causing family members(who could help) appear so indifferent, and in some cases appear to want to make bad situation worse? I can't blame lack of spirituality. Some of the worst offenders show up in church, and synagogue?
"The common denominator among the homeless I know is Lack of Suppport from family members! Most of us have had some rough patches(nervous breakdowns, gaps in employment, addiction issues) and usually have some family member that helps out. These people had no one to turn to."
This. I've spoken to many homeless people - mostly in NYC but in other cities too. Whenever I ask about their family they always tell me that their folks woudn't pick them up. I once called the son of a drunk middle aged man on Brighton Beach. He didn't seem too particularly concerned when I told him I knew where his dad was.
I want to make a website where people can see profiles of homeless people, hear their story and sponsor them. I would have a very low cost operation: rooms in cities for homeless people, with a shower, computer, and food (soup etc). Homeless could use the room but would need to register their name, photo, biometrics (fingerprint etc) and progress through a program that would be a bit gamified. The steps would be somewhat personalized but essentially include the following tasks:
Register
Go make an appointment with a psychiatrist
Go meet someone who will help buy clothes, shower etc.
Get a cellphone and an address
Talk to a career counselor
Apply for government assistance, with help
Get an education or a job
They would receive cards and we'd see what they spend on. Their cards would be loaded with more money as they complete challenges. They'd be self motivated with 90% assistance from the program. I am a big believer in "smart tools" that make motivation easier and take care of 95% if all the research and logistics. The homeless person shouldn't have to figure out what they need in their backpack, what programs exist in their city and how to apply or take advantage of them. This hould be done by experts. And motivation should be optimized also, with human servie providers helping do evaluations and customizing.
I also believe in metrics and reporting, which the public funding the website would receive as people get off the street get a job and their stories of success.
>We shouldn't condemn them for choosing this lifestyle.
Oh, I'll condemn the ones that choose it. If you're homeless because you have mental or physical problems that's one thing, but people who choose to be homeless because they're too lazy to work are parasites.
Laziness is an indicator of mental disorder; there is usually some sort of depression, drug abuse, or other problem making the person drop out of society like that, rarely is it just "I don't want to work." Of course, in less prosperous societies, it mostly isn't a choice made willingly.
I don't agree at all. Some amount of laziness is normal, and the world is full of people without mental disorders that will do the minimum to get by. This is just the tail end of the curve.
Everybody has problems, and most of us still get up and go to work. Since we're not going to deny services to the ones who don't we should require them to work if they're able.
Some amounts of laziness are normal, but excessive amounts are not. Mental disorders are much more common than you think, and probably could have been easily solved with early intervention (but you know the education and mental health system in America isn't that great...).
But anyways, they don't get a free ride especially in Puritanical America.
>But anyways, they don't get a free ride especially in Puritanical America.
They don't? Where I live they get money from the county and free medical care. They occasionally get free beds in a shelter (which some of them refuse). When they attack each other the cops are left to try and figure it out. And the rest of us are paying for it all.
I'm not opposed to helping people who need it, but I think the idea people who behave antisocially ipso facto have some sort of mental illness and should therefor be supported by the rest of us is corrosive and wrong.
This is still much less than they get in other developed countries. The alternatives of no support...well...you just have to come to China to see how that works out.
Do you feel as strongly about the people that can provide for themselves, do much better than yourself, yet still choose to live off of you?
What about large groups of people who pay lawyers more money than you'll ever see to figure out ways to take more to live off of you and never contribute back?
Does anyone who takes a tax break classify as a parasite as well? Are parents parasites until their kids are independent?
Why is it that someone who consumes no social services (no address/documents? have fun), besides an odd meal or night in a shelter provided from donations, produces such vitriol from you while an entire class of people exists that rake in trillions of dollars that are skimmed directly from your taxes?
Anyway, have fun dehumanizing a disadvantaged class of people on the internet.
Basically those guys just give up on how they're expected to live: work hard, pay a mortgage, get a job, consume, be polite, don't have too much fun, don't ask too many questions, be a good person.
They're not completely unable to avoid homelessness, but they don't see that what their country is offering them is a fair or interesting deal. The future is just depressing in terms of opportunity and economics, so to me, those guys just give up, and they're not to blame. It's their country who betrayed them, pure and simple.
I too feel that I'm often being blamed for my lack of motivation and discipline of work, but to be honest, I'm not seeing anything in society that makes sense at all, so living lifeby not adhering to the common capitalist pillars seems risky at first, but with the recession and the economical context, it makes totally sense, and if the country fails because of it, I don't think I could be accused for it.
That is a great analogy. The distinction between "giving up" and "making the best of what is around you" is easier to draw when it isn't wrapped up in the rhetoric of rugged individualism.
Rethinking capitalism seems like the only option, then. (Well, this shouldn’t be surprising … it’s been happening ever since the start of the industrial solution. Markets are pretty awesome and can be extremely useful, no doubt. However, I would transition to just seeing them as a useful tool that can be more effective than potential alternatives in certain situations. Just not the be all, end all, that’s it. Seems simple enough to me, and also already the accepted truth, more or less, pretty much everywhere anyway, if you look at practical implementations of economies.)
Not necessarily. A tax increase for the largest corporation might create opportunity to create smaller businesses.
Automation doesn't mean people have to live by it, on the contrary, we could still try to live away from large cities, and thrive by improving life standards. There is so much more thing to do in more rural, less populated areas now that technology is there.
The current problem is the anti competitiveness, that's what ruining young people: most of them just stick to the cities, where it's easier to be poor.
I dunno about all that. I've been poor in a rural area and it was much, much easier to get by. I could rent a crappy apartment on a minimum wage and stuff was cheap in general.
I've since moved to the city precisely because I'm making more money now and it's where the jobs are but I'd never survive on my old salary from 15 years ago when I was broke.
People stick to the cities because it's more efficient to live in proximity to work and social circles than to spend all of your spare time driving or just missing out because there's nothing around you.
The cold hard reality is that in most US states 10%+ of people ages 18-30 cannot get a job doing anything. High skill jobs are inaccessible to many people without extensive training and low skill jobs are highly competitive and people with more experience get them. We are in a crisis and will be looking at an unemployed generation soon.
I'm a lot luckier than most of the people my age in georgia. I've also dedicated my life and made a lot of sacrifices to get here that society told us as we grew up were unnecessary and irrational. The narrative we got was "go to college then it is easy to get a job" when the reality is that people are graduating college and facing unemployment. As somebody that teaches in a university setting it is soul crushing.
I chose to "live rough" for about a month before I found an affordable room to live in when I first got to NYC. But I was bootstrapping my move to NYC.
This past Saturday, I served homeless from a soup kitchen in Harlem. Most of the people we served were on their own, and a sizable minority were loopy. Some of them probably weren't homeless.
Anecdotally, I know a guy (who I tried to help again and again) whose bad decisions and self-sabotage screwed up all of his chances. He has lost job after job. And he has two kids he can't/won't support.
Whenever he gets a chance, i.e., someone hires him, he works a max of two weeks, then gets trashed on his first bit of money and gets immediately fired because he doesn't show up for work. And he'll live on the street, in a tent in the woods, or where-ever he can keep his head out of the rain.
It's hard for me to drum up much sympathy for him and others like him.
Then there's people who make poor educational decisions, family planning decisions, and financial decisions, who live paycheck to paycheck, then lose their jobs simply due to changes the economy - they may have made sub-optimal economic decisions. Or there could be health problems that destroy their finances, and but for the grace of God many others of us could be in their shoes. And they deserve to have some help, and I even give my own money (my after-tax income) to help people like that. They don't deserve to be thrown out of their house. What they need is a second chance and the help from those of us who could easily be in their situations.
We need to try to get the aid to those deserving, as opposed to the wastrels in the earlier example of my "friend," and similar lifestyle hobos, or in the case of those who are making a conscious bootstrapping decision like Austen and myself.
This is America (or perhaps, a civilized global society). We don't let people starve in the streets.
> We need to try to get the aid to those deserving, as opposed to the wastrels in the earlier example of my "friend," and similar lifestyle hobos, or in the case of those who are making a conscious bootstrapping decision like Austen and myself.
The easiest way to do that is to just help everybody. The money we already spend on welfare is enough to provide basic assistance to everybody, without wasting money on figuring out who doesn't deserve it and crafting elaborate schemes to keep them out. Not to mention that even when people are self-destructive like your acquaintance, helping them out can still be cheaper than dealing with the costs of their homelessness, like constant interactions with police and ER trips because they don't have a warm, sheltered place to sleep.
Our welfare systems are designed around a fear of free-riders, rather than to be simple and easy to administer.
Soup kitchens are a perfect example - sure, there's always a few people there who don't really NEED it, but trying to keep them out would be inefficient and use up more resources than the $2-3 of food they're getting.
Soup kitchens are on one end of the spectrum. You're right, there were people there who kept coming back for loaves of bread and more bananas, and more punch and lemonade, and we just gave it to them. They just had to stand in line again. And I don't begrudge giving more bread away, that is its purpose, and I hope it finds its way into the mouths of those who need it.
If people will abuse that system, they'll abuse them all, and I think the cost of preventing welfare abuse is worth it.
In welfare-state Britain of the 70's, they had multiple generations on public assistance and in public housing who were proud, as a culture, of their unproductivity, which led to the backlash that brought Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives into power.
Bottomline: if you want to ensure the deserving get your tax dollars consistently over time, you must guard against fraud, abuse, and overindulgence, or the public backlash may deprive even the deserving.
The article was interesting, and the title does say it's talking about hobo culture. As I watch the HN discussion unfold, though, I want to point out that 41% of the homeless in the US are families. These folks aren't usually hobos -- hard to get the 4-year-old to run fast enough to catch a freight train. It's a very different lifestyle since families aren't generally throwing off the strictures of society to live in freedom, but instead desperately trying to rejoin.
In my small city for decades there were maybe two homeless people in their 50s or 60s who would ask for change they were alcoholics everyone knew them in my small city. Eventually they either died or got help.
Now within the last five years there has been a massive increase in street beggars all in their 20s. They get a milk crate and sit on it all day at a busy corner with a cardboard sign "need food".
There is a group of three who come here every year from somewhere? Two guys and a girl who go to the median at street intersections and put up a sign walk down the line of cars looking for money.
When fall came they would all leave but now it's a year round thing every day even in the winter.
I talked to a few of them one guy in particular was (?) a bit older my age, mid 40s, he said he had a bad back, a catheter, his guitar was smashed so he was asking for more money for that I think someone gave him one. Then he was on the news a few times and it seems he was fairly well-known guitar player. I'm not sure where he went but I know many people tried to help, I said I knew of some jobs, but it seems he disappeared when the police wanted him due to a warrant or something like that. Local news http://goo.gl/eBXSv6 His bio on CBC http://goo.gl/OxF9eu
This is all rather shocking for this small town it has been so sudden, and it's new faces from away not locals. It seems word is out that people are generous here and they are you often see people giving money.
I agree it seems to be 99% Millennials it's as if someone flipped a switch five years ago and suddenly homeless people at every second corner asking for money.
We used to feed the homeless for as long as we could afford to do so, we were our own non-profit, so feeding the homeless came out of pocket. In any regard, we would go out at night when they would be sleeping on the concrete in downtown Orlando (Florida), and downtown Kissimmee, some choose to be homeless, some don't even want to be homeless, they'll tell you their story with tears on their eyes. You can't just decide to judge whether a homeless man is there because they chose to be without actually talking to them. You really can't. We helped some of them find homes, others find their way back home. The homeless people are like your family, they need to be taken care of too, but not everyone is willing to put their heart out for someone else.
Everywhere I go, if I see a homeless person asking for money I offer them any food I have in my car. You don't have to give them money, food is valuable as well. If they don't want it, it's their loss.
Some have posted along the lines of asking 'wouldn't it be easy to just get a fast food job' - seemingly entirely missing the point.
Most minimum wage jobs in the UK are worse than nothing at all. A month or two's salary saved would get you a year of hiking around Europe and sleeping rough. Perhaps my neurochemistry is atypical but I see the latter as absolutely better.
The idea of low-paid work as a stepping stone is generally nonsense outside of a few select cases too. At large corporations management generally operate on a different 'tier' (e.g. graduate scheme, direct entry from university). Professionals are educated; going from McDonalds to surgeon requires going to school first; the minimum wage job will not help you save for those fees unless you have bank of Mum and Dad on your side.
Das Kapital covers this well. Labourers must be coerced into labouring; if they are able to provide for themselves they will, and this is a rational choice.
Do we need a new word for homeless then? When I think homeless I think the inability to find work, maintain work, or earn a living. This feels like a choice. The same feeling I got when I saw an able bodied young homeless person asking for organic dog food. That does not look like what I've come to associate with homelessness.
It's more that technology enables the homeless to cope better with the circumstances that they face.
I was homeless, for 2.5 years in the UK. I slept on the streets. I made myself homeless, I call it my choice... but you know what, it wasn't really. I grew up in social housing, it was damp and I was always ill. There was violence at home, sexual abuse, fear, my cousin did bank robberies, my brother did time for holding someone up with a knife.
Yes, I "chose" to be homeless, because somewhere in that choice it was a better alternative to staying where I was and living the life that would have delivered.
I would have loved to have some tech, for the internet to have existed. Just to find out opening times of sports centres (showers), or to find cheap places to crash, or dirt cheap deals to get from place to place (rather than hitch everywhere).
It would have been a blessing just to be able to have mobile phones widely in use, to call someone rather than face loneliness, solitude.
Fuck that it was a choice, fuck that it's a choice for these people. Good on them for using every damn thing available to aspire to not have to sleep under a bush, or to only get food from restaurant trash.
And perhaps with the ability to contact others, to talk, to share... they can fight to get off the street in a much better shape than I did, far more ready to deal with the world. I was a mess when I got off the streets, with no support network I was years behind everyone else, and I still feel it, a decade or two behind, living with nothing to catch me if I fall.
There was no choice, but I truly wish I could've had these tools available to me to make it scar my life and being a little less.
Enjoy your privilege. And yes, I will probably regret posting this, I paint a prettier picture of the past usually... don't we all, these people call it "professional vagabond" it's painting a prettier picture of their present.
Able bodied != able to get work, or without mental health issues.
You can be homeless, or living in your car, and putting on a uniform every day for work, or a suit.
"Homeless" means just that: without a home. Any additional meaning is just part of the mental model you've constructed over time, which isn't necessarily a full representation of reality.
You could add a qualifier to it. "Unwilling homeless" for example.
Do you seriously think this is the first time in history that working people have been homeless? Travel around the world sometime; the continuum of poverty includes many different statuses. Why should homeless people not be as capable as other people of having desires, like wanting good food for their dog?
Living on the street is dangerous. You risk exposure, robbery, disease. The threat of rape is constant. If this "feels like a choice" to you, you're ignorant of what's involved. As the article itself says:
> If you want to say I chose to become homeless and sleep on the streets, really all I have to say is fuck you. You’ve never experienced it.
Wow, you're really going after a strawman here. The comment you're replying to didn't claim what you seem to think it claimed.
All it was calling for is a distinction between people living on the streets because it's fun versus people living on the streets because they must. It muddies the mind to lump them all together in one group called "the homeless".
For that matter... I'm working for a consulting firm right now with a job that is up to 100% travel. Some of my coworkers are "homeless", in that they don't have any fixed abode: travel and hotel rooms for 5-6 nights a week can be expensed to the client, so they just go to the beach, go skiing, or visit family on the weekend.
Of course, this is hardly the traditional state of deprivation you hear associated with "homelessness". I mention it not just to add a data point and widen the spectrum of "homeless", but also to point out that it's still a bit of a challenge to maintain formal relationships with institutions like banks, insurance companies, and the government when you don't have a permanent address -- even for someone with plentiful resources, in the email era, with readily available Internet.
Perhaps this will continue to improve in years to come, and the (traditionally deprived) homeless will also benefit.
One thing I forgot to say on my post: I lived in the US, and I grew up and again now live in a third world country. The difference in homeless population is that in my shitty country the homeless are truly poor and most, really most of the time come from broken homes, substance abuse, physical abuse, etc. Apart from some hippies who live by selling their handcrafts, you're homeless because you had no choice. Living in the streets is so dangerous and such a shitty experience that no one really chooses it.
I volunteer at a free diner to feed the homeless. It puts knots in my stomach to see someone intentionally freeload while other suffer with addiction, health problems, mental disease, childhood abuse/trauma... These people didn't choose this life.
If you can afford a $70 phone bill every month and post on reddit, you likely also could probably flip burgers. In that case, you're not homeless: you're lazy and a sleeze.
How do you get to pass such judgement on people? There is empathy to be had for everyone, especially those who are commonly quickly dismissed. I understand that you interact with the very people you call "lazy" and "sleazy", but I'm in denial that you understand the intricacies of their hardships. It is documented that the overwhelming majority of homeless do indeed suffer from mental disorders and abusive pasts. It should not be a surprise that the people who can afford a phone bill greatly overlap with the "sufferers".
Homelessness is a very real problem with people in dire, sometimes life threatening situations, that we all could do more to help. Addiction rehabilitation, mental health services, elder care, and other forms of welfare that allow society to remain civilized are important vectors that help us help each other.
Your very existence in this ecosystem as a tourist bears no fruit of goodwill. You are a bad person.
Weird, out of all their problems I would think charging a cell phone would be the easiest. Laptop, car, food, place to sleep, etc.. thats all seems like the hard stuff for me. I just have a super cheap solar panel that charges my phone.
"If you want to say I chose to become homeless and sleep on the streets, really all I have to say is fuck you. You’ve never experienced it.”"
If this is a truthful statement, why doesn't he get some sort of job and rent out a cheap room? He seems like he is sane and with the ability to work a labor job or a job at a fast-food restaurant.
Even on minimum wage, you could rent out a room on craigslist or a hotel for a weekly rate (I did this before and the prices haven't changed much). There are options for physically and mentally able individuals to get a roof over their head.
From the bottom of the article: “I’ve become a professional vagabond, and this is the lifestyle that I love.”
I think many of these people (not all) choose not to get a job because it's very empowering to live without having to follow many rules. It's a similar freedom to working for yourself.
Clearly you don't have any experience with people you know struggling with mental illness ( which by the is very prevalent amongst the homeless ). It's not a choice to be so depressed you can't show up for work; or so manic you can't deal with coworkers.
But if we're going to talk about choices and homelessness; let's talk about what we can do as a society to minimize it and it's harms. Utah has proven that a "housing-first" approach to dealing with the homeless works.
We are the richest and most powerful society that has ever been, yet we choose not solve this problem; and it does reflect badly on us.
My town tried something like this. Built apartments for the "chronically homeless" on the idea that, provided with decent homes, they could focus on getting jobs and putting other areas of their lives in order. What's happening? The tenants are trashing the apartments, selling the appliances, and not working. Enabling poor life choices generally doesn't stop those who are making them.
That sounds closer to what I would expect of such a program, but it apparently works in Utah. Is there something that story leaves out? Are the approaches different?
What is cheaper, having to replace a microwave once a month, or sending a homeless person to a hospital once a month? And once a month is probably an underestimate, if anything.
How we currently treat the homeless is a disaster, both in terms of outcomes and cost. "On a monthly basis she does hundreds of dollars worth of property damage, shoots up heroin once per week, has ten times the chance of the general population of being raped, and costs the government thousands of dollars" is genuinely a massive improvement over the status quo: people just don't realize how shitty and expensive the status quo actually is. One of the benefits of starting from really low is that things that otherwise are shitty end up looking like sunshine in comparison.
San Francisco spends something like $150 million a year in direct tax expenditures on solving its homelessness problem, to no observable benefit. It seems obvious choice to me that it'd be better to totally disregard any rights of the homeless, offer Stockton or Kansas $100 million a year just for the right to set up a staffed homeless complex within its borders, and call it a day.
Keep in mind that the Mormon church funds about half of the homeless program in Salt Lake City. They also donate free food to anyone in need. I would argue that the outcomes (for both homeless and non-homeless residents) are better in SLC than SF, but the total amount spent per homeless person is not radically different between the two cities.
When the above is combined with the fact that SLC has fewer homeless per capita, it's easy to see why the SLC method looks like the easy way out.
I also found the statements in the leading and final quotes almost absurdly contradictory. "Fuck you, I didn't choose this, but I love it."
Living in a city with a lot of visible homelessness and panhandling, I constantly struggle with what the right thing to do is. It seems like the only way to be sure you're helping is to only ever hand out food, or actually offer someone a place to stay. I used to hand out money when I had some on hand, but on reflection it seems irresponsible - what if that $5 is what ends their life by allowing them to OD or buy unsafe drugs? It could just as easily save their life by providing food or shelter, but by my reasoning it makes more sense to cut out the middleman.
Throwing into the mix that some people are choosing this lifestyle for reasons of "freedom" from society (while simultaneously depending heavily upon its existence and the generosity of others) just confuses the matter more for me.
If anyone has a good moral framework for this I'd be interested in hearing it.
> "Fuck you, I didn't choose this, but I love it."
You'll find that most difficult experiences people endure in life don't make sense on a logical level. You'll also probably find it hard to empathize with. If you've heard of love hate relationships, it's sort of like that.
I wasn't homeless, but my father was as a child under 5-10 for some time (I am not exactly sure how long).
All I can really say is sometimes it feels like you've been born into a path that is predetermined by fate, you've tried as hard as you can to jump over that wall to get out of that path, and every time you try, someone kicks you out. So you wind up rationalizing your current circumstances, finding value where you can while you have to live it, and generally developing intolerance for people who do not tolerate you.
But most of the time, quick snaps of the tongue like this are exactly that. They are a flit of emotion, over a thing that is a tangled web of emotion.
These are complicated things. It is sad to me, but most of the time, instead of helping, all I can do is continue trying to survive, so I don't have to live the life my parents did.
I always give cash if I have some on hand. Good odds they'll use it to buy a drink, which is fine because hell, I need a drink after a long day and I'm not even homeless. And there is a non-zero chance he or she really does need it to get food or get in from the cold for the night. Wouldn't want to risk not giving money when there was a genuine need because I'm worried about the case where there isn't.
>Good odds they'll use it to buy a drink, which is fine because hell, I need a drink after a long day and I'm not even homeless.
Thanks for saying this. The homeless and the poor are human beings and should not be demonized for having the niceties that make anyone's life more joyful. (Kansas, I'm not so sure you're doing it right [1].)
I once read about and have since admired a very enlightened approach to this, in the UK: when measuring the average cost of living in addition to things like food and shelter they will also include the money that a household would need to take a one-week vacation.
> they will also include the money that a household would need to take a one-week vacation.
Pretty standard (Western) Europe welfare model afaik. Here in the Netherlands it's called 'vacation money', and if you don't have a job and can show you're applying for one, you'll get a minimum wage income and vacation money is indeed included in that as a bonus once a year.
> the poor are human beings and should not be demonized for having the niceties
Absolutely, but you mentioned the UK. I visited the Emmaus centre in Cambridge a few years ago, all the lads there (ex homeless often for more than a decade) told me to never give money because buying alcohol isn't just 'nice', it's a disease that destroys people and there are alternative solutions. They all lived that life.
I'm not going to say 'don't give', but if you somehow know for certain it's spent on alcohol, I definitely would say don't give. At least, taking it from ex homeless guys who still struggle with alcoholism and the life they live now at Emmaus.
Perhaps it's different in various shitholes in the world where there is nothing to rely on, I can imagine alcohol being a sensible temporary relief, but in cities with capacity for homelessness issues, it's not a good choice. And if you look at Europe for example, you'll find that e.g. the Council of Europe has ruled various times now that not just citizens, but also refugees, all of them, without fail, are to be provided a minimum of shelter, food and clothes.
Not saying it's a perfect situation, far from it, and sadly professional homelessness relief still relies way too heavily on charity and voluntarism, but in many cities giving money for alcohol is simple not the best thing to do at best, and harmful at worst.
I'm not condoning the encouragement of alcoholism. But I absolutely applaud anyone or any policy that recognizes that poor and homeless people are...people.
I'm not an expert, but I've heard from authorities on the subject that the "deserving homeless" is almost entirely a myth. The scenario of someone who is down on their luck and has to beg is rare, and they tend to do that for a relatively short amount of time. The odds are strong that you are giving your money to a person suffering from substance abuse or mental illness.
Then again, I just moved to New York, and I'm naturally biased towards interpretations that match my recent personal experience.
People with mental health problems and drug addictions also "deserve" to have enough money to live on. Even if you insist on seeing these things as moral failings, aren't they already being punished enough?
You are arguing against a very insulting straw man, and I would ordinarily not consider you not worth addressing except that a lot of people apparently think along the same ridiculous lines.
Panhandlers in major cities are at low risk of not having food available to them. The idea of the 'starving homeless' is another counterfactual myth, just as much as the 'deserving homeless'--but if it really concerns you, there are far more directly expedient ways of helping them than giving away money. Services and shelters for the homeless are pretty terrible, but I've never heard anyone credible say that these services are worse than the shortsighted, feel-good solution of giving people money they are fundamentally incapable of spending correctly.
By contrast, it is common for the homeless to die of exposure--not because they had no shelter available, but because they are mentally ill and fell into a pattern of denying it to themselves, even on the coldest days.
Look. If you want to give cash to homeless people, do that. If you want to give to shelters instead, do that. If you want to send your money to Partners in Health to provide medical care for innocent people in other countries far worse off than homeless in the US, do that. If you want to give your money to the Republican party so they can pass legislation restricting same-sex marriage because that is truly what you believe in, do that. If instead you want to save your money and ensure your children have an easy time getting through college: fine. If instead you want to keep it for yourself for your retirement to ease the burden on the rest of us: also OK. Want to buy 6 PS4 consoles so you can use an HDMI switch to select different games without reloading them or physically getting up to insert a disk in their drive? Fine too. Nachos. Fine. Guns. Fine. Meth. Sandwiches. Ferrets. Lightbulbs. Nobody cares.
Where you lose people is telling other people that they're wrong to give cash to homeless people.
What's worse is, this thread kicked off with someone laying out in very simple terms --- terms you didn't really address --- the logic behind giving money on the street despite not knowing the purposes to which the money would be put.
You can argue however you want, including that people are wrong to give money on the street, and that it's not OK for them to give to homeless people or buy ferrets or whatever. But you shouldn't act hurt when people argue back at you.
> Where you lose people is telling other people that they're wrong to give cash to homeless people.
Why not? We encourage other people to do things all the time. I certainly encourage people to vaccinate their kids. Donating money to people who will immediately spend it on substance abuse is harmful to them. You're making yourself feel better about how you're SUCH a compassionate person at their long-term expense.
I laugh at people going, "b-b-but they're still human!!!" Like, do you donate cash on the street to non-homeless/non-panhandlers too? Yeah they're still human, why does that mean it's bad if I think about what they'll use my money for before >>donating<< it? Now if they want to earn money by working for me in some capacity, sure, they can spend it however they want. That's a completely different type of transaction.
I disagree with rayiner in that I think the things he thinks are good are actually bad, not worth feeling good about, and furthermore bad for society. Whether or not you agree, I think this is a pretty meaningful point of difference, and not sure what variety of alternate interpretation led to your epic rant.
We're not talking about Pareto-optimal market transactions here; the externalities are the point of giving money away or not giving money away. So it's an interesting position, telling me I am "wrong" for being concerned about whether one is purposefully helping or harming others. It's probably a good thing that most of the world does not share your interesting perspective.
Speaking of straw men, please note that I didn't say anything about people starving.
By all means, give money to shelters etc. But why not also give money to homeless people? The two are not mutually exclusive. You are repeating the usual mean-spirited argument that we shouldn't give homeless people money because they might spend it on things we don't approve of. But so what? It's their life, not ours. Charity with strings attached isn't charity.
I find it a useful exercise to imagine applying the same logic in dealing with comfortably well-off middle class people. If such a person has an alcohol problem, the usual reaction amongst reasonably enlightened people is to try to find that person help. We don't try to cut off all of their sources of income on the grounds that they'll just spend it all on booze. Now, perhaps some of them will spend all of their income on booze, but since we aren't so much in the habit of completely dehumanizing them, we recognize that this is still their choice to make.
The bottom line here is that drug and alcohol habits don't cost infinite amounts of money. You can perfectly well spend some of your money on drugs and the rest on food, etc. Unless you have some kind of moral objection to people using drugs, why should you care if a homeless person is spending some of their money that way? It's judgmental and mean to refuse them money because you suspect that they might be going to do this.
Enabling the patterns of mental illness and addiction is linked to negative outcomes, not positive ones. These negative outcomes include death from voluntary exposure.
So would you apply the same logic in the case of middle class people? Should we also try to ensure that they receive no income if they are drug addicts?
If you are absolutely sure that you know what's best for homeless people, and that they don't, then don't give them your money. Personally, I am not so sure.
Does the fact that they may not "deserve it" mean that they don't get satisfaction from it?
Something my wife and I have been mulling lately is the concept of "grace." She has concluded that means being able to be generous to people who don't necessarily deserve it. I'm not quite there yet but I'm trying to get there.
The "deserving homeless" are generally able to take advantage of resources that are available, like shelters, soup kitchens, etc.
Although I hate that term, because it's bad enough that we're already divided by class in this country, and now we have to impose our own classes on the homeless?
My mother was homeless for 6 months due to mental illness and an inability to access services (such as they where) so trust me when I tell you this is a truly heartfelt fuck you.
This is the modern problem though at least in my region, most people don't carry any cash at all not even coins. Everything is bought using debit cards even credit cards are not as common as debit.
Even the parking meters here have stickers with numbers on them and you use an app (Hotspot) to add money to that meters, although you can still use change of course.
Elderly people are the only people I know of who use coins and cash.
i usually don't give money to homeless people although i will help them if they need something specific.
i don't judge them at all because i (we all) have the same vices just in less debilitating incarnations, but at the end of the day... well, i don't hand out cash to non-homeless strangers either.
It's tricky. I've both personally visited homeless shelters where ex-homeless people lived and worked under guidance and coaching, and the general story from them was 'don't give money'. Maybe of them used drugs in the past and said the cliche is completely true.
In that case, if someone asks, best politely say no, direct them to places where they can get help (most advanced economies have some capacity in every city), and take the money and donate it to said places or another cause when you get home, pool it in a jar for a once a month or whatever donation if you want.
On the other hand, someone close to me in my own family was homeless for quite some time after a wrongful prison conviction. Despite him having enjoyed a great life, big social circle, never addicted, enjoyed higher education and a nice career etc, typical upper-middle class stuff, he struggled on the streets. His prison time carried stigma that he didn't deserve, but couldn't be proven innocent. He stayed on the streets partly because he was afraid to ask for help, to be seen. And partly because he was convicted on a holiday, outside of the country he knew well with a limited network.
Someone else in my family took him in, from the streets, gave him some money, a roof to stay under etc. And that's why this person is part of my family now. And I've spoken to numerous ex-homeless who had no addiction, and just didn't have any food or a roof to stay under. Or recently when we partially funded the first month rent for an illegal immigrant. He now has a painting job etc. It's an uncertain existence for him, but he's got an alright life and contributes his share to society and is financially independent. The issue is that cases like this require time to evaluate that you tend not to have passing someone by.
In short, I'm similarly conflicted and usually do give. When I have time I tend to have a chat and ask what they need. They'll say 'some change' or whatever and I'll just cheerfully say huh, why? And they'll say for some food or w/e, and I'll just hang out with them for 20min and buy them some food and eat with them. Best case he actually wanted money for food and had some social contact, worst case I fed someone who didn't starve and had a nice chat.
Don't give to a single person, give to a food bank, donate money or time to a shelter. If a single person asks you tell them where you give all your donations and they are welcome to go.
You could give out gift cards. Almost every grocery store sells them and there are reasonably-healthy fast food options (Subway) that have them as well. It's pretty easy to carry a bunch around in a wallet or purse. Pick whatever denomination you'd normally give in cash. It doesn't guarantee that it won't be traded for cash to buy drugs and alcohol, but it's certainly more of a hassle to do that than to spend it on food.
There is one for addiction issues. Maybe it's more generally applicable, but it goes like this:
They are an addict, and somehow, each day, they are going to get whatever it is. And they are going to do it, because they have to do it.
And for some of these people who are homeless, they are going to do what they do, because they feel they have to do it...
In any case, getting that thing, whatever it is, can go the easy way, or the hard way. They could be giving blows in an alley, or pay with some money they got on the streets from kind people, or due to the property crime.
We can't make people do anything. Not really. They, themselves have got to resolve to improve, or do things differently, or they simply won't. We can put incentives out there, punishments, and all sorts of things, but in the end, they really do have to resolve to do things differently, or it really won't happen.
Every year, a few of these people get there. One day, they see something, experience something that brings that resolution about! And with that comes motivation, and with that motivation comes the doing of things differently.
Nobody but them knows when this is, and often they don't even know when this is.
And until they get there, it's the easy way, or the hard way.
If we look at the cost of this, those costs can be low, average, or high, depending on how often it's the easy way or the hard way.
And when they get there, how much potential remains? That too is determined by the easy way and the hard way.
So when we give, we are helping to pay down those costs. It's up to them to get there, and when they do, they will appreciate all of us who helped get them there at a much lower cost and risk to themselves as beings, and they will be capable of that much more too.
One of us, who gives that dollar, thinking they will just go buy another beer, will be that person who gave the dollar that got them there. They don't buy a beer, instead a razor, clean up and improve from there.
We can't make their choices for them, but we can continue to present the option of doing things differently, and that happens one gift, one less hard way at a time.
In general, we are helping out. And the help is in the form of harm reduction to preserve their options, health, and buy them time during their struggle.
If you think about it, real help, selfless type help, not controlling help that comes with strings and such, is a gift. It's a gift with the best of intent, and in this world intent is what matters.
When your intent is to help, you are doing the right thing --and it's the right thing even when it doesn't appear to have done much, or the bad outcome seems your doing.
It's not, and it can't be, because we can't make their choices. Only they can.
And if we don't give that help, so many more of them won't ever get there at all.
It's nothing to most of us. Every so often, it's all that ever did matter to them.
>why doesn't he get some sort of job and rent out a cheap room?
Maybe you missed the part where we had a huge recession that forced millions of people out of work and replaced high-paying jobs with low-paying part-time jobs.
But he's not asking the man to get a high paying job. He's wondering why he can't get a low paying job and rent out a cheap room. This man is single, young, and otherwise healthy with no dependents. In that situation it is certainly possible to live off minimum wage.
>> "In many regions, there aren't any cheap rooms -- not cheap enough to afford one on near-minimum wage."
I find that hard to believe. Even in London, where rent is expensive, minimum wage would be enough for a room (not a great one but not a horrible one either) and food. Minimum wage here is £6.50 but even assuming £5 p/h that's £800 per month. You can definitely find a room for £400-500 p/m. Maybe the situation is different in the US but London is one of the most expensive cities in the world and the effects of the recession are still a lot more obvious here than in the US where the economy has been doing much better.
I took it to mean that whilst they did not make a choice to become homeless initially, once in the situation, they have found a culture that works for them.
fwiw, there are homeless people who work, so it is not only people who do not work who are on the streets or in shelters.
Renting a room on craigslist does not remove you from being homeless, a lack of a permanent residence is what defines homeless, hence living in a shelter is still classed as being homeless, as is temporary accomodation (hotel or week to week room rent, or week to week couch surfing)
> If this is a truthful statement, why doesn't he get some sort of job and rent out a cheap room? He seems like he is sane and with the ability to work a labor job or a job at a fast-food restaurant.
"Why doesn't he get some sort of job and rent out a cheap room? He seems like he is sane and with the ability to work a labor job or a job at a fast-food restaurant."
"why doesn't he get some sort of job and rent out a cheap room?"
Other posts have explained why this is fallacious reasoning but I'll give it a shot anyway.
There's more to it than simply the physical, theoretical possibility of changing a situation.
I graduated fairly recently. Could I have worked in finance? Goldman, JPM, say? I don't think it's excessive hubris to say that it would have been theoretically possible. Then I'd be working towards owning the flat I'm currently renting.
But in reality, it didn't happen, and wasn't possible. I dislike finance, and to give 90+ hour weeks in a profession I have no faith in would have been unviable. There was no choice involved; after a fairly basic reasoning process it was excluded because it would have clearly led to failure.
I hope that it's easy to see how that can be generalised down the scale. I personally would rather be homeless than work FT for a fast food company, and I express disapproval at a society that makes that a 'choice' for some.
I think it's a matter of cost-benefit. On one hand, you have a rat race of soul crushing minimum wage work, always one slip away from the investment in hard work evaporating and being dropped right back on your ass. On the other, you sacrifice any chance of advancement to live with few obligations other than what it takes to survive. It might be more accurate to say that the person didn't choose to have this dichotomy, but given it, they chose the latter option.
Our culture is rather obsessed with the idea of wage labor as morally imperative and necessary to provide life with self-meaning. I can sympathize with the idea that to some, wage labor might subtract meaning from life. Especially if it's working at a Burger King to pay for a room at a flophouse.
In previous generations we had a draft to sweep up these kids and send them to fight in places like Vietnam. Today, with multiple overseas wars underway, our volunteer army is almost entirely populated with the rural poor, and society gives urban youth a free pass to lounge in the streets.
I was (voluntarily) homeless in San Francisco for a while (http://austenallred.com/voluntarily-homeless-in-silicon-vall...), only because I wanted to work on my company instead of get a job, and I had read enough Thoreau that I didn't care to give up the majority of my time in exchange for crap I don't need. So I could have gotten a job, but I deemed it not worth giving up my freedom for. Of course, that came with other sacrifices, but I considered it worth it at the time.
In doing so, I ended up hanging out with a wide, wide variety of homeless people. Some were punk kids who wanted to reject society/capitalism, many of whom were from broken homes. Some were mentally handicapped. Some had done enough of some sort of drug that they were completely fried. A few seemed very intelligent - one lost his job as a physics professor when he had sex with one of his students, and his family was so ashamed they wouldn't take him in.
Saying things like "homelessness is a choice" is true for some subset of people, but completely untrue for others. Most of the homeless I hung out with were very affluent and had iPhones and MacBooks (you don't find many forced homeless pitching VCs in Palo Alto), but when I was in the city it was a different story. More mental handicaps, more felons, and more people who had simply fallen upon difficult times.
The amount of willingness they had in the matter is a spectrum., as was the tech they used, the reason they were homeless, and their ages But they're all people, and most of them that I met were good people, with wants and dreams and desires mostly just like everybody else. Please don't try to say, "All homeless people are x."