Help the Homeless

[koshergrl]

I imagine by the end of Obama's reign (if it ever actually comes to an end, which I doubt) seeing hungry and sick children begging on the streets will become a common occurrence. That's what utopia looks like. I hope everyone enjoys it.

 

[Valerie]

Valerie, seriously, who do you think you're schooling?

I know who the homeless are. I see them all the time, I work with them, and I have spent a huge portion of my life helping them.

Are you trying to tell me that *the homeless* are middle class families who suddenly fell on bad times? Because I promise you, that is not the case.

Also, the feds classify as "homeless" families who are living with friends or other family members. Yes, that has increased. They also take their numbers straight off foodstamp applications, where people LIE to hide the fact that they are living with relatives and so claim to be "homeless" in order to be eligible for their OWN foodstamps, instead of being put on their relatives' case, or having to claim their relatives' income.

Homelessness IS increasing, however, among school-aged children. We are seeing more and more children who shuffle from household to household, living with friends or distant relatives, and increasingly, under bridges and in tents, as more and more families become more and more dysfunctional as a result of decades and multiple generations of system-dependent living.

Why do you take this thread as "schooling" you???

 

[Samson]

If you want to help the homeless in a meaningful way, contribute time or money to the nearest mission. They're generally run by churches, and staffed by volunteers and low-paid Christians.

"The Eugene Mission is a Gospel Rescue Mission providing food, shelter, clothing, social services and the Gospel message for homeless men, women and children of the Eugene and Lane County communities."

Eugene Mission

Is it still tax deductible?

 

[jillian]

Try to get those homeless vets to stop abusing drugs. Good luck with that one.

stop sending them into pointless wars of choice, moron.

 

[jillian]

I imagine by the end of Obama's reign (if it ever actually comes to an end, which I doubt) seeing hungry and sick children begging on the streets will become a common occurrence. That's what utopia looks like. I hope everyone enjoys it.

i like you, allie. sometimes i wish you'd pull your head out of your butt and stop tossing around ridiculousness...

 

[Samson]

Try to get those homeless vets to stop abusing drugs. Good luck with that one.

stop sending them into pointless wars of choice, moron.

The USA discontinued conscription in 1973.

Since then, VOLUNTEERS have joined the military: You are implying they volunteered to participate in pointless wars?

Or are you implying they are idiots?


Either way, I'm certain that most veterans of conflicts after 1973 would disagree with you.

 

[Katzndogz]

Try to get those homeless vets to stop abusing drugs. Good luck with that one.

Were you born a bitter old bitch or did you choose to be one?

Liberals made me.

 

[Katzndogz]

Anyone who has worked with the homeless for real knows what their demons are. It's a shame that you equate reality with bitterness.

DogsandKatz was acting like a bitter little schmuck in this thread this morning...

Someone has to interject a little reality. You think these poor homeless people are grateful and appreciate what you do. The fact is that you are a sucker. They don't even like you. Although they know what you want to hear. When you leave they laugh at how easily you were taken. Then it's on to the next sucker. They don't like you. They don't respect you. Try to help them and they resent you for it. It wasn't good enough. You didn't do enough. No matter who you are or your station in life, when you help the poor they think you are a cheapskate rich bitch who is doing nothing but enjoying self-satisfaction at their expense. Most of the time they are right.

This was the world I grew up in. You just don't like your nose rubbed in a little real pie.

 

[boedicca]

If you really want to support the homeless, support restoring mental institutes. The majority are nuts and a danger to both themselves and society.

 

[Valerie]

Anyone who has worked with the homeless for real knows what their demons are. It's a shame that you equate reality with bitterness.

DogsandKatz was acting like a bitter little schmuck in this thread this morning...

Someone has to interject a little reality. You think these poor homeless people are grateful and appreciate what you do. The fact is that you are a sucker. They don't even like you. Although they know what you want to hear. When you leave they laugh at how easily you were taken. Then it's on to the next sucker. They don't like you. They don't respect you. Try to help them and they resent you for it. It wasn't good enough. You didn't do enough. No matter who you are or your station in life, when you help the poor they think you are a cheapskate rich bitch who is doing nothing but enjoying self-satisfaction at their expense. Most of the time they are right.

This was the world I grew up in. You just don't like your nose rubbed in a little real pie.

No, I just don't think anyone needs to project their bullshit personal ASSumptions into a friendly thread designed to raise consciousness for the homeless during the holidays. I'll be nice and leave it at that, so as not to sidetrack the spirit of this thread, but let's just say you haven't got a clue...

 

[Valerie]

 

[Valerie]

At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done.

We will be judged by 'I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was naked and you clothed me, I was homeless and you took me in.'

Hungry not only for bread -- but hungry for love. Naked not only for clothing -- but naked for human dignity and respect. Homeless not only for want of a room of bricks -- but homeless because of rejection.


Mother Teresa

 

[Valerie]

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Buddha

 

[Valerie]

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Hebrews 13:2

 

[koshergrl]

I imagine by the end of Obama's reign (if it ever actually comes to an end, which I doubt) seeing hungry and sick children begging on the streets will become a common occurrence. That's what utopia looks like. I hope everyone enjoys it.

i like you, allie. sometimes i wish you'd pull your head out of your butt and stop tossing around ridiculousness...

I like you too, Jillie. It's a shame you're completely callous when it comes to the well being of children not your own.

 

[Katzndogz]

Helping the homeless is best portrayed in Hollywood movies. The whores all have hearts of gold. They look like Julia Roberts. The men are tortured but brave souls who only need a chance. Once cleaned up they are all handsome and buffed.

 

[Katzndogz]

If someone really wants to help the truly innocent and unfortunate take your old blankets and worn out stuffed toys with a couple of boxes of biscuits to the animal shelter. Maybe bring home a new friend that won't sap you and take your wallet.

 

[koshergrl]

If someone really wants to help the truly innocent and unfortunate take your old blankets and worn out stuffed toys with a couple of boxes of biscuits to the animal shelter. Maybe bring home a new friend that won't sap you and take your wallet.

Lol..I dunno about that. Some months I spend every bit as much on them as I spend on my kids.

 

[Katzndogz]

If someone really wants to help the truly innocent and unfortunate take your old blankets and worn out stuffed toys with a couple of boxes of biscuits to the animal shelter. Maybe bring home a new friend that won't sap you and take your wallet.

Lol..I dunno about that. Some months I spend every bit as much on them as I spend on my kids.

Tell me about it. I just got my dog a new coat and spent more on it than on my own. But, the shelters and rescue agencies are full of pets that were once loved and are now unwanted. Unlike the human homeless, these pets will be put to death for the crime of being unwanted. Every year I make a hefty donation to help them. After Katrina hit, our area shelters got dozens and dozens of pets who were separated from their owners. I volunteered to clean them up to be adopted by new families.

After my many years of being homeless, back when being homeless wasn't made comfortable, I would not lift a fingernail to "help" them. I wouldn't help a homeless person if they were in an alley gasping out their last breaths like a fish out of water.

 

[koshergrl]

That's the difference between having actually lived among them, and just seeing them as an *idea*.

I would help anyone...but I'm not a goo-goo eyed romantic when it comes to the homeless. I don't see it as anyone's *fault* that people are homeless...having been around them a lot I realize that 99.9 percent of the time, the *fault* for their homelessness lies with them and the piss poor choices they've made.

That isn't to say we shouldn't help them. But I won't support gov't mandated assistance; the churches do more now and have historically done more for that population than ANYONE, yet jackasses sneer at the churches and Christians every day, demanding that they *do more* (i.e., let the government take their money and distribute it as the government sees fit). Loons who have never spent any but the most nominal time/money on these people assume a condescending attitude based on their fantasies about who is homeless, and how they came to be there, and how everybody would loooove to work and pay a mortgage and take care of their kids if they were only given the OPPORTUNITY. Which of course is hogwash. People are homeless because they're drug addicted and/or mentally ill. Once in a blue moon, you come across someone who really just got handed some supremely horrible luck, who have absolutely no resources or relatives...but honestly, I don't think in all my time working with people I've ever run across even one person who could lay the blame for their homelessness at anyone else's door....unless you go back in time to their childhood, when their alcoholic father sold them as a sex slave or something.

In fact...even that case....a girl whose drug addled mother (not her father) first prostituted her out (starting at the age of two...those were her earliest memories) then outright sold her to some old man....who eventually died leaving the 16 year old alone in the hospital...THAT girl became completely self sufficient. The last I knew she was working as a checker at WalMart, where she'd worked for years, was in a long-term relationship and was doing quite well.

The point is, yes they have issues and there's nothing wrong with helping people out. But I get tired of hearing dewy-eyed elitists lecturing other people on how much more they should be doing, and how it's everybody else's fault that people are homeless. That's just claptrap.