Homeless in Poland, Preparing an Odyssey at Sea
Two dozen homeless men are building a ship to sail themselves around the world at the St. Lazarus Social Pension here, in the yard of a former tractor factory ... their endeavor echoes mythic themes of escape, adventure and redemption that can seem out of reach in a world of biometric identity cards and debt-collection agencies."
Friday, November 20, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Snapshots of Homelessness 4.5 - Next Door Shelter Update
Due to extreme brokeness plus a need to stay in the city virtually all summer to handle endless amounts of school paperwork, I recently partook of a brief and delightful return stay at the Next Door shelter.
I am pleased to report there have been some improvements since I last visited. Some things are no different at all, however, and they have backslid in a few areas.
First, the short summary for those readers with busy hobo schedules:
AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT - Food quality and quantity, dining procedures, paper towel and toilet paper availability, hand soap availability, plumbing response time, laundry service
LITTLE TO NO CHANGE - General sanitary conditions, lower-level staff attitudes and behavior, enforcement of "no intoxication" policies, security, toilet sanitary ring availability, soap and shampoo availability, courtesy to those working
BACKSLIDING - "Check-in" procedures and curfews, prison atmosphere, taking initiative in assisting clients with moving on from homelessness to stability, noise control at night
The longer version:
To address the positive first, the food has taken a remarkable turn for the better. Apparently, there are two regular donors now who keep the shelter supplied with good dinner rolls, bread and sausages of various types. More often than not, meals were adequately filling and appetizing, and there were even a few that were shockingly good. There were a few dog meals, but nothing on the order of the "two skinny hot dogs, bleached buns and canned fruit cocktail" special that regularly made an appearance on weekends in previous years. The morning coffee even tastes like real coffee now and is brought out in adequate quantity.
Dining procedures are also no longer goofy and arbitrary. At most meals, the wait for food was reasonable, the line moved smoothly and there was more than adequate seating.
While I noticed that the same fungus colonies I'd seen in corners of the mens room in previous years were still there and growing ever bigger and more healthy, in general the bathrooms are now better supplied. Toilet paper and paper towels were only very rarely completely out of stock, whereas TP was usually scarce every single morning before. Hand soap was also available nearly all days and times that I was there. Plumbing response time to plugged toilets occured on the same day, or the next day at the latest.
Washers and dryers are now free, and they have also opened up a reading library in the basement.
Unfortunately, aside from the supply of paper and hand soap, sanitary conditions are not much better in general. As mentioned before, corners are not scrubbed and there's some pretty frightening funk building in parts of the restrooms and showers. Showers were as mildewy as ever, curtains seemed to be replaced more frequently but still got fairly disgusting and did not appear to ever be cleaned. While boxes of soap bars made more frequent appearances than in the past, seeing pubic hairs and other miscellaneous detritus in one box put me off from actually using them. Shampoo is still an extremely rare find.
I understand that the shelter cannot do much about the attitudes of their clientele, but there are a number of policies that are contributing to making the place even more oppressive, prison-like and hopeless. My past experience with the "case managers" there was generally positive, but now they apparently seem so put upon with work that it's more than a month from check-in before they schedule an initial meeting with a new client. More people than ever seemed to get away with being drunk and high and disruptive at night, and rather than aggressively sending disruptors to detox, they were usually allowed to stay provided they contained their shit-talking and yammering to their bed area. I can't even imagine how a working person could pull themselves up and out here, because between all the druggie/drunk disruptions and the loud TV blaring late into the night, sleep deprivation is endemic and it's very rare to get 8 unbroken hours unless you're on pills or completely exhausted.
I am pleased to report there have been some improvements since I last visited. Some things are no different at all, however, and they have backslid in a few areas.
First, the short summary for those readers with busy hobo schedules:
AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT - Food quality and quantity, dining procedures, paper towel and toilet paper availability, hand soap availability, plumbing response time, laundry service
LITTLE TO NO CHANGE - General sanitary conditions, lower-level staff attitudes and behavior, enforcement of "no intoxication" policies, security, toilet sanitary ring availability, soap and shampoo availability, courtesy to those working
BACKSLIDING - "Check-in" procedures and curfews, prison atmosphere, taking initiative in assisting clients with moving on from homelessness to stability, noise control at night
The longer version:
To address the positive first, the food has taken a remarkable turn for the better. Apparently, there are two regular donors now who keep the shelter supplied with good dinner rolls, bread and sausages of various types. More often than not, meals were adequately filling and appetizing, and there were even a few that were shockingly good. There were a few dog meals, but nothing on the order of the "two skinny hot dogs, bleached buns and canned fruit cocktail" special that regularly made an appearance on weekends in previous years. The morning coffee even tastes like real coffee now and is brought out in adequate quantity.
Dining procedures are also no longer goofy and arbitrary. At most meals, the wait for food was reasonable, the line moved smoothly and there was more than adequate seating.
While I noticed that the same fungus colonies I'd seen in corners of the mens room in previous years were still there and growing ever bigger and more healthy, in general the bathrooms are now better supplied. Toilet paper and paper towels were only very rarely completely out of stock, whereas TP was usually scarce every single morning before. Hand soap was also available nearly all days and times that I was there. Plumbing response time to plugged toilets occured on the same day, or the next day at the latest.
Washers and dryers are now free, and they have also opened up a reading library in the basement.
Unfortunately, aside from the supply of paper and hand soap, sanitary conditions are not much better in general. As mentioned before, corners are not scrubbed and there's some pretty frightening funk building in parts of the restrooms and showers. Showers were as mildewy as ever, curtains seemed to be replaced more frequently but still got fairly disgusting and did not appear to ever be cleaned. While boxes of soap bars made more frequent appearances than in the past, seeing pubic hairs and other miscellaneous detritus in one box put me off from actually using them. Shampoo is still an extremely rare find.
I understand that the shelter cannot do much about the attitudes of their clientele, but there are a number of policies that are contributing to making the place even more oppressive, prison-like and hopeless. My past experience with the "case managers" there was generally positive, but now they apparently seem so put upon with work that it's more than a month from check-in before they schedule an initial meeting with a new client. More people than ever seemed to get away with being drunk and high and disruptive at night, and rather than aggressively sending disruptors to detox, they were usually allowed to stay provided they contained their shit-talking and yammering to their bed area. I can't even imagine how a working person could pull themselves up and out here, because between all the druggie/drunk disruptions and the loud TV blaring late into the night, sleep deprivation is endemic and it's very rare to get 8 unbroken hours unless you're on pills or completely exhausted.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
OHIA v. 3 up, with change of plans
On Homelessness In America version 3 is up over at Cloud Bird Trail, follow this link to it.
Please note that Lulu still has v.2, if you want a paper copy it will not be up to date, that'll be a while while I come up with an easier way around Lulu's formatting conversion problems.
I did some re-writing and a whole lot of editing for punctuation, but there's not very much new content after all. As I was working on it, it occurred to me that the new content was really just stuff that had been said already re-written with only very minor expansion, and while many passages could stand to be revised, did they really need to be v.s. spending this time working on Hobonet or other things instead?
I decided the most important thing was that it was simply available in a free, readable, well-formatted HTML version and so that's what I concentrated on. I'm thinking about re-working the new material into a "Coda" chapter and adding it later, but I'm undecided at this point.
If you've read the book in the past there's probably not enough new material to merit going through it again, but do point your friends and neighbors to the nice new easy on the eyes HTML link if you so care to.
Please note that Lulu still has v.2, if you want a paper copy it will not be up to date, that'll be a while while I come up with an easier way around Lulu's formatting conversion problems.
I did some re-writing and a whole lot of editing for punctuation, but there's not very much new content after all. As I was working on it, it occurred to me that the new content was really just stuff that had been said already re-written with only very minor expansion, and while many passages could stand to be revised, did they really need to be v.s. spending this time working on Hobonet or other things instead?
I decided the most important thing was that it was simply available in a free, readable, well-formatted HTML version and so that's what I concentrated on. I'm thinking about re-working the new material into a "Coda" chapter and adding it later, but I'm undecided at this point.
If you've read the book in the past there's probably not enough new material to merit going through it again, but do point your friends and neighbors to the nice new easy on the eyes HTML link if you so care to.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
OHIA v3 delays, and preview
My projections were overly exuberant, as seems to usually be the case, and the third edition of On Homelessness In America will likely be finished sometime later in the year than the end of summer. Partially this is due to deciding to do an even more thorough re-write of the whole thing, and to add some new content after all. Another part of it is that I am once again well and truly Homeless and nearly broke. This is a temporary situation for a couple of months in the summer, but it greatly cuts down on my energy, writing time and ability to do research.
Donations certainly are not unwelcome at this point, but if you wish to donate via Lulu for a PDF copy of the book, I'd suggest waiting until version 3 is done, as I don't have a means of tracking who has paid through Lulu (and I feel it only fair to send a complimentary PDF to anyone who donates this close to a new release.) The book will still be freely available, in a much better formatted and more readable HTML layout than the present version, at Cloud Bird Trail when it is complete.
For now, here's a small preview of the extent of the re-written content for the upcoming version, on the roots of homelessness and poverty and how we can only truly begin dealing with it properly:
In the so-called "First World", we wholly depend on centralized industrial manufacturing processes to keep the infrastructure of society together. These industrial processes inevitably create toxic effluence which much be disposed of. As industrial manufacturing processes inevitably lead to toxic wastes, so too does industrialized society inevitably produce homelessness and extreme poverty as a by-product.
This is a complex subject and may seem outside the scope of this book, but it must be addressed in at least a basic way, because there is no "patchwork" solution that will "end homelessness" within the context of this society, yet that is what we constantly have pitched to us as the cure for homelessness by politicians, government agencies and charity groups. These "solutions" are simply designed to manage homelessness and poverty and direct the energies of the homeless and poor in as controlled a manner as possible, under the ruse of "ending" poverty once and for all. For the problems of homelessness and poverty to be "solved" - along with a myriad of other social problems! - the only true answer is in large scale social structural overhaul.
I will attempt to demonstrate how society as we know it inevitably causes homelessness and poverty, and why there is no "adjustment" to present society that will fix that process, in as concise and basic a manner as I can.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Throughout the whole of the history of organized human society, since the advent of agriculture split us off from nomadic isolated tribal systems and began the settled and centralized societies that we now think of as "normal", we have simply been shifting from one system of rule to another. By "rule", I mean top-down, hierarchical systems wherein a relatively small group of social elites determine and dictate terms to the rest of the society, usually to their own benefit.
We began with the rule of Warlords and Emperors, gradually shifted to the rule of Kings and Priests, and currently are situated in the midst of the rule of Merchants. This period had its initial roots in the Enlightenment, but became cinched as a global ruling trend with the French and American revolutions. This is not the rule of men who ship goods about the world and Kareem who owns the corner store, but international bankers and financiers who create and control the currency systems that both individual states and the "global economy" as we know it are wholly dependent on. Just a step beneath them are politicians - both the Feel-Good Obamas and the Evildoing Right Wingers - as well as the CEOs and upper management of international corporations, the heads of militaries, the heads of "spook" agencies, and all the various others who are usually blamed for being the evil masterminds behind everything.
Part of the effectiveness and duration of the rule of Merchants is the fact that relatively few people under their rule believe that they are actually being ruled. The rule of Merchants breaks from the traditions of direct force - which is still employed, but more as a last resort than a preferential choice - to an emphasis on misdirection, spectacle, control of educational systems, control of news media and communications outlets, and propaganda to control behavior on a grand scale. Most people in the world are made to believe they exist in systems of representational democracy which are ultimately ruled by "the people." When things in these systems go wrong, or the people feel they are oppressed, they rarely are capable of seeing a direct line between their suffering and the root cause of Merchant rule. Instead, they blame one of a myriad of ready-made alternative outlets maintained specifically for the purpose of shunting their negative energies. The rule of Merchants also breaks from the tradition of the most powerful members of society appointing themselves as Godheads - and thus very obvious targets for populist wrath - with a constantly rotating cast of well-kept underlings who play out the role of society's "bad guys" when called for.
Now, what does this all have to do with poverty and homelessness? These are required components of Merchant rule. Vast amounts of poor and "working class" are required, not only to directly supply the elite class with their myriad of luxuries and indulgences, but to also simply maintain the global infrastructure that allows them to conduct their business, control populations and the flow of both currency and ideas, and to simply move about the world freely in a manner that rulers and tyrants of the past could only dream of. Most of the jobs required to maintain this social structure are at the least dull, and at the most highly unpleasant and physically dangerous. To convince people on a wide scale to actually perform these tasks, the Merchants must first create the illusion of scarcity even when restaurants regularly throw out food and people leave luxury electronics goods on the curbside and in the landfills on a daily basis, and they do this by essentially locking up as much as possible of what is produced and then guarding it by force of arms. Various sophisticated social, political and religious systems are employed to keep people believing that this is a just and fair arrangement, and that they are to expect that the great bulk of the work they perform and what they create in their working life is to be skimmed off by a remote "owner" with whom they likely have little to no contact.
Artificial scarcity is the first component in making the industrial ruling system of the merchants work. Even though there is a superfluity of goods around them, people are led to believe they are constantly on the edge of ruin and must struggle, scrape and compete with everyone else around them to survive. A vast class of working poor must be maintained, and even the homeless and those typecast as "non-contributors" to the economy have their role to play in this great game. Thus, all talk of "ending poverty" or "ending homelessness" by anyone or any group plugged into and dependent on this social order is automatically disingenuous and hypocritical. The social order cannot exist without poverty, just as the massive amounts of police and security industry specialists would cease to have viable incomes if crime was truly eliminated.
(to be continued in edition 3!)
Donations certainly are not unwelcome at this point, but if you wish to donate via Lulu for a PDF copy of the book, I'd suggest waiting until version 3 is done, as I don't have a means of tracking who has paid through Lulu (and I feel it only fair to send a complimentary PDF to anyone who donates this close to a new release.) The book will still be freely available, in a much better formatted and more readable HTML layout than the present version, at Cloud Bird Trail when it is complete.
For now, here's a small preview of the extent of the re-written content for the upcoming version, on the roots of homelessness and poverty and how we can only truly begin dealing with it properly:
In the so-called "First World", we wholly depend on centralized industrial manufacturing processes to keep the infrastructure of society together. These industrial processes inevitably create toxic effluence which much be disposed of. As industrial manufacturing processes inevitably lead to toxic wastes, so too does industrialized society inevitably produce homelessness and extreme poverty as a by-product.
This is a complex subject and may seem outside the scope of this book, but it must be addressed in at least a basic way, because there is no "patchwork" solution that will "end homelessness" within the context of this society, yet that is what we constantly have pitched to us as the cure for homelessness by politicians, government agencies and charity groups. These "solutions" are simply designed to manage homelessness and poverty and direct the energies of the homeless and poor in as controlled a manner as possible, under the ruse of "ending" poverty once and for all. For the problems of homelessness and poverty to be "solved" - along with a myriad of other social problems! - the only true answer is in large scale social structural overhaul.
I will attempt to demonstrate how society as we know it inevitably causes homelessness and poverty, and why there is no "adjustment" to present society that will fix that process, in as concise and basic a manner as I can.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Throughout the whole of the history of organized human society, since the advent of agriculture split us off from nomadic isolated tribal systems and began the settled and centralized societies that we now think of as "normal", we have simply been shifting from one system of rule to another. By "rule", I mean top-down, hierarchical systems wherein a relatively small group of social elites determine and dictate terms to the rest of the society, usually to their own benefit.
We began with the rule of Warlords and Emperors, gradually shifted to the rule of Kings and Priests, and currently are situated in the midst of the rule of Merchants. This period had its initial roots in the Enlightenment, but became cinched as a global ruling trend with the French and American revolutions. This is not the rule of men who ship goods about the world and Kareem who owns the corner store, but international bankers and financiers who create and control the currency systems that both individual states and the "global economy" as we know it are wholly dependent on. Just a step beneath them are politicians - both the Feel-Good Obamas and the Evildoing Right Wingers - as well as the CEOs and upper management of international corporations, the heads of militaries, the heads of "spook" agencies, and all the various others who are usually blamed for being the evil masterminds behind everything.
Part of the effectiveness and duration of the rule of Merchants is the fact that relatively few people under their rule believe that they are actually being ruled. The rule of Merchants breaks from the traditions of direct force - which is still employed, but more as a last resort than a preferential choice - to an emphasis on misdirection, spectacle, control of educational systems, control of news media and communications outlets, and propaganda to control behavior on a grand scale. Most people in the world are made to believe they exist in systems of representational democracy which are ultimately ruled by "the people." When things in these systems go wrong, or the people feel they are oppressed, they rarely are capable of seeing a direct line between their suffering and the root cause of Merchant rule. Instead, they blame one of a myriad of ready-made alternative outlets maintained specifically for the purpose of shunting their negative energies. The rule of Merchants also breaks from the tradition of the most powerful members of society appointing themselves as Godheads - and thus very obvious targets for populist wrath - with a constantly rotating cast of well-kept underlings who play out the role of society's "bad guys" when called for.
Now, what does this all have to do with poverty and homelessness? These are required components of Merchant rule. Vast amounts of poor and "working class" are required, not only to directly supply the elite class with their myriad of luxuries and indulgences, but to also simply maintain the global infrastructure that allows them to conduct their business, control populations and the flow of both currency and ideas, and to simply move about the world freely in a manner that rulers and tyrants of the past could only dream of. Most of the jobs required to maintain this social structure are at the least dull, and at the most highly unpleasant and physically dangerous. To convince people on a wide scale to actually perform these tasks, the Merchants must first create the illusion of scarcity even when restaurants regularly throw out food and people leave luxury electronics goods on the curbside and in the landfills on a daily basis, and they do this by essentially locking up as much as possible of what is produced and then guarding it by force of arms. Various sophisticated social, political and religious systems are employed to keep people believing that this is a just and fair arrangement, and that they are to expect that the great bulk of the work they perform and what they create in their working life is to be skimmed off by a remote "owner" with whom they likely have little to no contact.
Artificial scarcity is the first component in making the industrial ruling system of the merchants work. Even though there is a superfluity of goods around them, people are led to believe they are constantly on the edge of ruin and must struggle, scrape and compete with everyone else around them to survive. A vast class of working poor must be maintained, and even the homeless and those typecast as "non-contributors" to the economy have their role to play in this great game. Thus, all talk of "ending poverty" or "ending homelessness" by anyone or any group plugged into and dependent on this social order is automatically disingenuous and hypocritical. The social order cannot exist without poverty, just as the massive amounts of police and security industry specialists would cease to have viable incomes if crime was truly eliminated.
(to be continued in edition 3!)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
the only thing you have to lose is your hobophobia
Oh man, I would never normally link to a site like this one, but ... it just gets more and more hilarious as it goes on.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
thanks!
There was a small surge in downloads of On Homelessness In America from Lulu last month. I'm still not sure where the traffic came from, but thanks! It was enough to actually get Lulu to cut me a payment, which I thought would never happen
Friday, May 01, 2009
toward a healthy home
If we must have state-run, state-funded shelters - and at present we must, given there is little in the way of viable alternatives to freezing on the streets for many right now - their efficiency in stabilizing people's lives could be improved greatly by a simple division of the population using them.
As of this writing, at the shelters and all other related services, homeless and poor people are lumped together in a general way as the "dregs and dross of the Earth." Very tight living quarters are shared between addicts, freshly released ex-cons, schizophrenics and just "regular people" with financial hardships and an inadequate social support network.
The reason that so many of these "new homeless" flock to tent cities, such as the one Oprah famously stomped through and effectively destroyed recently in Sacramento, or live in their vehicles rather than seek out state aid for shelter and other basics, is that they do not want to live in the dehumanizing, demeaning, crazy sorts of conditions I've outlined here with some of my firsthand reports from shelters and "human services."
One simple but major step towards improving the quality of life of the homeless/poor person, and the success rate of returning the unfortunate to "normalcy", would be simply by dividing the shelters, and perhaps select other services, so that the following groups - who are presently all lumped together into the faceless mass known as "the homeless" - are largely segregated from each other and in an environment where their unique needs can be met:
1) Those with serious behavioral/mental disabilities, such as schizophrenics
2) Alcoholics and addicts who at present have no real desire to quit substance abuse
3) Alcoholics and addicts who are actively seeking to quit substance abuse
4) People whose problems are primarily financial, and those with non-substance or sex related compulsion issues (such as gambling addiction)
5) Sex offenders
6) Recently released prisoners
At present, all of these groups share intimate space at the shelters, soup kitchens and other services, and it is far too volatile of a mix.
There are numerous problems with the present "lump everyone together and treat them all like crap" arrangement.
**** (one full month later ....) ****
A few examples -
I've been in three different shelters now where low-functioning schizophrenics were mixed in with the "general population". Out of five incidences, all five ended badly. The first guy randomly decided to set his mat up on top of a table one night instead of on the floor, and when confronted, jumped on the table and tried to wrestle anyone who approached him (eventually had to be slammed to the ground by a big dood and held until help could arrive.) The second guy grabbed a staff member by the throat out of nowhere and slammed her against a locker. The third guy smeared feces all over the bathroom one night. The fourth guy took a shit in someone else's bed over some perceived slight that no one could figure out. The fifth guy mumbled creepy stuff to himself all night like "You know this is gonna hurt but you HAVE to do it", got caught masturbating into the urinals in the mens room a couple times, and finally wandered off leaving a laptop behind in his locker which he never came back for.
Schizophrenics are sometimes able to suppress their symptoms long enough to get into a shelter, a hotel, go to the bank and cash an SSI check, etc. Once they perceive that they are safe, however, let the Schiz Party begin! Generally they start out harmless in a shelter situation, sitting in one spot all day or walking around talking to themselves. Inevitably, however - at least in the five cases I've personally seen - they explode in some crazy/violent act. And they do so because they are forced into a situation that they are not suited to - and the people around them are forced to adjust to them or hit the road.
I don't mean to be unsympathetic, since there's little alternative for them to go to, and the state of California particularly seems to like cutting them a $1000 monthly SSI check and then letting them go and wander untreated as much as they please. But therein is exactly the problem. While they might end up just mumbling to themselves at night and annoying whoever gets stuck sleeping next to them, there's always a chance they'll do any or all of the things I've described here. Shelter staff is generally not trained to deal with this sort of thing, and shelter residents certainly shouldn't be subjected to it just because they are poor/homeless. People suffering from mental illness at this level need separate facilities where they can get needed treatment and have living conditions suited to their situation, but under our present "social safety net", they're tossed in the mix with everyone else - and if something tragic happens, hey, it's homeless people, who gives a damn.
To address the division between alcoholics and addicts who are "on" and "off" the wagon - I've had the pleasure of staying at a de facto wet shelter, the Next Door shelter in San Francisco which I've featured here previously, and I've watched how the shit attitudes of the "I'm a drunk and I don't give a damn about anything" types bring down people who are genuinely trying to turn their lives around, put undue strain on them, and eventually pressure them into either relapsing or just saying the hell with the whole system of shelter and recovery. The drunks and active druggers pick fights, they talk loud shit and instigate, they shit up the bathroom and showers in all sorts of delightful manners and piss everyone else off. They steal pills and anything else of value they can get their hands on. If you really want to make a difference in turning the lives of addicts and alcoholics around, putting them through this unnecessary gauntlet of stress and negativity certainly doesn't send the message that you do. It sends the message that you are disingenuous, and all you care about is warehousing them so the tourists and the yuppies don't complain about them being an eyesore in the streets. Let the "wet" drunks and druggers have their own spartan shelters where they can shit things up however they please. You aren't going to force them into any sort of mold, and there's no point in trying to by threatening to cut off their beds or their food. But if they see an example of proud people, who used to be addicts on the street, living in dignity and getting a fair shake from society, maybe it will give them the initiative to try to walk that same path themselves.
People who simply have financial hardships and no social safety net to catch them do NOT need to be subjected to the Dark Carnival Of The Soul found in our modern don't-give-a-shit-about-you-human-trash shelters and service systems, and I don't have any Hard Numbers to back this up, but I promise you they are coming out worse for the wear, picking up drug and drinking problems, and generally being converted into a more Hardcore form of the homeless because of it. If you reduce them to the level of some pissbum who ruthlessly fucks off his own life, how do you expect them to start viewing themselves?
The final point I'd like to quickly address is that of freshly released prisoners. I don't think anything is "wrong" with them that they have to be isolated from everyone else. To the contrary, the ex-cons I've spent time with in the shelter systems have by and large been the most respectful, hardest working, and most committed to getting their lives together out of anyone. And that's exactly why they don't need to be right back in the middle of the pissfest, of asshats using and abusing, sheltering up in the worst drug-filled neighborhoods because that's where the city sticks all the "undesirables". They're supposed to have paid their debt already. Homelessness, as it is in America at present, is like a second sentence, and one that potentially can be for life.
As of this writing, at the shelters and all other related services, homeless and poor people are lumped together in a general way as the "dregs and dross of the Earth." Very tight living quarters are shared between addicts, freshly released ex-cons, schizophrenics and just "regular people" with financial hardships and an inadequate social support network.
The reason that so many of these "new homeless" flock to tent cities, such as the one Oprah famously stomped through and effectively destroyed recently in Sacramento, or live in their vehicles rather than seek out state aid for shelter and other basics, is that they do not want to live in the dehumanizing, demeaning, crazy sorts of conditions I've outlined here with some of my firsthand reports from shelters and "human services."
One simple but major step towards improving the quality of life of the homeless/poor person, and the success rate of returning the unfortunate to "normalcy", would be simply by dividing the shelters, and perhaps select other services, so that the following groups - who are presently all lumped together into the faceless mass known as "the homeless" - are largely segregated from each other and in an environment where their unique needs can be met:
1) Those with serious behavioral/mental disabilities, such as schizophrenics
2) Alcoholics and addicts who at present have no real desire to quit substance abuse
3) Alcoholics and addicts who are actively seeking to quit substance abuse
4) People whose problems are primarily financial, and those with non-substance or sex related compulsion issues (such as gambling addiction)
5) Sex offenders
6) Recently released prisoners
At present, all of these groups share intimate space at the shelters, soup kitchens and other services, and it is far too volatile of a mix.
There are numerous problems with the present "lump everyone together and treat them all like crap" arrangement.
**** (one full month later ....) ****
A few examples -
I've been in three different shelters now where low-functioning schizophrenics were mixed in with the "general population". Out of five incidences, all five ended badly. The first guy randomly decided to set his mat up on top of a table one night instead of on the floor, and when confronted, jumped on the table and tried to wrestle anyone who approached him (eventually had to be slammed to the ground by a big dood and held until help could arrive.) The second guy grabbed a staff member by the throat out of nowhere and slammed her against a locker. The third guy smeared feces all over the bathroom one night. The fourth guy took a shit in someone else's bed over some perceived slight that no one could figure out. The fifth guy mumbled creepy stuff to himself all night like "You know this is gonna hurt but you HAVE to do it", got caught masturbating into the urinals in the mens room a couple times, and finally wandered off leaving a laptop behind in his locker which he never came back for.
Schizophrenics are sometimes able to suppress their symptoms long enough to get into a shelter, a hotel, go to the bank and cash an SSI check, etc. Once they perceive that they are safe, however, let the Schiz Party begin! Generally they start out harmless in a shelter situation, sitting in one spot all day or walking around talking to themselves. Inevitably, however - at least in the five cases I've personally seen - they explode in some crazy/violent act. And they do so because they are forced into a situation that they are not suited to - and the people around them are forced to adjust to them or hit the road.
I don't mean to be unsympathetic, since there's little alternative for them to go to, and the state of California particularly seems to like cutting them a $1000 monthly SSI check and then letting them go and wander untreated as much as they please. But therein is exactly the problem. While they might end up just mumbling to themselves at night and annoying whoever gets stuck sleeping next to them, there's always a chance they'll do any or all of the things I've described here. Shelter staff is generally not trained to deal with this sort of thing, and shelter residents certainly shouldn't be subjected to it just because they are poor/homeless. People suffering from mental illness at this level need separate facilities where they can get needed treatment and have living conditions suited to their situation, but under our present "social safety net", they're tossed in the mix with everyone else - and if something tragic happens, hey, it's homeless people, who gives a damn.
To address the division between alcoholics and addicts who are "on" and "off" the wagon - I've had the pleasure of staying at a de facto wet shelter, the Next Door shelter in San Francisco which I've featured here previously, and I've watched how the shit attitudes of the "I'm a drunk and I don't give a damn about anything" types bring down people who are genuinely trying to turn their lives around, put undue strain on them, and eventually pressure them into either relapsing or just saying the hell with the whole system of shelter and recovery. The drunks and active druggers pick fights, they talk loud shit and instigate, they shit up the bathroom and showers in all sorts of delightful manners and piss everyone else off. They steal pills and anything else of value they can get their hands on. If you really want to make a difference in turning the lives of addicts and alcoholics around, putting them through this unnecessary gauntlet of stress and negativity certainly doesn't send the message that you do. It sends the message that you are disingenuous, and all you care about is warehousing them so the tourists and the yuppies don't complain about them being an eyesore in the streets. Let the "wet" drunks and druggers have their own spartan shelters where they can shit things up however they please. You aren't going to force them into any sort of mold, and there's no point in trying to by threatening to cut off their beds or their food. But if they see an example of proud people, who used to be addicts on the street, living in dignity and getting a fair shake from society, maybe it will give them the initiative to try to walk that same path themselves.
People who simply have financial hardships and no social safety net to catch them do NOT need to be subjected to the Dark Carnival Of The Soul found in our modern don't-give-a-shit-about-you-human-trash shelters and service systems, and I don't have any Hard Numbers to back this up, but I promise you they are coming out worse for the wear, picking up drug and drinking problems, and generally being converted into a more Hardcore form of the homeless because of it. If you reduce them to the level of some pissbum who ruthlessly fucks off his own life, how do you expect them to start viewing themselves?
The final point I'd like to quickly address is that of freshly released prisoners. I don't think anything is "wrong" with them that they have to be isolated from everyone else. To the contrary, the ex-cons I've spent time with in the shelter systems have by and large been the most respectful, hardest working, and most committed to getting their lives together out of anyone. And that's exactly why they don't need to be right back in the middle of the pissfest, of asshats using and abusing, sheltering up in the worst drug-filled neighborhoods because that's where the city sticks all the "undesirables". They're supposed to have paid their debt already. Homelessness, as it is in America at present, is like a second sentence, and one that potentially can be for life.
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