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Judy Weismonger's avatar

Having worked as a social worker and a counselor and a psychologist and a rehabilitation psychologist in this field like I tell you you're 100% correct. I have very little sympathy anymore because of my 30 year experience. It is a choice they make. It is also Multi factorial and it is also social Darwinism. Furthermore society and religion is so structured that it actually encourages homelessness and lack of responsibility for behavior because there is a whole industry toward people making a living taking care of the "homeless and the so-called mentally ill became mentally ill because they self induced it through irresponsible drug abuse and alcoholism." I don't believe alcoholism and drug abuse is it disease at all. It's a choice and they chose to become ill and become despicable homeless disgusting people living in the gutter. OK, so be it. Many are absolutely satisfied with living in the gutter also. You can give them everything, food, new clothes, job, money, medical care, and education and the second you turn your back, the right back in the gutter. I know this from 30 years experience. It's where they wanna be, so who am I to demand that we become like a communist country and put a gun to their head and force them to be "good people."

I also found out that many times when I help people, they resent it. Why? Because when you help people it further reinforces the idea that you are better than they are. Or you have more and people don't like other people having more. Who knew there was a whole area of reverse psychology that is never mentioned or talked about in the psychology of giving or helping others.

A whole new body of research needs to go into the so-called "poor," because we're doing it all wrong and we're actually reinforcing and creating for people with the current philosophy and welfare system coming back to us in the butt and slap us in the face and creating more poor people as a result.

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Brien's avatar

Ed,

My experience with the homeless is less than yours in terms of depth, but I did volunteer to serve meals at a homeless shelter for 15 years. This was at a ‘no drug/no alcohol’ shelter and the rule was strictly enforced. There were about 300 male residents aged 40-70 who all slept in one very large room on mats on the floor. They were not allowed to stay there during the day and were bused to daytime destinations of their choosing in the morning, returning by bus in the evening. Most did not have jobs but some did. The facility was designed to be transient not long term, and length of residency varied considerably. The conversations with the homeless around mealtime were not typically deep and tended to range around acceptable social topics, however on occasion that would change, and someone would open up about their situation or their past, usually in private. Out of the breadth of my 15 years experience I came to view homelessness as a complex and varied problem that was resistant(not conducive) to stereotyping. I met and talked to homeless men who had college degrees, who had worked for corporations, who were talented musicians, who were men of character(demonstrably), who had had a stereotypical family life at one time, a few with professional backgrounds. But all were genuinely homeless, many but not all by choice. There was often the theme of family estrangement or abandonment but some continued to have relationships with children or other family members. This revolving group of men is likely a different cohort than the group of 500 you encountered, possibly because of the screening process used by the catholic run facility I volunteered at. I felt that there were as many “stories” as there were men.

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