Homelessness

[Paper Crane]

[Matze]

this man's story doesn't surprise me at all. I visited some NGO's for homeless people in philly a couple of years ago and I was shocked how easy it is to become homeless in the US. I'm currently working as a social worker with homeless people here in germany. I can spot 3 major groups of homeless people here. most of them are male and have mental health problems (either way before getting homeless and from living on the street).
there are many migrants from eastern europe here, who have good qualifications but things turned into bad - loosing the job, not having any chance to get help from the government (wrong passport), no family, dealing with mental problems, alcohol and so on. it's mostly a big mixture of many reasons. these people live on the streets

more and more young people get homeless. 30 years ago you could get a well paid job without having a good qualification, now it's quite not possible. in my generation many people grow up in families whose members are all unemployed and can't help the situation at all. if your parents receive money from the government you have to live with them until you're 25. they even get less money if you're the only one working (if you get a job). this is a heavily frustrating situation which finds his end on the streets,

last group is mostly german, got homeless in their 40s or 50s because of having a divorce or other family issues. men tend not to be good at organizing their lives in such a situations. I've seen people with the best qualifications who are not able to live a regular live anymore.

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

I don't know what garbage shit hole the United states is, but where I live, Tim Hortons, Mcdonalds, Walmart and Startek(A massive cell phone help call in center) are hiring 24/7 even through the 2008 economy ass rape. They all pay competitive wage($1.00+ over minimum) and have better benefits than most companies.

Those places would be outstanding filler jobs while he applied for a career. And don't give me that he can't show up to interviews in suits or have what he needs or blah blah blah. Those companies hire full on regular people and punk douche bag kids with pink hair and lip and nose rings that they wear while even working(Mainly talking about Walmart).

Albert Einstein worked as a patent clerk for years. He utilized his mundane position to allow him to consider his work and studied/wrote his papers on his own time. If you go to school just to get job that shovels you money after than you are going to school for the wrong reasons; that or don't take physics, take business and sell your soul for the job and money that comes after.

Yeah, its not that way at all. A lot of those places aren't hiring, and even if they are, they don't pay a living wage- you can't afford housing only working there. Also, its tougher to get a job as a homeless person than the people you mentioned. Also, patent clerk is a government job, U.S. is cutting those by the hundreds of thousands because of a misguided obsession with balancing the budget. It also is cutting education and social services for the same reason. Huge numbers of soldiers are coming back homeless, you would assume they would get some help or jobs, and could handle the bullshit, but again, its complicated

[David]

Expand Quote

I'm not saying you should be fired. I'm simply pointing out that the merits we would usually view as important are not as important as a lot of bullshit that people get by or get screwed on.
Also, some people are lazy, but so what? Some people drive like shit on the road, should we stop the government from building roads so because shitty drivers are taking them for granted? A lot more people don't take them for granted and use them properly though, so we keep them around. I think the same thing goes for a strong social safety net. Granted, I understand our cultures are different Burns, which likely affects our perspective.

[close]

I always use examples like that when people say that we should get rid of or greatly reduce federal welfare because "lazy people abuse it".  It's kind of funny, too, because they think that reducing welfare, which takes up less than 1% of federal spending, is going to help balance the budget.  Yet, they aren't concerned about the fact that 60% of government spending goes to the military.

source?

[Eschaton]

2010 US Budget Pie Chart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending_by_category.jpg