St Louis Homeless and Panhandlers

doug · PostMar 02, 2007#5512007-03-02T20:27+00:00

southcitygent wrote:Although I am by no means an expert, the end result of homelessness is very rarely due to a poor economy. My experience has been that that illness (mental and physical), chemical dependency and difficult home environments (abuse) are its greatest cause.

Your anecdotal experience would be contradictory to decades of research done at the University of Chicago.

thewayofthearch · PostMar 02, 2007#5522007-03-02T20:30+00:00

Joblessness and homelessness are 2 very different things.

Which one are you guys beating around the bush?

doug · PostMar 02, 2007#5532007-03-02T20:33+00:00

TheWayoftheArch wrote:Joblessness and homelessness are 2 very different things.

Which one are you guys beating around the bush?

I am talking about the loss of jobs and its effect on the core. Being homeless, selling drugs, etc., are a result of a lack of work.

southcitygent · PostMar 02, 2007#5542007-03-02T21:48+00:00

I make my observations after having worked with shelters, soup kitchens and food pantries for the past 10 years.

buckethead · PostMar 02, 2007#5552007-03-02T21:51+00:00

Doug wrote:

I am talking about the loss of jobs and its effect on the core. Being homeless, selling drugs, etc., are a result of a lack of work.

I still don't agree with this. There are those who choose to sell drugs instead of work. They wouldn't choose to work a regular job no matter how many are available.

manchester · PostMar 02, 2007#5562007-03-02T22:31+00:00

The notion that one "must" sell drugs or that this is their only alternative is ridiculous. People that sell drugs are scumbags regardless of their circumstances, immigrants that have come over from the inception of the US to present have done so with alot less and have pulled themselves up by their boot straps to succeed and flourish w/o resorting to criminal behavior.

Doug wrote:These individuals are not automatons absent of free will, yet they also cannot easily detach themselves from the world which surrounds them.

Yes they can and many do. The problem I have with this statement is your fallacious belief that people who are in the lower socioeconomic stratas are unable to become successful automonously(ie w/o govt help). When you constantly tell someone they cannot succeed and that its "insert the group you are blaming" is the root of all your problems, you do nothing to motivate them but instead make them angry and resentful.

JCity made a good point when he addressed that you keep speaking of jobs being the root of all problems of ghettos but what do you do when SOME people don't want to work? What about the people that have been indoctrinated by people of your beliefs that getting a job and being successful is just out of their reach so why bother. I mean when you condone failure and even as you say expect they resort to such criminal behavior you are continuing the vicious cycle. Bottom line there are no excuses when resorting to criminal behaviour and we as a society should never condone or excuse such. It makes me sick to see people espousing zero culpability due to anyones individual circumstances.

stldtfan · PostMar 03, 2007#5572007-03-03T03:59+00:00

I doubt any of us can truly point out the causes. I guess all of the above statements are true to some percentage and homlessness is a disease that haunts us all in one way or the other. Neither the homeless, nor the people who have to look at them feel good about it, but not many are inclined to actually do something about it.

Unfortunately, there is no easy explanation or solution for this situation.

As I said, I like southcityagents recommedation of helping any entity that "tries" to resolve the homless situation, rather than just feeding them and continuing the cycle.

jmedwick · PostMar 16, 2007#5582007-03-16T02:05+00:00

http://www.doe.org/about/aboutTheDoeFund.cfm?aboutID=2

doug · PostMar 16, 2007#5592007-03-16T03:13+00:00

What I am saying is that individuals in concentrated poverty have externalities which effect their ability to achieve the same goals that the middle class take for granted. One cannot judge them with the same criteria that we use in other instances. African Americans, specifically, have only been legally equal since 64 with piecemeal additions thereafter, while housing discrimination and job accessibility disparities still exist today.

The Team Four Plan points out that public services, which are abundant in other neighborhoods, are denied at the worst, or delivered with the lowest priority, to the disadvantaged ghetto underclass neighborhoods. Judd and Swanstrom call this the "triage method." Have some understanding before you cast blame. Opportunity does not exist as it does elsewhere.

mark wegmann · PostMar 16, 2007#5602007-03-16T03:46+00:00

Doug .. I've got this one bum that keeps pissing on my building on his way to the bum house on Washington ave .. does it like 3X a week ..

I don't care if he's black,white, blue or green..I don't care if he is mentally challenged .. I would just like for him to either stop or move to Ladue .. or Sarasota ..

He hurts the business in the area he brings down the property values and all in all i don't really like the smell of his piss ..

u got some triage anti pissing method that might help?

doug · PostMar 16, 2007#5612007-03-16T04:01+00:00

Mark Wegmann wrote:Doug .. I've got this one bum that keeps pissing on my building on his way to the bum house on Washington ave .. does it like 3X a week ..

I don't care if he's black,white, blue or green..I don't care if he is mentally challenged .. I would just like for him to either stop or move to Ladue .. or Sarasota ..

He hurts the business in the area he brings down the property values and all in all i don't really like the smell of his piss ..

u got some triage anti pissing method that might help?

Listen, I am not saying we need to get a banjo, throw out our wallets, and sing a tune. We need some understanding of the situation. Empowerment of the disadvantaged, give them a chance, then if they continue their behavior, then tough love.

Regarding the homeless, they don't have the right to violate your private property. Yet, instead of housing them at Larry's, or in prison, we need rehab programs and job training.

innov8ion · PostMar 16, 2007#5622007-03-16T05:28+00:00

^ Ah, you mean like they have already?

PostMar 16, 2007#5632007-03-16T05:54+00:00

Doug wrote:
southcitygent wrote:Although I am by no means an expert, the end result of homelessness is very rarely due to a poor economy. My experience has been that that illness (mental and physical), chemical dependency and difficult home environments (abuse) are its greatest cause.

Your anecdotal experience would be contradictory to decades of research done at the University of Chicago.

By whom and what research? Funk and Wagnall's? If you're going to make claims, you may want to provide some citations.

PostMar 16, 2007#5642007-03-16T05:56+00:00

bsharmastl wrote:"southcityagent" wrote about the DT Methodist church a few pages back and how it had teamed up with the DT residents assn. I checked it out and really liked the principles behind it. Is there a reason why NLEC can't do the same?

Not sure what you mean exactly. The DSLRA had a meeting there. What is this "partner" stuff?

doug · PostMar 16, 2007#5652007-03-16T13:31+00:00

innov8ion wrote:
Doug wrote:
southcitygent wrote:Although I am by no means an expert, the end result of homelessness is very rarely due to a poor economy. My experience has been that that illness (mental and physical), chemical dependency and difficult home environments (abuse) are its greatest cause.

Your anecdotal experience would be contradictory to decades of research done at the University of Chicago.
By whom and what research? Funk and Wagnall's? If you're going to make claims, you may want to provide some citations.

William Julius Wilson, former University of Chicago Professor and currently is at Harvard. The Chicago School of Sociology focuses heavily on these themes. The research dates back decades. Pick up When Work Disappears.

innov8ion · PostMar 16, 2007#5662007-03-16T20:03+00:00

Doug wrote:
innov8ion wrote:
Doug wrote:

Your anecdotal experience would be contradictory to decades of research done at the University of Chicago.
By whom and what research? Funk and Wagnall's? If you're going to make claims, you may want to provide some citations.

William Julius Wilson, former University of Chicago Professor and currently is at Harvard. The Chicago School of Sociology focuses heavily on these themes. The research dates back decades. Pick up When Work Disappears.

Ahh, thanks. You cited this book before. It's refreshing to notice he states the phenomena isn't caused by racism.

The "work disappearing" argument doesn't seem to make sense. Jobs haven't disappeared. I mean, check the jobless rates. They may, however, have shifted to other areas. And if that's the case, we have a bus and light rail system to get people where they need to go. Maybe it could be improved. How would you improve it?

Much of the initiatives in his model are socialist like public-works projects and national health care. I don't believe that sugar-coated communism isn't the answer. Some aspects like city-suburban partnerships and private-sector partnerships with schools seem nice, however.

steve · PostMar 16, 2007#5672007-03-16T20:40+00:00

Well there is a sense in which "jobs have disappeared."

There was a time when a person with modest abilities could make a modest or decent wage--in a trade, manufacturing, and even low-level white collar work.

Those jobs are gone. These days, people with similar skill sets and abilities have few realistic options outside of food service, janitorial work, etc. Apart from paying less than the "old" jobs, they do not provide the same level of, what I guess you could call loosely "professional" satisfaction and self-pride.

We could debate and argue exactly WHY those jobs have disappeared. But in the end, the results are the same. In that very narrow regard, Doug does have a point.

the central scrutinizer · PostMar 16, 2007#5682007-03-16T20:57+00:00

steve wrote:We could debate and argue exactly WHY those jobs have disappeared. But in the end, the results are the same. In that very narrow regard, Doug does have a point.

Those jobs disappeared because, as a society, we wanted them to disappear.

steve · PostMar 16, 2007#5692007-03-16T21:00+00:00

Not sure I know what you mean, CS.

innov8ion · PostMar 16, 2007#5702007-03-16T21:12+00:00

steve wrote:Not sure I know what you mean, CS.

They disappeared because the old jobs were no longer needed. This is inherent as technology progresses and as the economy becomes more global. People have to train themselves for other vocations or find a job in the service industry. That's the way the world works and we must all deal with it.

steve · PostMar 16, 2007#5712007-03-16T21:18+00:00

Thanks for your explanation, innovation, but that's not what CS was talking about. If it was, then he didn't make himself clear.

Again, I don't think why these jobs disappeared need to be argued. I was just pointing out that they have, and I think that's a serious problem for our society.

the central scrutinizer · PostMar 16, 2007#5722007-03-16T21:24+00:00

steve wrote:Thanks for your explanation, innovation, but that's not what CS was talking about. If it was, then he didn't make himself clear.

Again, I don't think why these jobs disappeared need to be argued. I was just pointing out that they have, and I think that's a serious problem for our society.

No, that is pretty much what I meant. And it's not a problem at all.

There was a time when every city had dozens of blacksmiths. Now there are almost none. Was that bad for society?

steve · PostMar 16, 2007#5732007-03-16T21:32+00:00

OK, if that's what you mean, fine. I just didn't realize "society" had a consciousness that could will things into reality.

Is the disappearance of blacksmiths a bad thing for society?

Well, no, not blacksmiths qua blacksmiths. But if you want to use blacksmithing as emblematic of the disappearance of the type of job I'm talking about, fine. I realize those jobs are gone, and I don't think the gov't or anyone else should force them to return.

However, I think there's a problem when people of the middling sort--middling in terms of intelligence--can't get reasonably well paying jobs that offer a sense of self-satisfaction. Again, I'm not demanding the state to step in here, but it's hard to deny that this can cause problems.

PostMar 16, 2007#5742007-03-16T21:43+00:00

I guess my point is this: today, people are forced to make a choice. Either go to college, or work at McDonald's. Now, this is simplifying things a bit, but as a whole it's true. Now, some might be fine with this.

I'm not. One, not everyone should go or even deserves to go to college. In my opinion, college is a privilege that must be earned. You have to want to go, and you have to want to go for the right reasons. Colleges and universities have whored themselves out to be diploma-mills, which is bad for them as institutions, bad for the students who think they've acquired something they haven't, and bad for society which relies on those so (un)educated. Part of this is the fault of the colleges themselves, part the students for their ridiculous sense of entitlement, part the parents for coddling these little monsters, and part society for creating this perverse identity between degrees and ability. Oh, and partly the primary and secondary schools' fault for not adequately preparing people for college.

Whoa. I've gotten way off track here, and haven't said everything I've wanted to say. I just think that we've created a mess for ourselves. I don't have any solutions, I admit that. I guess I just have a problem with people who say "problem? there's no problem."

manchester · PostMar 16, 2007#5752007-03-16T21:50+00:00

What I am saying is that individuals in concentrated poverty have externalities which effect their ability to achieve the same goals that the middle class take for granted.

You are right, people that are in lower socioeconomic stratas are at a disadvantage in many ways, however our system provides opportunities for the disadvantaged to become educated if they have the desire to do so. Through grants and scholarships, many that don't have the financial means to pay for college now can do so, emphasizing if they have the DESIRE to pursue these avenues. I don't think anyone is arguing that the road to success for individuals that grow up in poverty has alot more bumps than someone who grows up in a middle class environment.

Regarding the homeless, they don't have the right to violate your private property. Yet, instead of housing them at Larry's, or in prison, we need rehab programs and job training.

Doug what do you do with the homeless that don't want your help or anybodys help. I think there are some people that just don't want to assimilate, have a 9-5, live in a house, what do you with them?

St Louis Homeless and Panhandlers

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