Homeless look for places indoors

[Township75]

A night in from the cold: When temperatures drop below 'threshold,' homeless look for places indoors

Sunday, January 11, 2004

By Steve Levin, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The homeless call it the "threshold," when the outside temperature drops to the point where sleeping bags, blankets and coats aren't enough to keep them alive through the night.

From beneath bushes and under bridges, from abandoned homes and hidden roosts, they make their way to one of the overnight shelters Downtown and in surrounding neighborhoods. Many are veterans of the streets. Many have survived crueler nights. They know when it's time to come in from the cold; they have a survival sense telling them that without shelter, tonight could be their last.

During severe cold weather such as Wednesday night's -- 18 degrees with wind that made it feel even colder -- shelters are typically overflowing.

Good story. Read about it here:
http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20040111homelessp3.asp

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. And that place sounds better than most

Where the people are turned out at 5:30 or 6 AM "to look for work."

Obviously, if it is too cold to survive on the streets at 2 or 4 AM, it is not warm enough to survive at 5:30 or 6. It is still dark, and lowest temperatures ususally hit around 7.

One of the interesting things hidden in that piece is that the majority of the homeless are not suffering from alcoholism, drug dependency or mental or emotional disorders.

They have simply been priced out of the housing market.

[Nay]

2. I have always found it interesting that most, if not all, homeless men

complain about the "rules" they are required to follow in order to stay at a shelter (no drugs or alcohol or weapons; have to shower and clean up after yourself and after meals; etc). They are hardly any different from teenage boys, who still think Mom ought to do all the work while they lie around and watch TV. To me, the shelters are trying to teach them some small lessons in responsibility for themselves, and they just don't get it. I truly believe that is one reason they are in the fix they are in. How many of us out here who have houses and jobs go and follow the rules of dress, behavior, etc., even when we really don't want to? All of us. When the rules become stupid or dangerous or too restrictive, we find another job/neighborhood/social circle that is more to our liking. A lot of the homeless guys seem stuck in perpetual adolescence. I am sure many homeless women are just as adolescent -- I just haven't had as much experience with them, and most news articles like this are about men, not women.

Having said that, I think it is tacky for shelters run by churches to forcefeed people religious beliefs. Not illegal, but tacky.

Personally, I would like to see shelters (and prisons, too) run like co-ops that have basic rules (everyone works, jobs are rotated, etc.), but standards and extra rules are suggested and adopted by vote after reasoning through a situation, etc. Will there ever be a concerted societal effort to really help these people in ways that will actually help them? I wonder if I will live to see the day.

And I agree with the poster above, who says that the biggest problem is that they have been priced out of the housing market. All the "men's hotels" that used to be affordable for single men are gone. What can be done to replace them? Is all real estate so valuable that these hotels cannot survive?

I do respectfully disagree with the statement that most homeless men are not alcoholics or drug users -- my hubby and I worked for years in a TN shelter for homeless men, and the majority of the men were alcoholics or drug users (mostly alcoholics). That was the beauty of the men's hotels, though -- these guys could afford the rooms, and they had the privacy and safety to choose to be alcoholics without everyone breathing down their necks. How can we bring those hotels back?

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. I was referring to the %s given in the article

about the residents of this particular shelter.

Nationwide, the fastest growing segments of the homeless population are families with children, and the working homeless - people who have one or more jobs, but the free market value of their labor is less than the free market value of housing.

[Lefty48197]

4. When it's 5 degrees outside

the only help these people need is to help keep them from freezing to death.

[NNN0LHI]

6. "choose to be alcoholics"? Is that kind of like choosing to be a diabetic?

Welcome to the 21st century. It was discovered about a hundred years ago that alcoholism is an illness. It is not a weakness of mind as you suggest in your post.

Don

[Nikia]

7. It's a problem that they need to be treated for

Intially, it is a choice. Some people are more genetically prone to alcoholism than others. People who never drink alcohol will never become alcoholics even if they are predisposed to alchol addiction. Others will recognize early on that they have a problem with alcohol and would be better off staying away from it.
Once people are alcholics though, quitting can be difficult. Usually outside treatment is needed. It is not only psychologically addicting, but physically addicting. Even if it were only psychologically addicting, being homeless and without a job is quite a psychological stress that makes it even more difficult for these people to quit than people, with a supporting family and employer, who still have problems quitting without professional help.
This is another reason why we need free healthcare for all.

[NNN0LHI]

8. Is heart disease a choice too?

A person may have heart disease because of bad eating habits, lack of exercise, smoking, or many other lifestyle factors which increase ones likelihood getting it. Does that mean the person who has heart disease chose to have it? Or does a guy who becomes a quadriplegic choose that condition because because he got on a motorcycle and crashed? I doubt many people who knew that they would become an alcoholic if they were to drink would do so.

Don

[Nay]

9. Exactly, Nikia. I feel the very same way.

There are NO widespread credible support systems of any kind so that people can kick drugs/alcohol, get medical care, get cheap housing, etc. My point in my first post is that yes, drinking alcohol to excess is a "choice" in the sense that no one has to drink it at all, and there are many people who, once they became aware that they were drinking too much, were able to quit. Equating alcoholism to diabetes is a stretch,IMO. Diabetics can't stop eating in order to avoid insulin problems.

The idea is that I think that the freedom to drink excessively or take drugs should be moderated by the availability of inexpensive housing (the men's hotels), decent free medical care if you want to kick the habit, etc. None of these men should die of exposure because they have no place to live, or starve because they have no food.

[drdigi420]

10. the first step would be

to stop differentiating between alcoholics and other drug addicts

alcohol is a drug, the most devastating drug in the history of man

alcohol kills 6 times as many people every year than ALL ILLEGAL DRUGS COMBINED

when someone says 'alcohol and drugs' its like saying 'sedans and cars' or 'cats and pets'

it may seem like a small language thing, but it is part of the way the alcohol companies try to pretend they arent drug dealers and drinkers try to pretend they arent druggies

maybe leveling the playing field might get people to consider each drug individually instead of blanket assumptions

hell, they might even figure out that marijuana is the safest theraputic substance known to man with a perfect record of ZERO deaths in the thousands of years of documented use

[Nay]

11. Very true, Dr.

But in the above posts, we all are talking about folks who use damaging substances in addition to being homeless and jobless, and the effects thereof. We aren't really getting into the mechanics of the crazy Drug War. Perhaps the phrase "alcohol and illegal drugs" would be preferable, since I think the reason most people separate the two is that alcohol is legal and drugs (most of the ones we are talking about above, anyway) are illegal.

Personally, I think marijuana should be completely legal to use, grow, sell and distribute. It harms no one and god knows this country could stand to mellow out a bit. And the junk food companies' stock would go sky high!

Buy Doritos stock now!

[ldoolin]

12. Republicans largely created the homeless problem and then blame the victim

There was a move over the past few decades to demolish the men's hotels or so-called "flophouses" in the name of higher property values and urban renewal. A high-priced condo is worth more to the real estate industry than a cheap hotel with a "transients welcome" sign is.

The issues are rather complex, there is no one reason but here's how I understand it: 40 years ago somebody could "hit the rails" so to speak and head out west to work on the farms, take temporary mining or construction jobs, etc. When it got too cold they could hop a freight back east to winter up in Chicago and stay in one of the workingmen's hotels on W. Madison, or west to Seattle, or down south to work in Yuma, and so on. If they headed for Chicago or Seattle they could stay all winter in the men's hotel with the money they had saved over the summer working odd jobs and living in "jungles". By and large they were not mentally ill but were people who had fallen through society's cracks and for whatever reason hadn't achieved a middle class lifestyle; those suffering from mental illness were often in state mental institutions. The common term back then wasn't "homeless" or "bum", it was "hobo". "Bums" were those who didn't work, stayed in one place, and were looked down on.

A number of things happened: There was a move to defund the state mental institutions and release those suffering from mental illness. This issue is in itself complex and there were undeniably a lot of abuses that went on in those institutions, however I think the answer was not to turn mentally ill people out on the streets but to reform the institutions and end the abuses. In any case the conservative Republicans in particular (influenced by right-wing Libertarian theorists like Thomas Szasz) led a move to end involuntary institutionalization of the mentally ill, in the name of fiscal conservatism and budget cutting. There was also a lot of support for this among liberals, on civil liberties grounds, and I am pretty much conflicted on this issue myself - the civil liberties issues regarding involuntary institutionalization are genuine concerns. Nonetheless we wound up with a lot of mentally ill people turned out onto the streets, with no way of being able to hold down a job or get off the streets unless they had family members willing and able to take them in.

At the same time real estate interests saw big money to be made in demolishing the old workingmen's hotels/"flophouses" and low-rent apartments, and building high-priced condos, high-rent apartments, shopping centers, business buildings, and so on in their place. This process of gentrification was promoted by chambers of commerce and city leaders on the grounds of "urban renewal", and often by using demagoguery to stir up concerns among suburban whites about nonexistent crime, drug, and prostitution problems that the old low-rent neighborhoods supposedly attracted. The net result was even more people being forced onto the street, because of being priced out of the housing market because of gentrification. These weren't the stereotypical nonworking "bums" at all but the classic traveling worker.

Also starting around 1968-1970 came the advent of politicians touting their "tough on crime" policies, "law and order", and the war on drugs. The prison population in the U.S. today as a result is 10 times what it was in 1970. We have demagogues in political office to blame for this, using "crime" and "drugs" to stir up the indignation of suburban whites and attract their votes, and again the net result is 10 times as many generally unemployable people being turned out onto the streets as we did in 1970 and before. Many of them wind up homeless because of being unable to get a job or an apartment - and turning back to crime (and getting back into prison) is often the only route out of their situation.

Then the Republicans turn around and blame the homeless for their plight. It's a classic case of creating the problem and then blaming the victim, and THAT is why I call them REPUKES.

[Nikia]

5. Cooperative family housing could be good

In the past, large extended families that may have included some non relatives lived together during tough economic times. People tend to be more isolated now but groups of people living together still could be good both economically and socially.
One group, who often does poorly, is single mothers. It is difficult for them to work, unless they have skills for higher paying jobs, and take care of their young children or pay someone to take care of them while they are at work and have enough money to support themselves and their children. These families often suffer from poverty. It would be good to get several (6-10) of these families living in a housing unit with seperate apartments, but a common kitchen, living room, and play area. They might hire a babysittter or have the mothers, if they have differeing enough schedules, rotate in watching the children. They could have common meals with food being cheaper in bulk and with one set of appliances. Chores could be rotated. With social and economic support, these women would be less likely to move in with men who may be abusive or in other ways negative for them and their family. This may not be suitable for all such families but I think that it could benefit a great deal of them.

[shanti]

13. i agree with you on cooperative housing

too bad it hasn't really taken root, it could help many people. the 60's hippies made it work!

[Z-axis]

14. And with all those empty houses

Almost every closed military base has hundreds or thousands of empty or unused houses. Not one, that I know of, has ever been given to a homeless person or family. They just sit there, vacant and rotting.

z-axis