do something nice for the homeless

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > do something nice for the homeless

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Im Ready for DEATH: Oct 5, 2016

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/man-charged-murder-homeless-beaten-to-death-new-york.html

at least some people are listening to wisdom

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Oct 7, 2019 04:03

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 22:21

ScRoTo TuRbOtUrD: Jan 21, 2007

this thread inspires me to donate to the denver mission in order to not be like the unbelievably terrible and lovely people itt

jk fresco makes 3 olives look like eugene v debs

# ? Oct 7, 2019 06:10

hard counter: Jan 2, 2015

very well, i will turn horsehoe crabs right-side up and do nice things for the homeless

# ? Oct 7, 2019 08:12

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Gonna stop beating the homeless I think.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 11:53

lllllllllllllllllll: Feb 28, 2010; Now the scene's lighting is perfect!

Pick posted:

please do something nice for the homeless.

Help to establish a better system.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 13:15

Rutibex: Sep 9, 2001; by Fluffdaddy

Julius CSAR posted:

We don�t need to build more houses, it�s estimated that in the US vacant homes outnumber the homeless 6-1. We need a government that�s willing to claim imminent domain and just give them places to live. Also a government willing to do that would most likely also provide a decent safety net, healthcare, and jobs

if the government started seizing houses and giving them away for free it would collapse the real-estate market. you remember 2008 right? you want to make more people homeless when their house value collapses?

single detached homes are a huge waste of resources. build apartment buildings!

# ? Oct 7, 2019 16:13

Ardemia: Jan 2, 2004; IT IS MY RIGHT TO GET BEHIND THE WHEEL WHEN I'VE PUT BACK SIX SHIRLEY TEMPLES OK

More reasons why Salvation Army is Bad:
I volunteered with them on and off for about a decade. I used to take vacation time from work to help with the Angel Tree program , packing/distributing food boxes, and toy collection/distribution. My grandma worked for them for over a decade and my grandpa has also volunteered there for about 25 years. December of 2015 I had an apartment fire, and lost 95% of my personal possessions. I had the clothes on my back, my car, and my pet guinea pigs. The Red Cross provided some emergency vouchers and toiletries to us that evening. I did find it odd that the undocumented family that lived in my apartment building got triple vouchers,a consult with a lawyer, and expedited housing placement compared to everyone else that lived in the building.
I applied for assistance with the Salvation Army that weekend. I asked for any help they would be able to give. Even a voucher for some thrift store clothes would mean I wouldn't smell like a smoky building that Monday at work. They denied me completely for every form of assistance, even a 20 dollar thrift store voucher that I needed to be presentable at work. I spent the weekend shifting through my smoke damaged clothes trying to find enough to wear to work on Monday and salvaged what personal keepsakes I could that were left.
My grandpa spoke to one of the guys in charge. I asked for my denial reason and they wouldn't tell me, but he told my grandpa: I was living with my girlfriend at the time, we were engaged but not married. This mean that we were "living in sin" and that the Salvation Army couldn't support such an arrangement. Never mind all the times I had helped provide to support to much more "morally questionable" relationships and arrangements from my time spent volunteering there for years. Thankfully the Red Cross voucher helped with clothes, and a GoFundMe combined with a flexible landlord got us a place to live within three weeks so I was only technically homeless for two weeks. I got to have Christmas with a bed to sleep in. :unsmith:

At one point about 10 people from my family were involved with volunteer work with the Salvation Army. After that, none of us ever volunteered for them again. We have all found smaller charities that provide a more direct impact to the community and the groups they service.
Every time I'm asked to put change in the kettle I tell the bell ringer "I gave y'all hundreds of volunteer hours and when I asked for 20 dollars in clothes from the thrift store after losing everything in a fire I was told no. Gonna keep my change thanks."

They may not say anything but the silence from the bell not ringing after you tell them that speaks volumes.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 16:26

Rutibex: Sep 9, 2001; by Fluffdaddy

Ardemia posted:

More reasons why Salvation Army is Bad:
I volunteered with them on and off for about a decade. I used to take vacation time from work to help with the Angel Tree program , packing/distributing food boxes, and toy collection/distribution. My grandma worked for them for over a decade and my grandpa has also volunteered there for about 25 years. December of 2015 I had an apartment fire, and lost 95% of my personal possessions. I had the clothes on my back, my car, and my pet guinea pigs. The Red Cross provided some emergency vouchers and toiletries to us that evening. I did find it odd that the undocumented family that lived in my apartment building got triple vouchers,a consult with a lawyer, and expedited housing placement compared to everyone else that lived in the building.
I applied for assistance with the Salvation Army that weekend. I asked for any help they would be able to give. Even a voucher for some thrift store clothes would mean I wouldn't smell like a smoky building that Monday at work. They denied me completely for every form of assistance, even a 20 dollar thrift store voucher that I needed to be presentable at work. I spent the weekend shifting through my smoke damaged clothes trying to find enough to wear to work on Monday and salvaged what personal keepsakes I could that were left.
My grandpa spoke to one of the guys in charge. I asked for my denial reason and they wouldn't tell me, but he told my grandpa: I was living with my girlfriend at the time, we were engaged but not married. This mean that we were "living in sin" and that the Salvation Army couldn't support such an arrangement. Never mind all the times I had helped provide to support to much more "morally questionable" relationships and arrangements from my time spent volunteering there for years. Thankfully the Red Cross voucher helped with clothes, and a GoFundMe combined with a flexible landlord got us a place to live within three weeks so I was only technically homeless for two weeks. I got to have Christmas with a bed to sleep in.
At one point about 10 people from my family were involved with volunteer work with the Salvation Army. After that, none of us ever volunteered for them again. We have all found smaller charities that provide a more direct impact to the community and the groups they service.
Every time I'm asked to put change in the kettle I tell the bell ringer "I gave y'all hundreds of volunteer hours and when I asked for 20 dollars in clothes from the thrift store after losing everything in a fire I was told no. Gonna keep my change thanks."

They may not say anything but the silence from the bell not ringing after you tell them that speaks volumes.

this is giving me flash backs to my research on 19th century social assistance and charity practices. what a nightmare

# ? Oct 7, 2019 16:34

BIG FLUFFY DOG: Feb 16, 2011; On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

Julius CSAR posted:

We don’t need to build more houses, it’s estimated that in the US vacant homes outnumber the homeless 6-1. We need a government that’s willing to claim imminent domain and just give them places to live. Also a government willing to do that would most likely also provide a decent safety net, healthcare, and jobs

Do you have a version of that statistic which breaks down into cities? A national statistic is in no way useful when you're talking about something as stationary as housing in a country as large as the United States for a population thats overwhelmingly concentrated in a handful of areas. New York and LA have only 5% of the country's population but 20% of its homeless. Other cities known for their large homeless populations are San Francisco, Portland, amd Honolulu. For some strange reason when housing prices go up the homeless population does too. The biggest determinor of housing prices is supply and demand: how many people want to live in a place vs how many units are available. When more units are available than people who want them prices drop when less prices rise. Building more housing is therefore the simplest and easiest method of dropping rents and the homeless population.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 18:07

Rad-daddio: Apr 25, 2017

BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:

Do you have a version of that statistic which breaks down into cities? A national statistic is in no way useful when you're talking about something as stationary as housing in a country as large as the United States for a population thats overwhelmingly concentrated in a handful of areas. New York and LA have only 5% of the country's population but 20% of its homeless. Other cities known for their large homeless populations are San Francisco, Portland, amd Honolulu. For some strange reason when housing prices go up the homeless population does too. The biggest determinor of housing prices is supply and demand: how many people want to live in a place vs how many units are available. When more units are available than people who want them prices drop when less prices rise. Building more housing is therefore the simplest and easiest method of dropping rents and the homeless population.

The homeless population goes up in desirable areas bc the weather is usually more amenable.

SF basically stays the same temp year round so it's easier to live there if you're sans home.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 18:11

Oscar Wild: Apr 11, 2006; It's good to be a G

Solice Kirsk posted:

We should build giant Judge Dredd mega city towers. Everyone gets an 1100sq.ft. two bedroom apartment. Problem solved.

Instead of piling boulders into the medians to prevent the homeless from sleeping in them, we should electrify all sidewalks.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 18:15

Oscar Wild: Apr 11, 2006; It's good to be a G

FactsAreUseless posted:

Food banks and pantries pretty much always need volunteers and it's not as high-pressure as some non-profit and volunteer work can be.

It really is good and satisfying work. A lot of the food is from groceries and you will have to sort sometimes through produce but a group of twenty people can handle logistic to feed hundreds of families. It's a huge multiplying effect that actually gets food to those who need it pretty darn efficiently.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 18:18

BIG FLUFFY DOG: Feb 16, 2011; On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

Rad-daddio posted:

The homeless population goes up in desirable areas bc the weather is usually more amenable.

SF basically stays the same temp year round so it's easier to live there if you're sans home.

It also has the most expensive rents in the country and has large swaths of a 50 sq mile city remain single family homes due to NIMBYs but I guess youre right not being able to scrounge up 2500 a month for a studio probably isnt as big a factor as the delgihtful camping weather.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 18:20

Oscar Wild: Apr 11, 2006; It's good to be a G

There are myriad reasons for homelessness and where and why homeless people cluster. The important take-away is that we as a society are not doing enough to provide solutions. Most solutions require resources like money or living spaces and a lot of the wealthy areas in the US are unwilling to bear the financial burden. Again this is for complex reasons. Anyway, do something to help those less fortunate at least once a month.

Edit; this might have something to do with it.

https://twitter.com/DLeonhardt/status/1181004566088814594?s=19

Oscar Wild fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Oct 7, 2019

# ? Oct 7, 2019 18:26

Rutibex: Sep 9, 2001; by Fluffdaddy

Oscar Wild posted:

Anyway, do something to help those less fortunate at least once a month.

Oscar Wilde 1891 posted:

The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism � are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man�s intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.

They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.

But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life � educated men who live in the East End � coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 18:35

Dont Touch ME: Apr 1, 2018

Performing altruistic acts makes me feel gross.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 18:45

Colonel Cancer: Sep 26, 2015; Tune into the fireplace channel, you absolute buffoon

Oscar Wilde wanted to massacre the poor?!?

# ? Oct 7, 2019 18:50

Oscar Wild: Apr 11, 2006; It's good to be a G

Colonel Cancer posted:

Oscar Wilde wanted to massacre the poor?!?

Yes, to prevent the worst excesses of the French Revolution.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 18:53

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

Oscar Wild posted:

There are myriad reasons for homelessness and where and why homeless people cluster. The important take-away is that we as a society are not doing enough to provide solutions. Most solutions require resources like money or living spaces and a lot of the wealthy areas in the US are unwilling to bear the financial burden. Again this is for complex reasons. Anyway, do something to help those less fortunate at least once a month.

Edit; this might have something to do with it.
https://twitter.com/DLeonhardt/status/1181004566088814594?s=19

correct. there's getting priced out of the community, losing your job, and you stick around because thats your network and what you know. high housing prices and limited stock and high-upfront rental costs (drop 3k on deposits, first+last month rent for another 4k upfront) make that worse. There's also getting harassed/legislated out of neighboring cities and states, like many chuddy or chud-lite nimby towns/city/states will have them harassed and legislated-out-of-existence to the next town over, and then the next over, until somewhere where there's at least a little tolerance (if not good). Weather also plays a role because if its uninhabitable in the winter or peak summer, that's also not desirable and you're gunna look for greener pastures with some amenities. Some places like a nevada mental institution was sued for bussing out their worst (and unprofitable) mentally ill patients out to SF, but SF also busses others out as well.

but ultimately why is moot when federal government is doing jack poo poo and just giving trillions tax breaks to the rich and defunding IRS so the rich get away with even more paying almost nothing and then complaint about the deficient and we just can't do anything because bootstraps jesus trickle down

# ? Oct 7, 2019 19:14

13Pandora13: Nov 5, 2008; I've got tiiits that swingle dangle dingle

Colonel Cancer posted:

Oscar Wilde wanted to massacre the poor?!?

Think of him as a more eloquent and talented 19th century Three Olives.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 19:23

Mr. Dick: Aug 9, 2019; by Cyrano4747

Mr. Dick thinks it's time we stopped dancing around the real issue and start talking about a planned economy.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 21:24

Rad-daddio: Apr 25, 2017

Dont Touch ME posted:

Performing altruistic acts makes me feel gross.

That's why you post it on YouTube so you can review the act at a later date.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 22:09

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 22:21

Rad-daddio: Apr 25, 2017

BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:

It also has the most expensive rents in the country and has large swaths of a 50 sq mile city remain single family homes due to NIMBYs but I guess youre right not being able to scrounge up 2500 a month for a studio probably isnt as big a factor as the delgihtful camping weather.

Well, if it snowed in SF every winter I doubt you'd see as many homeless people.

# ? Oct 7, 2019 22:14

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > do something nice for the homeless

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