@Tilopa @bonifartius @zleap if it weren’t for the kindness of a random Jewish man who gave a younger homeless Hitler his jacket to keep him from freezing to death, all those people would’ve lived.
Life lesson: don’t do random acts of kindness to strangers; you may be causing more damage than you could ever imagine
@twitterreject @Tilopa@convo.casa @bonifartius
If you want to help homeless people, there are plenty of charities who work with that group. Give them the money so they can go out and offer the right support and long term support if needed.
@zleap @Tilopa @bonifartius my comment was just a tasteless bad joke.
@twitterreject @Tilopa@convo.casa @bonifartius
Well I stand by my comment, those who are homeless need help but the right kind of intervention, sure one can give them food or a hot drink,that is just short term.
Someone bought a homeless person a sausage roll once, he was told by the homeless person he was vegetarian, result the kind person has vowed never to help them again.
The charities will help longer term, help with any health and mental health issues, addiction etc.
@zleap @Tilopa @bonifartius I did a homeless weekend with a class in college. There’s actually quite a few organizations that can help them. It’s just hard to navigate the system to find the help. The 2 biggest issues I encountered were addictions that dominated every second awake and untreated mental illness. They run out of meds and wind up in psych unit. Sent away after detoxing and given meds. They run out and cycle repeats
@twitterreject @Tilopa@convo.casa @bonifartius
This is the problem, the system in general for a lot of people and needs is too complex. I wonder if the very people who come up with it, experience the system from a user viewpoint.
It is not as if this isn't doable, in software development we have UX / UI people who try things out and study what it is like to use a program, report back to devs on the ideas to make improvements.
There is clearly a disconnect between what you looked in to, and the people who make decisions, but if you join that organisation, you are on the bottom rung trying to make fundamental changes is very difficult.
@twitterreject @Tilopa@convo.casa @bonifartius
Governments are interested in short term solutions, help homeless off the street, problem soved as they can't be seen, outof sight out of mind.
@zleap yeah and it’s usually with cruelty in their solutions. Luckily it’s so big now in San Diego that they have to start coming up with actual solutions instead of just abusing them. Currently they basically made it illegal. Police harass & ticket you if you sleep in your car, they close off parks, don’t let you sleep near any businesses and just try to make them more miserable so they’ll leave. After busting Al Capone, Elliot Ness had a homeless encampment burned down to get them to leave
@zleap and homeless are usually a major pain in the ass to deal with. They’re typically psychotic, easily violent, or very high. You can’t use logic with them and they stop people & business from functioning by interfering at them. Most times they need professional help but the cops just make things worse. We are slowly hiring & using trained mental health professionals for them but we still need like 100 more
@zleap @Tilopa @bonifartius govt orgs & policies that focus on homeless aren’t usually priorities and not well funded. Our local govt tries to shift responsibility to private & religious orgs for helping needy. Homelessness is finally becoming enough of an embarrassment & problem to city leaders that they are attempting to help. We need a single, main govt division to focus only on it and assign specialists to each case. There’s so many obstacles and they need guidance