I appreciate your position @ Pete and everyone...and I have a question for you Pete:
Have you ever been, or known someone close to you who became homeless? Perhaps when their homes were foreclosed on (after being sold balloon mortgages they couldn't possibly keep up with or who lost their jobs with downsizing or having great experience but were let go because they'd hit that pay grade ceiling and management decided to hire someone younger and cheaper),...or women with children escaping terrible, dangerous domestic situations who had nowhere to go because their abuser isolated them from their families and support system?
When I lived in So Cal, in an affluent neighboring county to LA, there was ONE domestic violence shelter with 4 bedrooms. 16% of the homeless population in that affluent county was composed of those women and children, and those who'd lost their homes due to the other financial problems comprised 30%. That leaves another +/-50% who were in the "other" category, some of whom do include addiction, alcoholism, and mental illness, but not all.
The landscape changed and got far worse after Reaganomics cut education and mental health funding, shutting down all of the well staffed supervised group homes many of the mostly functional veterans with PTSD, recovering addicts/alcoholics, and mentally ill used to live in, so they could heal, rebuild and move on. NONE of that exists anymore except as privatized very expensive packages only the affluent can afford, and cities realize what a huge mistake that mass "decertification" was...40 years later, because it takes a generation for the symptoms to show and the research funding to happen so we can see where we went wrong...except if you were in the mental health sector in the "80's and could see it coming.
You can't "move" anywhere if you don't have money, and you can't make money if you don't have a place to bathe, sleep, a phone to communicate, and an address to receive mail or apply for and receive benefits so you can depend on at least some food to eat or try to get into subsidized housing (which is no picnic and has waiting lists as long as a decade)...and you need a way to get to work, which also takes money.
A Texas politician decided to try to eat for a month on food stamps. He made it through less than a week and was not only out of funds, he actually realized that when you're working full time, you don't have time to bring home the food and cook what you can afford on that budget. It's truly minimal for a single adult...like $60/month minimal...if you have an address so you can get that $60 worth of food. Even a night in a shelter (which are packed full of people who are not all likely to be well socialized) is at least $20 if you can get into the queue early enough...but you have to have the money and if you don't have a job...you beg or find another way, which would likely be frowned upon by many as well.
Thank goodness you've never had to experience life like that on the streets and learn there is NO safety, quiet, or space of your own, no one wants you in their stores so you can't buy food if you have the money, and you can never stay even under a bridge for long because someone is constantly hassling you, whether its the others vying for your turf, your things, your clothes, your food, sexual assault...or the police rousing you and confiscating your tarp and blankets and dumping them so you have to start over again...with nothing.
To say "they should just move to a cheaper place" indicates you've never had to explore that lifestyle, or know what it is to have no financial cushion of several thousand dollars for first/last/and security deposit to move somewhere cheaper...and ruined credit, so you're not going to get approved to move in anyway.
You've been very blessed and so have most of the rest of us here. We've haven't had to live through a devastating war on our soil here in the US in over 100 years, we have homes with enough room to share, we're safe, have enough to eat...we're doing OK, and we don't have to scare people away by acting crazy to survive.
Please consider that, not ALL homeless people are mentally ill..but the stress and trauma of being homeless and constantly vulnerable can certainly make you so. Imagine being a small child and having no secure home, school , consistent food supply, or safe place to sleep and play.
Please consider that, with the way things are going in this world, any one of us could become one of "those people" at any time, and do know that not one of them had that as part of their "5-year plan." There are millions on the verge...millions of people under the age of 40 and beyond who work full time with 60-80% of their earnings going to housing, who are unable to save anything to "move to a cheaper place."
We live in one of the most affluent nations in the world, and we have a disproportionate number of people living in poverty without basic needs being met. Homeless cats and dogs have a better odds of finding shelter than homeless humans, and I'm not saying they shouldn't...and too many of them are euthanized. It's a stark reality.
WE in this forum are doing quite OK...we have enough, and in this nation...there's enough for everyone to have enough.
