> I’ve been homeless and slept on the bus or subway to stay warm (and safe) and not once did someone try to help me.

Curious how someone could have most helped you at that time in your life if you don't mind sharing.

I live in Boston and arrived at my usual subway stop with a half-eaten breakfast sandwich and an iced coffee in hand. There was a "kid" (probably late teens, early twenties) sleeping on the bench and he looked like someone who was newly arrived in a tough place. I thought of my own pre-teen son and thought of what I'd want someone to do if they encountered him in this state.

When I approached He asked for change, which I didn't have, so I asked if he wanted the remaining half of my sandwich and iced coffee instead. The sheer joy of his reaction as he took the sandwich and coffee is something I'll always remember.

So you gave a kid leftovers? That's kind of like giving with the most least amount of inconvenience.

It was the breakfast I was planning on eating. It wasn't a grand gesture by any stretch, but it was a lot more than anyone else had done for him that day.

Just 'cause no one less was helping doesn't make you a saint for giving your leftovers. Maybe you can take this as a lesson for next time you're in opportunity to give.

I think the city should just provide enough shelters for the homeless. That seems cheaper than running public transport that's not getting used the way it's intended.

It's hard to fix every cause of homelessness, but providing shelters is pretty easy.

The rationale for why "just add more shelters" is hard has been explained to me as:

* nobody wants a shelter built near them * even if it does get built, it's often women/children only

and the second bullet point isn't (afaik...) just sexism or anything, it's just picking risk categories. Consider all the following like you were an insurance company trying to appraise how costly it is to do business with a group of people: Apparently homeless men are, collectively, more expensive to shelter than women/children because they're plagued by more expensive issues - more violence, more drug issues, etc. So homeless shelters frequently can't afford to operate if they try to shelter men. So it becomes an issue of "women/children only" or "it's literally too expensive to safely run the (both-genders) shelter to be feasible".

But leaving those men on the street in also expensive for society. I understand this is how it works for any individual shelter, but for the city as a whole, they're going to be paying for this one way or another, whether they provide shelters, let them sleep on the bus (a great place for people with violence/drug issues) or just abandon them to the streets to let them figure it out on their own. I think providing shelters, and maybe guidance with their problems, is still going to be the best option for the city. As long as they can look at the entire context, and not just a single shelter.

> I’ve been homeless and slept on the bus or subway to stay warm (and safe) and not once did someone try to help me.

The way in which you wrote this could be misinterpreted, so any clarification would be welcome: did you then or do you now feel as though someone is obligated to help you? If so, who and in what ways?

I’m guilty. I’d like to help but I’m not so sure how.

A friendly hello and a few bucks

You feel that people in proximity to you owe you attention and money?

No one ever gave you cash? Did you ask for it?

It didn't end well, but, the majority of people who are homeless are invisible, they don't appear to be any different than the average city person. The people who are being complained about are by in large people who are in need of public health services that have been slashed since the 1980s in the United States or never existed. I don't have a solution

> "(and safe)"

Want to make sure this part of the comment is also highlighted because big homeless shelters can be really difficult, scary, and even dangerous places, even when there are beds available, and so unhoused people have to wrestle with whether it's safer/more desirable to sleep outside rather than deal with all that. And that's not to mention all the cumbersome rules and religious proselytizing they might have to deal with in shelters. Warehousing people is not a good option.