Thank you for writing. Please don't be offended by what I am going to say.

So, what you write about yourself is only proving gp's point. Amount of social support you receive is on par with 1-st world countries. Which of course doesn't mean you are not poor and your situation isn't tough. In most ways, you are not priveleged.

It is just another dimension of poor that gp is talking about. Where watermelon is not a cost-effective measure, but a luxury.

Sounded strange and offensive, but your perspective sure sounds strange to others.

I'm not offended. I will note their remark was edited after I replied and I have no idea if you saw the original. My remark was not edited.

Sometimes, if you don't see the exchange "live" as it happens, you don't really know what people were reacting to and when people edit their own comments and don't annotate the edits as such, it can cause replies to come across weirdly and make no sense to people reading the comments later.

I feel like initial responses understood why I replied the way I did and later replies didn't. I can't help but suspect the unannotated edits are a factor in that shift.

I've hardly slept. I'm trying to step away from this discussion because I feel I've said plenty and there's probably little upside but lots of downside to me continuing to react to things on too little sleep etc.

I am not discounting the fact that you have problems in your life. I know what it means to be poor because I have been poor in a 3rd world country.

>> People who experience homelessness have an average life expectancy of around 50 years of age, almost 20 years lower than housed populations

There are kids literally dying because they don't have access to healthcare.

>> formal education on the topic of homelessness

There are millions if not billions of people who can't read or write their names.

I am not blaming you for your situation, life can be difficult sometimes and it literally sucks to be in that position despite of all your efforts. I can empathize with your situation but I simply cannot agree with certain parts of the article.

I dunno why your being so harsh. It's not a competition on who who had the most dreadful circumstances. FYI, the average life expectancy in Papua New Guinea is 64. Homelessness, even in a first world country, is objectively a bad situation to be in regardless.

I am thankful to the author for sharing her reality with me. I appreciate her lucidity which is a huge asset I think.

>> Ultimately, I concluded that being able to choose wasn't really about money per se but was about maneuvering room. Yes, having sufficient resources helps, but making choices in life and exercising free will is not directly related to how much or how little money a person has. It helps if you have some confidence you won't starve or otherwise experience catastrophe, but that isn't about money per se.

I am not being harsh just highlighting the fact that there are a lot of implicit assumptions being made in the article wherein most of the population of the world in poor countries simply don't have the freedom to do so.

The piece states pretty early on that it was being written for a forum I run on Reddit called Gig Works. It is aimed primarily at Americans looking for alternative work arrangements and at people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness in the US because they are twice exceptional or have other barriers to regular employment.

It promotes the idea that not only can beggars be choosers, they need to be if they are ever to resolve their problems. This was a theme of my first homeless blog that was written while I was in actual fact homeless. (I'm not currently.)

I've been on Hacker News for eleven years, so some people recognize my name and know some of my back story. A previous version of this article, which is no longer available to the public, did surprisingly well a few years ago. Since it is no longer available, I reposted the updated version because I figured it might be of some interest to some people here.

I have two sons who tend to be pretty literal and as children they would say things like "You are too heavy for me to pick up -- unless we are in water or if we were on the moon...etc." Most people aren't that literal and I gave plenty of contextual cues in the piece as to whom I am trying to speak to.

You are rebutting a phantom argument where, in your mind, I am speaking to people who literally cannot read my words due to a combination of lack of internet access and lack of literacy and lack of knowledge of the English language. Most people don't think that's a reasonable argument to make since it's a pretty obvious fact that my blog post isn't being written with the idea that those people will be reading the piece and taking any advice from me.

About a third of Americans have not paid their rent/mortgage this month. There is a global pandemic on and articles are predicting that upwards of 20 million Americans will be evicted between now and September.

It may not be anything you care about because there are people in worse straits, but it's a very big problem for the US currently.

I'm in no position to help illiterate people in third world countries who have no internet access. I am in a position to help Americans who find themselves in dire straits all of a sudden due to a global pandemic or due to personal factors unrelated to the pandemic.

Those are the kinds of people I hope to reach. There is zero intent to lecture illiterate people in third world countries who lack internet access. That is so far outside of my intentions, that it "goes without saying." So it wasn't said.

> It promotes the idea that not only can beggars be choosers, they need to be if they are ever to resolve their problems.

I wish you had said this directly in the article because I had a tough time figuring out your point.

Thank you. That's good feedback.

Here's some more:

> if you want to know the correct term with which to express your contempt while pretending to be respectful.

I didn't hear any contempt at all in what they were saying. Nothing like it. I was disappointed to read that, as you usually stay respectful, but that crosses way over the line well into Please don't do this on HN territory.

It's not exactly an implicit assumption. The message was only intended for those who can receive it. Otherwise we get into a weird situation in which humans are trying to communicate with jellyfish through waves and light patterns to get them out of poverty. The message clearly wasn't meant to save every single living being from poverty.

I find it very easy to understand where parent commenter is coming from. Even though this may not be obvious, this is very much a competition. A competition for attention, for emotional support, or simply for validation. And when you've experienced the neglect, being ignored by society and generally the experience of homelessness or any other terrible circumstances, and see someone with better circumstances getting support and help, it should naturally lead to a feeling of anger, unfairness (whether conscious or not).

This is what's happening here. Also, all the comments complaining of "whataboutism", "not true scotsman" and so on show a profound lack of empathy with this commenter. You're complaining that this commenter is not showing empathy to OP, when no-one is showing any empathy to his (or other people's) harsher circumstances.

You must be misunderstanding the nature of poverty if you think so. Someone with better circumstances is by definition getting better support and help than someone with worse circumstances otherwise their circumstances would not be better. The more help you get the richer you are and there is no upper bound to that but if you don't get enough help that's when you are poor. I like the literacy example. Someone who learned to read and write at a school received more help than someone who didn't go to school. Now extend this to high school, university and all the job experience you got during your career. Someone who has gotten more help is not always deserving less help, especially if they can use that help to support themselves and free up or contribute resources to help others.

If you think this is a zero sum game then diverting that attention to someone else will not solve poverty. One person will become poorer, the other will become less poor. The "real" loser is one who believes in zero sum thinking.

Even in a first world country: 1. Be homeless. 2. Have diarrhea 3. Try finding a bathroom. Don't forget that many people in populated cities are going to take one look at you and prejudices are going to shoot up.

Now throw in Covid.

Welcome to hell.

Being homeless is excruciating no matter the country.

What would Doreen have to do or say to satisfy you?

Jus to be clear:

No one is suggesting children dying of a combination of malaria and protein energy malnutrition just need to surf reddit and gather coupons.

So what is it, exactly, you’re taking issue with?

Thanks so much for the article.

I won’t get into it, but I have life experience that allows me to understand where you are coming from.

Thanks for sharing a unique perspective, here.

People get literally murdered simply because they are homeless and for no other reason. Health problems that would be readily and easily treated if you were in housing turn into medical emergencies on the street.

I'm well aware that correlation does not imply causality. But I also know for a fact that homelessness helps shorten lifespans.

And in the US, even if it were the case that we simply dump our dying on the streets instead of providing hospice, that would be plenty atrocious right there. And we do, in fact, do a certain amount of that. But that's not the entire explanation for the statistic.

Homelessness alone is only a small factor for that drop in life expectancy. Lack of social bonds is probably way bigger (of course, you probably don't end up homeless if you have strong bonds). There's ample research and evidence showing the lowered life expectancy of housed people with few social connections.

I wrote a different piece on the same site that talks about homelessness as social death.

Homelessness is not and has never been purely about a lack of physical shelter. Articles on the topic routinely make a distinction between "homeless" and "unsheltered homeless."

Plenty of homeless people find shelter for the night. So being literally out in the weather all the time is not, per se, the entire definition of homelessness and it never was.

There are many, many ways in which lacking a home -- a fixed address with a sense of belonging -- negatively impacts health.

Edit: tone.

There are obvious direct effects that real estate ownership has on health. Homes provide protection from extreme heat and cold. They provide protection from.rain and pollution. They provide a relatively clean environment

Most homeless people are forced into the equivalent of leaving their bed sheets out for people to walk over all day long, then wrapping themselves up tightly in those bed sheets each night, while also eating food that has been thrown away.