Re:More Cities Are Making It Illegal to Hand Out Food to the...
by bokonist on Thursday October 23, 2014 @01:32PM
(#8499478)
I actually agree with you 100%. My dorm living proposal was a simplification. There would have to be different forms of living based on what the individuals could handle. I should have said, there should be government funded, permanent living, appropriate for the individual. The homeless should be provided with cheap living, with a lock on the door, where there is security, and where the other people around them are semi-permanent residents, not transients. There would need to be different types of living for the mentally ill or for drug addicts versus those trying to go clean.
There's a reason why ex-military are disproportionately homeless. These aren't lazy people or people who don't know the meaning of hard work. These are people who have sometimes serious mental health issues (e.g. PTSD, depression, alcohol addiction, etc) which make holding a job difficult or impossible.
20 hours of work might be difficult for many. Also who is going to live in a dorm with addicts, people with other assorted mental health issues, and people with various criminal records? There's a reason a lot of homeless people avoid "shelters," those places are sometimes MORE dangerous than prison (wanna get stabbed? Because going to a homeless shelter is a good way to get stabbed).
Honestly there isn't a "one size fits all" solution to homelessness. All homeless people are homeless for different reasons. All we as a society can do is start dealing with SOME of those problems one at a time.
If you do want to do the dorm thing then security has to be priority number one. For homeless people the streets can actually be safer than living with some of their peers.