When I see all the homeless people in parks and with signs . I go cold now.how about you?

[MamaJewel]

When I see homeless people, I see Jesus among us. Even the prostitutes and drug addicts are made in the image of God. When I was atheist, I could still see Christ in the down-trodden.

When I used to drive my beat up purple Mary mobile, the homeless were not shy asking me for assistance. Now that I drive a newer model car, I’m not approachable anymore from the perspective of the homeless.

I still carry water in my vehicle and because I have AC, it’s a heck of a lot cooler than the warm bottles of H2O I handed out when the passenger window didn’t roll down and the heater had to be on, so our old van wouldn’t overheat.

 

[DarkLight]

I actually miss some of the conversations on public transit.

It wasn’t generally the homeless who would bother me. Harassment usually came from college boys who thought they were a lot more interesting than they actually were. A lot of people just want someone to listen.

@DeSales111 I might not be able to go some of the same places you can. I’m a petite female so it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. You don’t see as many homeless women in general - it’s more common though for women to end up trading their bodies for shelter. But I do wonder how we could connect with these people.

Even when I was in a bad place, I know my ability to act “respectable” really helped. I talk the way someone who’s middle class and educated talks. I know how to pick out a nice outfit - maybe not something super nice, but unwrinkled khakis and a decent looking sweater. And I realize those aren’t real moral virtues, they’re just products of a certain sort of life education. But they mean it’s a lot easier to convince people that you’re a good person.

 

[Brian_K]

Being cold isn’t the worst response:

Rev 3: 15-16 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

You say you go cold now, which sounds to me like frustration with a situation that never seems to improve, which is actually a sign of a compassionate heart. The coldness sounds to me like more of a defense mechanism than a response to the people themselves. I used to feel much the same way and still struggle with it sometimes.

One thing I try to remember is that no matter how down and out a homeless person looks, when I stand before God all the things in my life that I think are worthy and meritorious won’t even make me look as rich as that homeless person.

 

[otjm]

Perhaps one of the best sources I have seen on the matter of homeless is the program “Seattle is Dying”. I would recommend it to everyone. The end of the program is not going to make some - possibly many - people happy (as it shows what is being done on the East Coast), as it would require a major change in the way we react to a significant part of the homeless community.

There are several difficulties. One is that “homeless” is used as a very broad brush to encompass everyone from someone who has lost a job and had no backup, has no drug or alcohol issues, and needs free/inexpensive housing and job assistance to get back on their feet, to the seriously mentally ill, to drug and alcohol, and a few other categories besides. And the appearance is that governments are not able to sort out the categories and find solutions to each as needed.

Another is that there is a tendency of government to look to broad programs, too often which fail to have sufficient focus to address the varying needs.

A third is that one of American characteristics is a tendency strongly to independence; and anything which runs against that tendency may not even be given lip service (see, e.g. near the end of the program above). Mental illness, or mental illness coupled with drug/alcohol addition is especially difficult to deal with as many of them simply cannot on their own comply with living other than “on the street”.

The issues affecting Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, LA and other major cities will continue to occur until major and minor businesses determine that either the elected officials who cannot deal with it are removed and those with a coherent and tested plan come into office, or until those businesses relocate out of those cities. Which is another way of saying, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result… (you know the phrase). The cities complain there is not enough money. Money is part of the issue; but failing to use money in a different way is presuming that the way the issues are being handled are effective, and there is just not enough programs - see the previous sentence.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

And yet, from my perspective, Social Security is taking money from my pocket

Give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar, and give unto God what belongs to God. There are over two thousand passages in the Bible about justice for the poor and oppressed.

 

[Minks]

When I see homeless people, I see Jesus among us. Even the prostitutes and drug addicts are made in the image of God. When I was atheist, I could still see Christ in the down-trodden.

When I used to drive my beat up purple Mary mobile, the homeless were not shy asking me for assistance. Now that I drive a newer model car, I’m not approachable anymore from the perspective of the homeless.

I still carry water in my vehicle and because I have AC, it’s a heck of a lot cooler than the warm bottles of H2O I handed out when the passenger window didn’t roll down and the heater had to be on, so our old van wouldn’t overheat.

@MamaJewel Ha! Do I know what you mean! I drove a ‘63 Dodge Polara from near the center of the US to Atlantic City and back with the heater on to keep from overheating. At every Pennsy Turnpike opportunity, we watered the radiator after s l o w l y pouring a milk jug of water over it first, then refilled the glass jugs & made sure that cardboard was between them so that they wouldn’t clank together and break. Plastic wasn’t yet available for jugs.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar, and give unto God what belongs to God. There are over two thousand passages in the Bible about justice for the poor and oppressed.

This money doesn’t belong to Cesar though, it’s not a tax for the operation of the government. It’s meant as a safety net for people who don’t handle their own retirements, and it’s a terrible system that generates little positive gain on what should be a massive pool of retirement money.

Instead of giving it to the government, let’s put it in a mutual fund that actually get’s a real return. Even with the cycle of economic downturns, there is still a positive return over time. (Even factoring in the major events like the Great Depression, and the depression of 2008, there’s still an average 8% return over time). That way, rather than stagnating and then giving people a meager fixed income to live off of in retirement (one that is pretty much never enough, which is part of why we see so many elderly people taking on jobs in their retirement), people will have a retirement portfolio to work off of. There are plenty of set it and forget it type funds that people don’t have to worry about, so this would be beneficial for pretty much everyone.

The problem is that we’ve gotten ourselves locked into the terrible system because so many people just expect to live on Social Security when they’re older, and so setting a hard cutoff is seen as cruel. Personally, I disagree. It is certainly going to be difficult for whatever generation has to shoulder the burden, but it is far more cruel to perpetuate a failing system, than to rip off the band-aid, deal with the hurt, and move on to actual healing. We’re locking the next generation into a failing system simply to avoid having to deal with the problem ourselves, and that is, to me, far more cruel.