Sabine Grant

Bonjour Ronin..... in reading thru the link you provided on Annie, I was mostly touched by the intervention of the police trying to carry her thru with food and coffee. Too many people have a negative perception of law enforcement.

In downtown Tampa there is a public park where many homeless "live". There is a city ordinance which prohibits delivering food to them. So the only solution is to transport them to sites and shelters which provide food. I am not sure as to why that ordinance is in place. I have heard different arguments to support it : to force them off the streets, to clean up the neighborhood, to prevent ill intentions to give them poisonned food etc....

I know that some homeless folks benefit of rides to local health clinics thru the county so I assume that a system is in place to get them to shelters especialy during cold weather.

And getting them to the shelter is the best way to register them into the social services so they can be directed to counseling and motivated to look for job training and housing assistance.

How much help can be given to a homeless person such as Annie who refuses the help? Since she had a history of mental illness and was also a stroke recovery patient, was there any way to " force" her into treatment? in what circumstances can social services intervene and direct an individual into mental care? I know they can make recommendations for seniors who are evaluated to not be able to live on their own anylonger and can harm themselves with falls or do not follow their medical treatment at home. What is the interaction with homeless folks evaluated to possibly harm themselves or others?

Sabine Grant

Hi Amos..... V. Hugo's character of Gavroche symbolizes the love for freedom which can result in dying for freedom. He did not intend to portray sainthood. He portrayed heroism.

For Africans and northern Africans who immigrate to France, most of them come from ex french colonies. France becomes the promise land for them as a country which has a common language and will relieve them from the economical poverty from their own land. That ideal is quickly burried by the reality of their homeless condition.

livius drusus

Beyelzu,

As you noted yourself, as hard as your life has been, it could always have been worse. You could have been born in East Timor or you could have, through a random coincidence of genetic activation, found the pressures of your life too hard to bear. I imagine there were times when it was hit and miss for you. Did you never come close to the razor's edge and barely escape relatively intact? The fact that you managed to carve out a life for yourself that suits you is admirable, but it doesn't mean everyone has that chance.

You just can't make broad judgements about thousands of people based on superficial knowledge of their circumstances, nomatter what hardships you've overcome. You are not them, after all, and I don't see any effort on your part to inform yourself of the realities of their lives before coming to the harsh conclusions you have posted in this thread.

Beyond that, what Ronin and Sabine said goes for me too.

beyelzu

livius drusus,
when i was seventeen i almost committed suicide. probably the fact that i was an atheist helped me to overcome the urge. after all i believe in neither heaven or hell. so i suppose that i did "come close to the razor's edge and barely escaped relatively intact." also, we are discussing homelessness in america, so we can safely assume that most people in america have at least a comparable starting point to mine environmentally(or better.) also, i believe people are responsible for there actions. people make decisions and then deal with the consequences. it is true that the mentally deficient might be unable to make rational decisions. so it is possible for them to need public assistance. i am not sure. i think it probably depends on whether they are psychotic or neurotic. i believe in personal accountability, through will and reason circumstances and random chance can be defeated.


starboy,
you misunderstand me. i believe in exchanging value for value. i do not think that a man is an island to himslelf. i simply believe that if a person works hard enough in america than he can succeed. i enjoy contact with society. and obviously it is necessary. i reject however the idea of from each according to his means to each according to his needs. i reject wealth redistribution.

sabine,
i will take ss checks when i am older, after all i will have paid into it for almost 50 years. i will not accept any government handouts or charity.

ronin,
your virtue is based on altruism, an idea that i despise and want no part of. as far as self worth. i believe in my own self worth and have no problems with self image. i love who i am and truly enjoy life. you also conclude your post with an emotional ploy. i would advocate government loans to homeless people who are "victims of circumstance" under certain circumstances. but such a system should be limited and heavily monitored. giving homeless people food and shelter because they are in need is not the way to go. also, if someone doesnt want help then dont give it to them.

also does anyone have any statistics demonstrating that homeless people were born to low income families. justcurious.

seebs

I don't necessarily care much about the generalizations; if I can find convincing evidence that at least *some* people have genuine disadvantages which make it impossible for them to earn a living, then I have grounds to consider trying to run a charity.

beyelzu

seebs,

you can run any charity that you want. and whether or not you care for my generalizations are besides the point. one point that i make is, i am opposed to the government forcing me to participate in those causes. it all comes back for me to my more or less objectivist philosophy.

Starboy

Sorry to assume you thought so. I admire your tenacity and I understand at least second hand, your struggle. My father was a refugee from the Nazi death and work camps. His was a similar story to yours. I did have a chance to visit the Ukraine with him and meet my many Slavic cousins before he died. This is a great country; our freedoms are precious, too precious to let the Christians screw them up.

Starboy

beyelzu

i do love america. and, life is often a struggle. and i agree that america is too great to allow theists to screw it up. one thing i should also say is that i dont regret the hardships of my past. i do think that they have made me a stronger if slighly neurotic person.

seebs

Certainly a philosophically consistent position. On the whole, after a lot of thought, I've concluded that a small amount of wiggle room in society is a Good Thing.

Amos

But the problem is that you can't 'romanticize' a hero, especially not if they appear to be social failures and most unlike modern heroes. In my view the typical clochards of Gavroche are Gods favorite people and saints they are!

Too bad. In Holland they get special treatment (so it seems) to avoid at least some of these problems.