With all the programs available not only through government agency's but also through private programs how can this happen.
I understand how it happens to people with substance abuse and mental health problems.
I understand how the cost of housing in this country has skyrocketed causing it harder for people to find affordable housing.
I do not understand how with all the help available why anyone with any problem should be looking for their next meal from a dumpster or living on the streets.
This is even more heartbreaking to see children in this situation especially during the holidays.

For this post, I'm going to disregard mental illness (includes serious drug addiction), which can be a huge factor but best left for a different discussion...

In many/most non-mental-related cases, being poor boils down to a lengthy history of poor life choices. (Who'd have thought that poor choices have negative consequences?)

More specifically, stuff like: Total inability to manage money. Having a boatload of kids without a way to pay for it. Addiction (not just illicit substances, but also stuff like gambling, cigarettes, alcohol, overeating, etc.). Laziness/poor work ethic. Lack of education or marketable skills, because they didn't/can't apply themselves to finishing school or training programs. Criminal activity (fines/fees/restitution/lost wages due to jail/etc. gets expensive, not to mention the difficulty of getting a real job with a criminal record.)

And the list goes on.

Quite a few of the "poor" people I know or deal with in my line of work are part of every government assistance and local assistance program available. And yet all that is still not enough to counteract their ongoing poor life choices. Handouts won't fix the underlying issues. (It's the old "give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish" analogy.)

Their food stamps go towards expensive products and junk food, so they run out well before the end of the month. They trash their houses and steal from their neighbors, so they get kicked out of subsidized housing programs, and nobody will rent to them except expensive slum lords or pay-by-the-week motels. Any spare cash they get is immediately spent on substances (tobacco, booze, drugs) and luxury items (fancy sneakers, jewelry, TVs, iPhones, etc.). They take long-term high interest loans to get cars that are bigger/fancier than they need. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe I'm jaded. (Okay, I'm definitely jaded; 15 years in LE will do that.) But the adults who fall into this above category get little-to-no sympathy from me. And that's a large percentage of the "poor" folks out there. However, I have sympathy for their kids, who didn't ask to be in that situation, yet who often will end up just like their parents because that's all they know. And I do have immense sympathy and respect for those folks who, due to bad luck and some reason besides a history of poor choices (like being suddenly laid off in a poor job market, huge medical bills, etc.) end up temporarily poor, or who made past bad choices but are working to correct them. These folks are making good choices and actively working on not being poor any more, instead of just continuing the poverty cycle while waiting for someone to swoop in to give them handouts and fix it for them.


Specifically regarding the homeless and ultra-destitute, like you referenced with "digging through dumpsters and living on the streets": In my experience, nearly every truly homeless person is homeless either because of severe untreated mental illness, or else by choice. I referenced the former in my first sentence, but the latter is just (yet another) poor life choice. They actually like not having a boss, bills, rules, responsibilities, etc. And they won't take advantage of any of the numerous shelter or housing options available because those places have bosses and rules.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RogueJSK,

I find many cases heartbreaking, especially for children. Probably a very complex situation with many facets and every speculation subject to debate and exception.

But my general, simple perspective, after peeling back all the complex layers, is the original sin of greed.

Over 70% of the students in the school system here are on free or reduced meals. They’ve also started feeding these kids during the summer.

I've got what I believe to be a better question: Unemployment is at historical lows, job growth steady, and many employers are screaming for people to fill positions. Yet there was a piece on the local "news" a couple evenings ago about how demand for food assistance is higher than ever. What's up with that?

mental illness plays a huge part,
p.t.s.d. especially .
and
America is driven by the dollar,
when it becomes very profitable to care about the homeless,
things will turn around

I can speak anecdotally about one person I know. We worked together about 15 years ago, and have stayed in touch - she was part time as a receptionist. She made enough to pay rent and barely get by.

She suffers from mental illness. Severely. It's gotten worse over the years. In part because of her inability to afford to see a good dr. And therapist.

She doesn't have a car, so relying on public transport makes it more difficult.

She then decided to go back to school. She did this, and graduated. She surprised me by not only finishing, but by getting really good grades. She lived off of scholarships and loans. At this point was still able to maintain a cheap apartment.

After graduation, she (like many graduates) had a tough time finding work. Her degree is in art, so you get the idea.

So no work, no income, led to giving up her apartment. Then crashing with friends. Then moving to a shelter.

There she was sexually assaulted, and her depression and illness became severely worse.

She eventually found enough cash to get to CA, where she has some family.

I could provide more details, but you get the idea.

It's a vicious cycle. Hard to find work when you have nothing. When you look like shit. When you are suffering. When you have no skill other than writing poetry and songs.

In short, her reason is a combination of poor choices, mental illness, and overall lack of responsibility to take control over her decisions.

quote:

Can someone explain to me how in this day and age people can be homeless and hungry especially children?

Ultimately we are responsible for our own actions.
Some exceptions of course but we ultimately make our own course.
It is what the Liberals hate, they say it is everything under the sun BUT our own actions is the cause.
They want the power to control your life.
It is the ultimate battle and difference of good vs evil aka dem vs rep and lib vs conservative.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
mental illness plays a huge part,
p.t.s.d. especially .
and
America is driven by the dollar,
when it becomes very profitable to care about the homeless,
things will turn around

Sorry bendy, it is very profitably and continues to be a huge problem and growing. Throwing money at it does nothing but proliferate it. We should be smart enough to know this by now. And we certainly are. But that is were we are on the subject.

Being bankrupted by this and other things like it are the road we are on as a nation.

Thank you for some of the reasons why.
I am not exactly a young guy "mid 50s" so I have seen some things in my life. I grew up in New Jersey. I worked as a service manager for a fire protection company. I did a lot of work in inner city's and towns that had fallen on hard times.
The thing that gets me, is back in the 60s the idea of "The Great Society" Johnson talked about. This was suppose to take care of all of these problems. It seems all we have done is spend billions of dollars with little or no change. It sometimes seems as though thing have gotten worse not better.

America is the most generous country on the planet but we continue to spend more money on foreign countries than we provide for our own citizens. Handing out freebies isn't the answer.

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

OP, your post came at a opportune time. I'm putting a home on some property I bought. It's a VERY rural part of Utah, a mile from the Idaho border.

Right after you get off of I-15, there's a collapsed shop of some sort. I noticed a car or two parked there around late spring. It's now grown to a collection of ramshackle RVs.

I'm hoping at least one of the "residents" happens to own the property.

So far, I haven't heard of any problems in town, which is two miles down the road. It just started snowing in earnest for the first time this season...

quote:

Originally posted by az4783054:


“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

I thought it was build a man a fire and keep him warm for a day, set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.

Abused women with kids who run away with them often find themselves temporary homeless and hungry. The one they are running from more often than not controlled them financially as well leaving them in a bad spot when they finally run. Often times too they will leave the area they are from and end up in unfamiliar territory trying to get away from the person.

If you are ever looking for a good charity to support in your local areas seek out the battered women's support in your area. Faith based or otherwise.

In short, shitty parents.

Mix in a tiny bit of bad luck, add some poor life decisions, then wisk in lack of perseverance and that's a great recipe for being destitute.

Once you get behind, it's really hard to claw your way back. You need to be willing to live cheap and work harder than everyone around you.

I have a friend two steps away from being homeless. He's a Master Electrician and could easily get a job earning $70-80k or possibly more. Problem is he's made a crap ton of bad decisions, biggest recent ones were burning bridge with our mutual friend who treated him like his son and was his employer. Next he burned a bridge with another mutual friend who would give him unlimited side work. He gave up $100k plus per year in salary and side work and is working somewhere for $46k a year instead. He's always asking why bad shit happens to him. When I tell him he continues to make same bad decisions I don't hear from until he hits another low.

It's sad really, I'm not sure he'll ever come back.

Forgot to mention he's an alcoholic and wife drinks and does some kind of drugs.

No reason he should be getting food from the pantry, he should be donating it.

Good luck buddy, hope you figure your shit out.

quote:

Originally posted by dusty3030:
Abused women with kids who run away with them often find themselves temporary homeless and hungry. The one they are running from more often than not controlled them financially as well leaving them in a bad spot when they finally run. Often times too they will leave the area they are from and end up in unfamiliar territory trying to get away from the person.

If you are ever looking for a good charity to support in your local areas seek out the battered women's support in your area. Faith based or otherwise.

Back in the 90s the company I worked for did work for a non profit that ran a battered woman's and children shelter. We installed a kitchen hood and fire system. If my memory serves me we did the work at cost or for less. When I would go back to do service work I did not charge them. This shelter was run by a religious organization. The owner of the company I worked for was a very generous man. We some times did this for more than one group like this that were our customers.

In my experience in this part of the PNW there are usually four main, sometimes intertwined, causes:

1) Mental illness
2) Long physical illness without insurance
3) Drug abuse
4) Being accused of a crime.

And then there is the fifth: just a series of bad luck situations.

With children, it's easiest to explain: they are saddled with the adults that are responsible for them. So whatever happens to the adult, happens to them.

Sometimes, it's a temporary situation that can be rectified. But in this area, the rents are high and vacancies rare. Landlords require first and last months rent and a security deposit requiring a big cash reserve to get new housing if that need changes (due to work, rent increase, getting kicked out because your husband got arrested). If you move to an area with "cheaper" rent, you are probably at the mercy of the reliability of your car and subject to traffic situations the likes of most you cannot fathom. Hours of traffic for a 30 mile commute both ways that can grind marginal cars to wrecks.

Its not an easy solution.

quote:

Can someone explain to me how in this day and age people can be homeless and hungry especially children.

Extremely poor life choices, usually involving substance abuse, gambling, mental illness, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:
The thing that gets me, is back in the 60s the idea of "The Great Society" Johnson talked about. This was suppose to take care of all of these problems. It seems all we have done is spend billions of dollars with little or no change.

Starting at the bottom, there has been a lot of change - things have gotten much worse!

A system where folks are dependent on government handouts is one of the most evil and vile things in the world. It robs the industrious to enslave the indolent. It destroys the work ethic and self-respect of the “beneficiary” and hardens the heart of those being robbed by the government to feed this scheme. It is truly a cancer on civil society.

Look no further than San Francisco, the once beautiful City by the Bay, where they recently decided to double spending on the homelessness problem. I can’t remember if they were doubling it to $80,000 per homeless person or from $80,000, but either number beggars belief. How is that money making anyone’s life any better other than those members of the “homeless industrial complex” who are dragging down fat salaries sitting on commissions and going to meetings?