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New plan for skid row; "most of it is a drug problem"...
Topic Started: Mar 18 2006, 09:58 AM (1,120 Views)
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Larry, do you think nothing should be done?

Ignore them?

Screw em if they won't take care of themselves?
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Rick Zimmer
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Fulla-Carp
As I said:

Quote:
 
We will fight to the political death over abortion using slogans like "respect for life" but we will do all sorts of political contortions so as not to have to actually treat the lives of those who are most vulnerable with the respect their humanity demands.


And there are those who will claim we are a Christian nation -- but I guess that only comes into play when the they want the government to control personal lives of the people or force religious expressions on non-Christians, not when it comes to the government taking care of those who most need care.

[size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size]
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
As usual Rick, you don't have a clue. You look at things with your head so far up your ass the view is murky, upside down, and backwards.

An innocent baby didn't ask to be created. It hasn't done anything yet. It's not responsible for itself. But by the time that innocent baby has reached the age where he can make decisions about his future and act on them, he has an obligation to do so, and neither me, you, or the rest of the country is obligated to support him if he's too lazy to help himself. Trying to draw some sort of moral comparison between a homeless adult and an unborn child is stupid.

Let me help you pull the air of superiority out of your ego. We've had almost if not over a half a century of your "New Deal" socialism. Either way you look at it, whether you take percentage of population, or sheer numbers, the number of homeless is larger now than it has ever been, and that number has increased steadily every year since you socialists first stuck your hands in the collective pockets of Americans. The difference between me and you is that I understand why that is, Rick. And you don't. Your answers have not only failed Rick, they have failed miserably and made matters worse. There's an old saying - "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again thinking you're going to get a different result" or something like that. You socialists are insane. Every year the evidence that your socialist agenda has failed grows larger and larger - yet you continue to offer the same worn out solution you've always offered.

Want to help the homeless, Rick? Quit expecting government to help them. Quit your damned "to each according to his need, from each according to his ability" marxist/socialist "let government do it" insanity, and leave the money in the pockets of those who have proven themselves capable and responsible. Quit shoving your leftwing antiGod, antifamily, antiAmerican, politically correct, morally bankrupt ideology into the propaganda factories you call public schools and let kids learn about *real* American values, instead of turning out the brainwashed numbnuts like you have become. Then stand back and watch what happens, Rick.

A good portion of the homeless are fully capable of holding down a job, they're just too lazy and too undisciplined to apply themselves. That's because they've never had to, Rick - you bed wetting leftist pussies have taught them, and their parents before them, and now even their parents' parents before them, that all they have to do is sit on their asses all day and not take any responsibility for themselves - as long as the soup kitchen is open they'll eat, and that's good enough for them.

Now before I go on, don't you *ever* question me about helping the needy. I spend more money in a year's time helping the needy than a lot of people make in a year. I raise tens of thousands more. What have *you* done for the poor and needy Rick, other than stick your hand in my pocket? I'll bet you've never even spoken to a homeless person. So let me tell you about the last one I helped, Rick. It will show you just what many of them are.

A few months ago a friend of mine called me and asked me if I would provide an apartment for a homeless man her husband had met. She and her husband do a lot of work with people in need, and they had talked with this fellow telling him that as soon as he was ready to help himself, they would give him the help he needed to get off the streets. So he decided he wanted to get his act together, he said. Between us, we found him a good job making ten dollars an hour, an apartment, several new outfits to wear, food in his kitchen, and pocket money to make it until he got his first paycheck. He went to work the first day on his new job, and did fine. He came home that evening, spent all the cash we had given him on beer, and proceeded to sit in his new apartment and drink himself into a stupor, setting the couch on fire. He burned the couch down, burned out the wall behind the couch, dragged the burnt up couch out into the yard in front of his apartment, and went back in and slept until 1pm the next day. Once he woke up, he packed up all the new clothes and food, and left a message saying that he "just couldn't do it". He bummed a ride to the interstate from another tenant and was gone.

Does anyone owe this man anything? No.

There are homeless people who are mentally ill. They need to be treated. But as long as your damned socialist welfare state exists, the people who could help them the most can't. You've given that job to government, robbed the productive of society in order to finance it, and fight every attempt to make sure those who *can* help them best aren't allowed to. That's the churches. God forbid that a religious organization try to interfere with your nanny state, Rick! Why, they might actually ask them to pray before they eat their free food! They might actually mention God to these people!........

Then, there are the criminal element. Let them die.

Then, there are the children. They have done nothing. They didn't ask to be homeless. They *can't* better themselves. They are at the mercy of the lazy, worthless, unprincipled trash that gave birth to them, these products of *your* making, Rick. Every penny that can be made available, every person who will help, every church that will get involved, every citizen who will help - should help until they bleed - but government should get out of the way.

It pisses me off when some elitist snob who has never done the first thing other than sit on his ass and pontificate tries to belittle me regarding the poor and needy. Many of them are there in large measure due to your stupid ideology. There will always be poor and needy people. You can't help them all. But the first step in helping people is to stop making excuses for them and expect them to help themselves. Then you help those who deserve it, and those who legitimately can't help themselves. But it has nothing to do with your pathetically sick comparison with abortion.
Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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Rick Zimmer
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Larry
Mar 19 2006, 10:11 PM
Let me help you pull the air of superiority out of your ego. We've had almost if not over a half a century of your "New Deal" socialism.

Any demographer will tell you that there are no viable, credible figures on the number of homeless in the past 60 years. It is questionable whether you can get any viable numbers even for a single year, since the homeless population shifts and moves and is almost impossible to count, much less count accurately.

The closest one can get to measuring homlessness is to meaure the poverty rate.

Beginning in 1961, under JFK, the US government began to focus its efforts more on general poverty in this country (as compared to FDR who was after providing economic relief to the general poulation). In 1965, LBJ declared his war on poverty.

According to the US Census, in 1959 the poverty rate in the United States was 18.5% of the population. This is the earliest the census provides figures.

By 2000, the rate had dropped to 8.7%. A reduction of 53%.

It began rising again in 2001 and now stands at 10.2% of the population, an increase of 17% in six years.

Damn those socialists!
[size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size]
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
Oh - you think the homeless fill out census forms.......

If you want to get an idea of the homeless rate Rick, simply get off your ass, get out of Google, and drive through a town.

Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Rick Zimmer
Mar 19 2006, 12:11 PM

We, as a society, have a moral obligation to ensure that the homeless are housed, fed and cared for, at least to a minimum standard befitting a human being. -- especially those homeless because of mental health problems or because of some sort of economic catastrophe in their lives. Whether that is through smaller, local facilities or through larger institutions, we are obligated to provde for them. I dont really care what the ACLU says or anyone else. I care about these people being treated with the dignity befitting a human being, a child of God.

So what do you propose? Round them up and reinstitutionalize them?

My father volunteered for years as a manager at Ozanam Manor, which is a transitional housing program run by St Vincent de Paul to help people get off the streets, get them cleaned up and freshly clothed, helped with job skills and leads, etc. It is a very good program -- three hots and a cot, a clothing bank, bus tokens, a large network of labor opportunities, life skill training, etc.

Only a very small percent of homeless want that sort of help. On countless occassions I would tell panhandlers about the program, give them my father's card, encourage them to go see him. Every time I was told "I've already tried that -- they are too strict", "Those places are worse than jails", "I'd rather be on the street", etc. In short, you can't help someone who doesn't want to help himself.

It's not a moral problem on the part of the country, Rick. It's not that there are not private initiatives already doing what they can. It's that we as a nation are not willing to round up and reinstitutionalize people who obviously need to be because if we did the ACLU would sue the bejezus out of the state and turn all the "victims" into multimillionaires with court awarded damages.

So what do you propose?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
A close friend of mine was working for Los Angeles County Mental Health as a LCSW when Ronnie RayGun stunned the mental health profession by shutting down they system.

All this: clean them up, detox them, house them, feed them, even the the job training stuff is all paying attention to the symptoms of the problem.

Many of them are metally ill.
Depression, hopelessness, low self esteem, or worse, aren't helped by these cosmetic band aids.

There is a range of homeless people.
I think they range from some who need need a little help to the hopeless who can only be fed and kept alive in the most humane institution possible.

I think for many of the homeless mental health services that address their underlying issues will give us the biggest bang for the buck.

It doesn't have to end up like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
kenny
Mar 20 2006, 07:59 AM
A close friend of mine was working for Los Angeles County Mental Health as a LCSW when Ronnie RayGun stunned the mental health profession by shutting down they system.

All this: clean them up, detox them, house them, feed them, even the the job training stuff is all paying attention to the symptoms of the problem.

Many of them are metally ill.
Depression, hopelessness, low self esteem, or worse, aren't helped by these cosmetic band aids.

There is a range of homeless people.
I think they range from some who need need a little help to the hopeless who can only be fed and kept alive in the most humane institution possible.

I think for many of the homeless mental health services that address their underlying issues will give us the biggest bang for the buck.

It doesn't have to end up like One Flew Over the Coocoo's Nest.

So are you in favor of rounding up the homeless and reinstitutionalizing them?

What about their civil rights?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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George K
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Finally
Rick Zimmer
Mar 20 2006, 12:55 AM
The closest one can get to measuring homlessness is to meaure the poverty rate.

Please reference.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
I'm not in favor of mass rounding up.

I am in favor of paying for mental health programs for those who need it.
Yes the T-word.
Taxes.

And yes there will be instances of a few who are determined to be too far gone to be loose.
I guess those few give up some of their civil rights.

I hate to say it, and I'm not Nurse Ratched, but this is for their own good.
I'd want a great deal of oversight though.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
ivorythumper
Mar 20 2006, 10:09 AM
kenny
Mar 20 2006, 07:59 AM
A close friend of mine was working for Los Angeles County Mental Health as a LCSW when Ronnie RayGun stunned the mental health profession by shutting down they system.

All this: clean them up, detox them, house them, feed them, even the the job training stuff is all paying attention to the symptoms of the problem.

Many of them are metally ill.
Depression, hopelessness, low self esteem, or worse, aren't helped by these cosmetic band aids.

There is a range of homeless people.
I think they range from some who need need a little help to the hopeless who can only be fed and kept alive in the most humane institution possible.

I think for many of the homeless mental health services that address their underlying issues will give us the biggest bang for the buck.

It doesn't have to end up like One Flew Over the Coocoo's Nest.

So are you in favor of rounding up the homeless and reinstitutionalizing them?

What about their civil rights?

In Britain the Thatcher government called closing down all the mental hospitals and letting people with mental illness live in carboard boxes 'Care in the Community'. Ten years later her successor, John Major commented on 'Cardboard box city' and said that he hated walking past all those people on his way to work as it made him feel uncomfortable and embarrassed.

'Uncomfortable and embarrassed'. People suffering from schizophrenia made him feel uncomfortable. They should have made him feel shame. Maybe he was re-directing the shame he felt over boinking Edwina Curry - now there's something that should have made him uncomfortable.

My take on this is that there's no easy solution to the problem of homeless people. If there was an easy solution, there wouldn't be so many of them. However, closing down hospitals so that mentally ill people can walk and die on the streets is so far from being a solution it isn't even funny.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Nina
Senior Carp
It IS for their own good, in many cases.

The folks that Kenny refers to, I'm assuming, are crazy. Mentally ill. They are dysfunctional. They become targets for sociopaths, murderers, thieves, the whole lot. They aren't responsible for their actions, because they are insane.

Would we agree that it's irresponsible as a society to let a 6 year old run loose on the streets to fend for themselves? If yes, it's probably because you believe a child isn't old enough to take on full responsibility for themselves, and they'd get into trouble. Well, the mentally ill, unmedicated, are in a similar boat. Why is it we aren't willing to let a child roam the streets, endangering themselves, stealing, becoming victims, but we are OK with this happening to a mentally ill adult?

What Ivory says is true, though. If you round 'em up, give them all food, showers, clean clothes, psychiatric medicine and opportunities for jobs, and many will still choose to remain homeless even when clean and sober.

I'm not at all comfortable with just saying "they're adults, they chose that lifestyle, let 'em rot," because I don't think that the mentally ill homeless people choose that lifestyle in the way that we think of choice being done. In my mind, some civil rights trump others. Being able to live safely, with access to shelter and food, even traded off with a requirement to take medication, seems appropriate to me.
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Nurse Ratched.
It's all her fault.

Posted Image
Posted Image
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Nina
Senior Carp
You laugh, Kenny, but I think that book and movie set back mental illness treatment by decades.

It is all Nurse Ratched's fault.
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
I'm not laughing.

The movie was superb.
The nurse character was superb.
I still get shivers seeing a pic of that bitch.

That the public and leaders think one movie can sum things up , then change social policy as a reaction to a film IS the problem.

It's not that media is too powerful; it's that we are too stupid.
Not funny at all.
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George K
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kenny
Mar 20 2006, 10:55 AM
The movie was superb.

So as not to derail:

A Quiz
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
Nina
Mar 20 2006, 08:50 AM
You laugh, Kenny, but I think that book and movie set back mental illness treatment by decades.

It is all Nurse Ratched's fault.

From a civil rights perspective, yes.

I think the large underlying question is whether the mentally ill should enjoy the same civil rights as those who aren't.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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John D'Oh
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Jolly
Mar 20 2006, 12:31 PM
Nina
Mar 20 2006, 08:50 AM
You laugh, Kenny, but I think that book and movie set back mental illness treatment by decades.

It is all Nurse Ratched's fault.

From a civil rights perspective, yes.

I think the large underlying question is whether the mentally ill should enjoy the same civil rights as those who aren't.

I can't comment on the US situation, but closing down mental hospitals in the UK in the 80's was never an issue of civil rights, it was economics with a little bit of window-dressing.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Nina
Senior Carp
I think here in the US it started much the same--economics, window dressing and ideology.

It's now become a big civil rights issue, though. We're infringing on people's rights to live their lives as filthy, smelly schizophrenics who are "free."
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
I just saw on another "forum" that you think I trashed your thread, Steve. I can only assume that you didn't want differing opinions, only reworded versions of the opinion you already hold.
Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
I went over and checked it out....

Yep, this "room" is not the WTF...you won't have a group of like-minded folks nodding their heads in mute agreement. You may even have some folks around here hand you your butt on a silver platter.

But you will get viewpoints that you'll never see in a tea room atmosphere.

A bit from Nina:
Quote:
 
I always bristle when I hear comments like "homeless people are just lazy losers who want to live off the largesse of the government." There are of course people like that, but there are also millions of homeless who don't fit that profile. There are over a million homeless children, for example.


Bristle away.

Unless you're 60 years old, I've spent more time rubbing elbows with the indigent and the homeless, than you've been alive. And I have some pretty firm opinions, based on those experiences.

Here's a few of them:

1. Yes, there are some lazy, worthless critters out there. The Bible says that if a man does not work, he should not eat. I'm not one to argue with the Good Book.

2. You cited in the same post some observations about single parent and even two parent families that suffer from abuse, or hard times, leading to homelessness. That is true, however, these people are not usually long term problems. The vast majority of them do better, and quickly...this is usually only a very temporary problem, and can be addressed fairly cheaply with bridge solutions. To echo Larry, the very best programs I have come in contact with, are religious based.

3. Most of the long term homeless suffer from either substance abuse, psychiatric problems, or a combination of the two. I have sympathy and empathy for those who are ill. I have limited feelings for those who have placed themselves in such a position through self-inflicted substance abuse. Or, as I heard a nurse tell an old drunk Saturday night, "There's nothing more we can do for you if you won't help yourself. Live or die, it's your choice".

Lo, the poor will be with us alway. There is nothing we can do to change that fact. But being poor, and being a bum (such as Steve referenced) are two totally different things.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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Nina
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So, Jolly, do you draw a distinction between long term homeless drug addicts and alcoholics v long-term homeless mentally ill?
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
Nina
Mar 21 2006, 09:00 AM
So, Jolly, do you draw a distinction between long term homeless drug addicts and alcoholics v long-term homeless mentally ill?

Yes, I would draw that distinction.

Although the very next argument would be that substance dependency is also an illness. However, that is an illness that can be controlled, if the person wants to control it...
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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Nina
Senior Carp
Yep, but then you get into all that weird circular stuff.

If they're off their meds, then they are in no shape to decide to get back on their meds. When they're on their meds, then they become deluded into thinking they don't need them because they're doing well, or they decide they don't need as much. So again their judgment becomes cloudy and they stop taking their meds.

The real answer would be to understand enough about brain chemistry to create meds that don't have all the bad side effects. But we're not there yet.

Until that ever happens, I tend to fall on the side of mandatory medication. OK, call me names, but I don't think we can leave it to a mentally ill person to decide whether or not he should be taking his meds. Why not? Because they are mentally ill.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Nina:

I agree with a lot of what you say -- but what do we as a society do about it? For starters we would have to rounded up all the homeless for evaluation.

At that point the ACLU would hop on board. Lawsuits would fly, and all those rounded up would get massive legal settlements for violating their constitutional rights with which to fund their Thunderbird habits.

If it were a Republican government doing it, it would become a political minefield and a field day for the press.

The Democrats are not going to do it since they just throw more money at the problem with "social services" that exacerbate the problem.

So what would you suggest?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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