What needs to be known about the homeless posts is it's partially personal experiences and then it's observations of people in more dire circumstances with various mental abberations. In some ways in the same boat but in others in a very different boat. Chronically homeless versus occasionally homeless. If it's a struggle for me with a few more means at my disposal. Intelligence, sobriety, insurance money. Take away intelligence add some true delusions throw in some intoxicating something and it's quite clear as to the scope of the problem of homelessness if these factors or some variation are common occurance.
We've built as a society certain ways of obtaining normalicy and everyday living that seem standard. It's when you take away the standard when you have a subject that lacks the basics of the basics that we must re create whats expected of certain individuals. We need to offer certain people a true "clean slate". We must give them societal immunity from credit, background checks (to a certain extent) and various other standards. If they don't have it they don't have it. There is value in a second and even a fourteenth chance. Sometimes it takes that many chances.
We must give renters, employers and other agents financial incentive to employ and rent to the schizophrenic alcoholic with almost no work history. Even if it means marginalizing the task or job. Or requiring weekly inspections of rented property. Or even if the person has a really extensive prison record. There needs to be opportunities for the disenfranchised. Until we offer said opportunities there will be a continual eyesore and recitivism amongst the discarded classes of our society.
It is asking for a leap of faith on a grand scale. It may be the only solution. Yes, it'll cause problems but institutionalizing an entire segment of society is an expense we cannot afford on a moral or practical level.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That will never happen. We love to put people in jail/prison in this country. It is BIG business and makes some people very rich. There is no reason to lock up some poor guy that did nothing other than have a few rocks of crack in his pocket, but we do and it will continue, especially now that most prisons are privatized.
ReplyDeleteHave you read that story about the judge who was sentencing teens to like a year in a detention center for stupid shit like getting in a fight? It was because the privately owned detention center was paying him to send them more prisoners so they could get more money from the govt.