> do you guys think it is a good idea to provide food(lets keep it at food for now...no
> money) for homeless people?

Personally, I say yes it is.

> this means the homeless will never be hungry. But is it a good thing?

That's a good thing for everyone, for several reasons. Among those is keeping the crime rate low.

> Now there will be no motivatin for homeles people to get a job.

Don't you think the wish to get a home or a future is still enough motivation? I totally disagree with you here.

> Also another thought...is it maybe possible that somepeople stay homeless
> because they are not willing to go and look for a job?

Let's say some few are in that situation because they don't want or don't know how to deal with the odds of society. Otherwise, they would have become politicians and really messed things up.
Well, where does that thought lead you to?

Of course the poor should be given food. What would really help though is a Nazi-style government employment agency, thus allowing people to find jobs much easier.

___Corsair~MMIV
Reasons I'm better than you: #78468- I have squiggly lines in my name.

We've been talking(me an my family) at times when we drive to Cape Town, on the way there you drive past quite a couple of informal settings, where people live in shacks. Now what we have been discussing, is that some of those people want to llive there, because they get free water and electricity, they dont really have any expenses. So why move.
Now my argument with homeless people, is that if they get food from everyone, why would they want to get a job and work? That is if you dont mind living on the street. I dont know, its just something I've been wondering about. Doesnt just giving food away terach people not to work for what they get?
Granted there are people who really have a problem and lost their job/house due to circumstances, but how many homeless people are out there that are homeless just because they either drink all their money out or because they dont want to work?

@Corsair:

> What would really help though is a Nazi-style government employment agency, thus
> allowing people to find jobs much easier.

What are you trying to achieve with a provocation like that? I don't appreciate this, not at all. And btw, it's the year 2005 now, you might want to check your sig.

@sycho:

> but how many homeless people are out there that are homeless just because they
> either drink all their money out

Well, being a drug or alcohol addict is an illness, which ought to be treated. I don't want to step on your toes, but to my mind points like the one above are mainly used by people who are on the better side of life - at the cost of those who are not. It's a justification oftenly used, and an easy explanation for turning away and denying the trouble others are in.

> or because they dont want to work?

I don't know how things in Cape Town are, but in my end of the world a homeless person does stand no chance in getting any type of job. No way, nada, zip, zero and nothing.

Edited by - LXP on 2/26/2005 6:07:13 AM

I live in a city of 4-5 million. I see alot of homless people, there not lazy at all. The fact is you cant get a job if you dont have a bank acount, a home and you smell terrilbe. have no universty, maybe not even high school education.

These people were unlucky, they cant help being homless. Personally i dont have physical food to give them but i do give the man out side tim hortons (for those who dont know, its a big canadain coffee/donut shop) enough money to get a meal.

They cant help being without a home and you cant get employed like that.

Sorry to say it sycho, but that sounds a bit elitist. Even if every homeless person was a lazy slug--which they're not--I still would be content with giving them food and shelter rather than letting them starve and freeze on the streets. I'm sure homeless people are just as motivated as everyone else in the societies they live in to get a job --the purpose being to become eventually self-sufficient and to earn enough money to enjoy life a little. But one who is destitute can't do that alone in a harsh capitalist society.

Maybe due to the climate its different in SA than it is in Canada--here, minus 20 with a windchill of minus 35 (celsius), and I saw a man sitting on a street corner, using nothing except a threadbare jacket and a paper thin blanket to shield himself from the cold. That is fatal . And that would be a problem one wouldn't get in a country as warm as South Africa.

Of course, the real key to all this is education.

Dont get me wrong, I know there are homeless people out there who are not lazy or just drink out all their money, but what makes me angry, is if a guy comes to you pleading that he only needs a few more cents to buy a bread or whatever. He gets some money and next thing you see he hangs around a liqour store. We dont have that many homeless people in my town, I used to live in a town where there are a lot more homeless people, but over here, it seems like most of the homeless people are almost always sitting in the vicinity of either liqour(how ever you spell that word) stores or bars. How many times doesnt that happen?


Why not instead of giving food(which many people only do to look good or to make themselves feel good) help these people in a different way, I guess you all know the saying "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and he will nnot go hungry again" OK I couldnt remebr the exact saying.

It just feels as if in some cases giving food too homeless people doens help them in the long run. How do you discern between people who are homeless because they are lazy and those who cant help it?

I dunno,I've just been wondering about this. The latest thing over here is that girls get pregnant, because if they have a kid and is unemployed and unmarried they get a goverment subsidy...now is that any way to go about getting money?


Oh and as for getting a job without having any qualifications...there are many jobs out there for which you do not need quals...not being clean etc, thats a bit of a different story. But what about going to maybe a homeless shelter or some place like that, get cleaned up and then go out looking for a job, how many homeles people have even tried to do that? (Yes I know there are some)

Time for a depressing flash of realism...

These peoople cant fish. Most likley here they will die in the winter because of the cold. And there is nothing we can do more then give them shelteres and food and money. and thats what we do.

Its a saying meaning teach a man to work and he will be alb e to make money to feed himself.

If you just give people food and shelter you teach them not to try to get a job, its as if you say "It doesnt matter if you dont have a job, we provide free food and shelter"

Then I'd rather stay start a place/shelter, you say that the first 2 months you stay there is free, in those two months people can get themselves cleaned up and dry out, this gives them a chance to go and search for jobs. You can even extend the time and teach them something which they can use to get a job. After a certain period of time they either start to pay for their accomodation or they move out(there should be exceptions tho)

Just giving people food gives people the message that its right to be homeless...thats just the way I see it. I'm not saying never ever give food to homeless people, but constantly feeding the same person is useless

I don't think so, sycho. That actually could work if there was enough work for everyone - and that would necessarily be work being paid well enough.

But as we all know, in many places there are more people than jobs. So again, what do you do with those who have no job - just let them starve and die and credit it to the mechanisms of evolution? I don't think so.

The main type of jobs that would be created in a place like this, would be handwork...this means the people could make clothes or things for tourism...which mean they can wither sell it themselves, or even you can add to this "shelter" a shop or chainstores or sth, which could sell these things bringing in an income.

Anything, as long as people realise that you have to work to get money or food or whatever. Then no one can have an "excuse" for being homeless.

Society needs to do more.

---

What are you trying to achieve with a provocation like that? I don't appreciate this, not at all.

---

Chill, dude. I think he was referring to a system where the government is more pervasive is all. Maybe calling it Stalinist would have been better?

I suppose the question is, does society ever reach a point where it can say "nope, that's it, we've had enough; you're on your own now"? Certainly homeless people seem to be a manifestation of a social disease, or perhaps a whole host of social diseases and those should be remedied first. That's not always all of it though. I know for a fact there are some homeless people who choose to live that way and don't wouldn't want anything else. What do we do with people like them? Do we let them freeload, or do we say no?

As LXP said people with qualifications have trouble finding jobs. people dont like employing homless people, and making t-shirts? A they have to get the resources, the machinery/tools to make the t-shirts and have a place to sell them. and besides i dont think people like buying t-shirts from the homless.

You would be surprised...
Who said anything about just t-shirts?
They get everything they need at the shelter, and they wont be homeless people if they are in employ of the shelter, which they wil be if they are prepared to work.
As for "who would buy things from homeless people"
I'm talking about setting up a proper shop, you forget these people wont be homeless anymore.