• Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I’ve never figure out how these people are expected to pull themselves out of their situation. Drug use is merely a symptom, the cause is living conditions and an existence that makes being sober untenable.

    “Get a job”? Find a job that will hire anyone on the spot, AND that can pay for an actual place to live.

    • huginn@feddit.it
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      1 year ago

      A significant number of homeless in CA and WA have at least 1 job as far as I know.

      Fast food workers make up 6% of the CA homeless population, for example.

      • Maeve@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Did you get that job unwashed? Unshaved? I’m whatever clothing that was in laundered? With severe depression and anxiety?

      • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        https://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/42660

        The problem with homelessness is that each person’s situation is a bit different, now to you it might sound like a massive lump of excuses when heard all together, but to an individual the one or multiple things that prevents them from having personal stability is a massive barrier.

        anecdote

        I once helped a homeless stranger get a bus back to Alberta because he hitchhiked to Vancouver over 3 months but couldn’t find the opportunity he wanted to (plus the rents here are upwards of 1500USD equivalent for a small studio), so he wanted to go back. He used to work in construction but he got fired and his wife left him. He wasn’t drunk or high, he was just bumming cigs from people and begging for money. Spending a day with him, I found that little things made him nervous and stressed him out, he couldn’t really advocate for himself well, had nothing but a broken android tablet with his expired health card and birth certificate, and he couldn’t read 24 hour time. The intercity bus operator wouldn’t let him on the bus bc he looked too dirty, even though he was a paying customer. I get him cleaned up at the community shower, a new pair of pants, and I book a flight for him (which ended up being around the same as the bus) gave him 50USD equivalent spending money and the addresses of libraries, charities, employment centres in Lethbridge (this is where he came from). At the airport, they were bugging him that he had only 1 valid ID and 1 expired photo ID, I had to escalate for him 3 times for them to allow him through and get accomodations to guide him through the airport. Something that’s normally so easy to get through if you have a ticket and a phone and whatever is a nightmare for someone so disadvantaged.

        Trying to apply for work, not get scammed and advocate for yourself throughout a process is honestly a challenge that is tougher than the actual labour. I’d been taking those things for granted myself. Fines and fees for being poor just worsens the problem.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      they are expected to not exist because they are an eyesore and reminder of human fragility.

      nobody cares about them ‘pulling themselves out of their situation’