Hey, just to get it off my chest since you attacked me for no reason other than some preconception you brought with you, fuck you too!
Now that I’ve dealt with that, back to the topic. Some people don’t want structure, or shelter, or society, or any of it. It doesn’t matter if there’s no conditions applied, they just don’t want it.
I remember years ago reading about this guy who was the director of a huge hospital. He was worth millions of dollars. He could do anything he wanted to do. Guess what he wanted to do? He wanted to live on the streets and drink alcohol until he died. He left his mansion, and his family, and went and drank himself to death on the streets. Was he mentally ill? Probably, man! But if anyone had access to every available option for help that existed, it was him. He didn’t want it. He wanted to be a drunk homeless person.
So my point stands. You can offer whatever catch-all, condition-free solution you want, and some people are still going to reject it. That’s just reality, regardless of what we wish.
Are you talking about Todd Waters? Otherwise link source. It’s pretty rare for someone to want that lifestyle unless they’ve already involuntarily experienced it previously. Todd had started trainhopping when he was in high school.
I know of one other individual who is a millionaire and has a mansion he sleeps in, but during the day appears to be homeless and pushes a cart around cleaning up cans and trash. He’s beloved by his local community (very nice man and generous tipper). He also experienced living on the street involuntarily previously and got an inheritance.
Waters was a “hobo” who proudly noted in 2012 that he’s been arrested about 70 times jumping railroad cars out of St. Paul for parts unknown and known. He was also a millionaire.
“My life went south after my wife ran off with a bartender to Arizona. I sold everything I owned and hit the ‘first thing smokin’, running away, then after a year or so, drifting where ever I damned well pleased. I got off ‘the road’ after a few years to settle down,” he wrote on Hobo Times. “That lasted about three weeks. I was homesick for ‘the road’. I returned to ‘the road’. That lasted a few months until I got homesick for settled society. That lasted until I got homesick for the road again.”
Somewhere along the line, he got in the advertising business, made a lot of money, and lived in a million-dollar home on Lake Minnetonka.
Todd’s childhood friend, Bill Martin, once asked him why he would leave the comfort and security of his family and his Lake Minnetonka home every summer for 40 years to live the hobo life, with no money and no phone, exposing himself to danger, dodging the law and sleeping out in the elements. He replied, “It’s the freedom I feel.” The more risks he took, and the less he had in his pack, the more he was free to experience.
While Todd rubbed shoulders with the wealthy, prominent and powerful, the people he probably respected most for their guts and straightforwardness were hobos. So before hiring account executives for his agencies Waters Advertising, Waters & Company and WatersMolitor, Inc. he sometimes asked candidates to hit the streets and panhandle. He insisted that the people he worked with be brave, and know how to close a sale.
No, not him. I can’t find a source. I read about it in a newspaper, or magazine like 15-20 years ago. If I remember correctly, he was the director of St. Agnes hospital in Fresno, CA.
So 3 people we know of between the two of us were wealthy and lived some type of homeless lifestyle occasionally to full time. And so by your logic, the remaining hundreds of thousands of homeless should be penalized and not offered housing because these 3 individuals would decline it?
I never said any such thing. All I said was that unfortunately some people do need incentive to have shelter. Which I substantiated with an example, and you did as well. They’re the minority, but some people just flat out don’t want what we want. That has no bearing on what we should do for the people who do want and need shelter.
WHY do these people not want structure, or shelter, or society?
have you considered that? have you fucking asked that? why someone might want to see the world burn? or do you just accept when you’re told they do, and assume they’re a magical evil monster?
I used to do a lot of work with unhoused populations. I tended to get those people, because nobody else could deal with them. I could, because the structure I offered wasn’t coercive, the shelter I offered was clearly defined (when I could offer any) and no-strings-attached, and the society I was working for was one that would include them and give them a voice and treat them like fucking human beings.
okay. so someone wanted to drink on the streets. there’s a reason. maybe a dumb reason, maybe a crazy reason, but a reason. I’ve been pretty close to taking this option before, once after seeing some shit that an emergency room kicked out, once after dealing with police victims. if I had been complicit and tied into existing systems, if I hadn’t read all the theory and committed myself to working against oppression, I would have done something an awful lot like that.
seems like you just really enjoy throwing people away, and don’t want to put any effort into understanding awful shit that they’ve experienced and how it motivates them to do the things they do, which you sometimes find odd.
why do the sociopaths who declare noncompliant unhoused people ontologically evil want us to understand them, when they won’t even try to understand the people who make THEM uncomfortable?
Hey, just to get it off my chest since you attacked me for no reason other than some preconception you brought with you, fuck you too!
Now that I’ve dealt with that, back to the topic. Some people don’t want structure, or shelter, or society, or any of it. It doesn’t matter if there’s no conditions applied, they just don’t want it.
I remember years ago reading about this guy who was the director of a huge hospital. He was worth millions of dollars. He could do anything he wanted to do. Guess what he wanted to do? He wanted to live on the streets and drink alcohol until he died. He left his mansion, and his family, and went and drank himself to death on the streets. Was he mentally ill? Probably, man! But if anyone had access to every available option for help that existed, it was him. He didn’t want it. He wanted to be a drunk homeless person.
So my point stands. You can offer whatever catch-all, condition-free solution you want, and some people are still going to reject it. That’s just reality, regardless of what we wish.
Are you talking about Todd Waters? Otherwise link source. It’s pretty rare for someone to want that lifestyle unless they’ve already involuntarily experienced it previously. Todd had started trainhopping when he was in high school.
I know of one other individual who is a millionaire and has a mansion he sleeps in, but during the day appears to be homeless and pushes a cart around cleaning up cans and trash. He’s beloved by his local community (very nice man and generous tipper). He also experienced living on the street involuntarily previously and got an inheritance.
https://newscut.mprnews.org/2017/07/todd-waters-mission-was-to-make-people-homesick-for-their-freedom/index.html
No, not him. I can’t find a source. I read about it in a newspaper, or magazine like 15-20 years ago. If I remember correctly, he was the director of St. Agnes hospital in Fresno, CA.
So 3 people we know of between the two of us were wealthy and lived some type of homeless lifestyle occasionally to full time. And so by your logic, the remaining hundreds of thousands of homeless should be penalized and not offered housing because these 3 individuals would decline it?
I never said any such thing. All I said was that unfortunately some people do need incentive to have shelter. Which I substantiated with an example, and you did as well. They’re the minority, but some people just flat out don’t want what we want. That has no bearing on what we should do for the people who do want and need shelter.
Oh sorry, I may have mistaken you for a different commenter then. Lemmy’s reply system isn’t super easy for me to navigate.
I think if a millionaire wants to rough it, camp, etc, they should be allowed to. Any adult should be allowed to roam. It’s what our ancestors did.
WHY do these people not want structure, or shelter, or society?
have you considered that? have you fucking asked that? why someone might want to see the world burn? or do you just accept when you’re told they do, and assume they’re a magical evil monster?
I used to do a lot of work with unhoused populations. I tended to get those people, because nobody else could deal with them. I could, because the structure I offered wasn’t coercive, the shelter I offered was clearly defined (when I could offer any) and no-strings-attached, and the society I was working for was one that would include them and give them a voice and treat them like fucking human beings.
okay. so someone wanted to drink on the streets. there’s a reason. maybe a dumb reason, maybe a crazy reason, but a reason. I’ve been pretty close to taking this option before, once after seeing some shit that an emergency room kicked out, once after dealing with police victims. if I had been complicit and tied into existing systems, if I hadn’t read all the theory and committed myself to working against oppression, I would have done something an awful lot like that.
seems like you just really enjoy throwing people away, and don’t want to put any effort into understanding awful shit that they’ve experienced and how it motivates them to do the things they do, which you sometimes find odd.
why do the sociopaths who declare noncompliant unhoused people ontologically evil want us to understand them, when they won’t even try to understand the people who make THEM uncomfortable?