Making the news today....

[Mick Dempsey]

7 minutes ago, Chessa said:

Addictions to heroin, drink, violent crime, prostitution or any other self-harm with a domino effect of harm upon others (and from others too) is the tragic domino effect of declining health and debilitating poverty: and a desperate response to extreme trauma - in these cases:- I think.

Horse shit, I’ve seen what heroin can do to middle class kids in comfortable villages in affluent West Sussex.

Not mentally ill, not poor, just thrill seeking youngsters, lives ruined.

[skyhuck]

Pretty sure there is no cure for some level of poverty, the avoidance of it is the motivating factor for virtually all human advancement.

 

Even Jesus allegedly said we would always have the poor.

 

All the ideological movements aimed at elevating poverty, Marxism, Maoism, etc led to mass murder of unimaginable scale.

[difflock]

For whatever reason,  I was thinking of the plight of the homeless this winter, perhaps triggered by an account from our son, describing a bloke staggering about in the busy street outside the shop he works in.

 I could not help suggesting that the bloke was looking to blag a spot in a hospital bed for over the Christmas period.

That and the charity who booked a 1 night stay in a hotel for a group of homeless, I can only presume  under some pretext/cover story, only to have the booking cancelled by the hotel, presumably when they found out it was for the homeless.

The Hilton group then stepped in.

I did wonder why this charity, or its staff, did not perhaps put the homeless up in their own homes, for Christmas?

Perhaps they do, but it was not mentioned, and the cynic in me doubts it anyway.

However, all that aside, how do you help those who will not be helped, or cannot be trusted to look after, or are incapable of  looking after(their) accommodation, bedding and utensils.

For whatever mental health/substance abuse issue(s)

Money, or relative poverty is the smallest part of their problem(s), simply because no amount of cold hard cash can fix their lives.

And paying people to do so, only, mostly, creates more jobsworths, middle management and overpaid Executivies.

Whether such organisations are run Government, Council or Charity, no bloody odds.  

marcus

Edited December 30, 2018 by difflock

[Ratman]

Of course. Living like this makes anyone mentally ill - at least temporarily.

Sorry Chessa, didn’t see the piece you’d written that ‘karma mick’ has just pulled you up on [emoji849] i kinda mimicked what you’d already said ?

[tree-fancier123]

23 minutes ago, skyhuck said:

All the ideological movements aimed at elevating poverty, Marxism, Maoism, etc led to mass murder of unimaginable scale.

alleviating, although elevating may have been the unintended result

[TIMON]

Thats a pretty low thing to say, IMO.

Ok, maybe I could have phrased it a bit better, but the fact remains, just throwing cash at the problem isn’t helping, it’s making it a LOT worse. Questioning people’s motives for doing so can get a bit uncomfortable as well, but if the issues are going to be looked at with any kind of honesty then they are valid questions to ask because the constant stream of cash is part of the picture.
One point I would like to make in all this is that the right help should be applied at the right time.
The first response to someone just made homeless or in a crisis should be clothing, shelter and food. But what about afterwards?
It’s a bit like the earthquake in Haiti years ago, the aid agencies were still sending blankets and tents five years after it hit because no one had taken the trouble to build any infrastructure.

[Mick Dempsey]

3 minutes ago, Chessa said:

I clarified by noting "in these cases" - as in the ones discussed regarding the homeless on here. But yes, I've seen middle class kids self-medicate and thrill seek too - although it should be noted that not all of those individuals are as "comfortable" in all the ways one would expect and hope for...

What do you mean by “self medicate”?

[WesD]

1 hour ago, Mick Dempsey said:

If that girl is using it to buy heroin, then yes it’s wrong.

Stereotypical to think they’ll buy heroin though Mick. 

Saying that though I never give money to homeless, much prefer buying them food and a hot drink as I think it’s more likely to help them short term than a tenner. 

1 hour ago, Mick Dempsey said:

 

As for what options you have, giving to homeless charities or the like   seems to be a better way of helping.

 

 

 

[Mick Dempsey]

2 minutes ago, WesD said:

Stereotypical to think they’ll buy heroin though Mick. 

Saying that though I never give money to homeless, much prefer buying them food and a hot drink as I think it’s more likely to help them short term than a tenner. 

 

Wes, go to page 1071 and read Timon’s post, that’s exactly what was happening.

[Ratman]

What do you mean by “self medicate”?

Take drugs to ease the other going ons in their their lives. Mental instabilities obviously contribute to the sticking heroin in their bodies and the likes cos they think it eases their pains. There two sides / outlooks in eveyones lives, call it a set of scales mick, occasionally we ALL slip to the wrong side..... all be it a ‘bad day’ for you and me, but for those in need.... could be more mentally life changing slip the wrong way. i.e injecting etc