Does anyone REALLY know about homeless people?

Question

I mean have you actually talked to a homeless person before? I wanna know what its really like for them on an average day/night, how they became homeless, how most people treat them (restaurant owners, police, strangers), whether or not they ever go to homeless shelters, and how long they've been homeless. I learned at school that theres a lot of myths about the homeless....like how they arent all lazy and on drugs but I still don't know the truth about them. I don't feel comfortable approaching a stranger to talk to them.

Answer 1

A great question!

The only ones who truly know about the homeless are the homless and those who provide aid for them in a structured way (shelter, soup kitchen, etc.)

It is entirely true that not all homeless are druggies, lazy, alcoholics.  Unfortunately, many are just "down on their luck" and/or have made poor choices in life.  Others are mentally ill, and have no refuge due to our archaic approach toward mental illness.

I would suggest that you not approach ANY stranger .

Instead, see if you can volunteer at a shelter or a soup kitchen. You will learn so much.

Answer 2

if you go to a place where there are a lot of homeless people, you will be so surprised how easy it is to talk to them. they are willing to talk to you about their life and tell you what got them where they are. they'll warn you not to do this or that so you dont end up like them. they'll talk to you about their children. a lot of people today that are living check to check are just one or two steps away from being homeless. i mean imagine u have a job and ur paying bills, ur struggling but ur making it. then u get sick or injured and cant work, you have no savings, no transportation you get evicted and Bam! ur homeless. People move to a new city or state and dont find the work they expected and all of a sudden they're homeless. Just a few weeks on the streets with no way to clean urself or your clothes, no address or phone number, how can you fill out a job application? how are you going to look when u show of for an interview?

Answer 3

i had a friend who was homeless he lived in a tent in the woods what happened was he got kicked out of his grandmothers house and his mom moved to some other state far away without him and he had no job and no car and no one that would or could take him in and it sucked he did weird little jobs for random sleezy @ss people around town and thats how he got money for food n S**t it sucked but he made the best of it then his uncle took him in before winter so i guess it wasnt so bad for him but thats the closest i've known

Answer 4

there is a pretty large homeless population in atlanta, and you dont usually have to start a conversation with them. they will with you. its safe to say the "majority" of homelessness is caused by the person having mental illness. they dont get help and it worsens, they dont have anyone to care about what happens to them so theyre left in the street.

ive hung out with a lot of homeless people, actually. they can range, just like us all, from very open and genuinely kind, to pretty sneaky and grumpy.

once i hung with a vietnam vet. he was just about to celebrate his 50th birthday and could physically show me everything he "owned". he actually seemed pretty aware, in that he wasnt mentally ill--though im not totally sure. he told me that though he could carry with his two hands, all his worldly possessions, he was still much more content than the people driving by who appear to have their desires fulfilled.

one night we shared a bottle ((using cups!)) with a homeless guy who was a little jumpy, but he was actually from atlanta and as a kid would watch martin luther king speak in atlanta. it was pretty cool. lots of them have interesting stories, really. lots can be sad too.

i could go on; they have given us flowers, poems, played songs, all sorts of kind acts that most people would think is crazy or socially unacceptable. in some ways, because theyve "hit the bottom", theyre free to go wherever. i think the ones who are not ill and just choose to be realize that the sun will rise tomorrow, no matter where they are. and, like the guy in the mercedes, they are where they want to be.

....but yeah, the ones who are lazy and try to rob you or harass you for money, those ones just p**s you off. just remember, its a mixed bag with homeless folks too!

Answer 5

Well you could volenteer at a soup kitchen or something .

It seems ur looking for one reason why people become homeless and there is not just one reason.Some are by choice.Some will be for reasons like , drugs, alcohol. Mental health problems. No family support system when they have a problem in life.Family abuse  and just as simple as money problems .

Yes many are homeless because of drug problems and

mental health problems. But it can be as simple as someone giving you a last minute notice that they are kicking you out .

Answer 6

Uh, you're right to not pester strangers, grilling them about their lives, as that's rude.

I talked to a homeless guy once (at the time he wasn't, temporarily).

But that's just one person.

You could read things written by people who know lots of homeless people, who have studied them, who work with them, and so on. There are also books by people who have been homeless.

A LOT of homeless are people with mental health problems (when I was younger, Ronald Reagan, at that time Governor of California, basically kicked them out of mental institutions, and the mentally ill have made up a big proportion of the homeless since).

There's no ONE thing that the homeless have in common, as far as WHY, except the homelessness itself.

There are people who are briefly (months) homeless. This happened a lot in the '80s, when Reagan was President -- entire families living out of the car. Imagine that. Getting ready for school, and going to school, then coming back "home" to your family's car every day.

I briefly had no home, though I had a job at the time (the house I'd been living with had been sold, when I was working so many hours, I'd never found a new place). It was unpleasant, though I had places to stay.

One night, I hadn't made arrangements with friends before leaving work. I realized the biggest problem is that there's no place for a person to be. That was really unpleasant.

But you'd never have known I didn't have a home. As I say, I had a job, and was staying with this and that friend. So it was really different than genuine homelessness. Except for that "not having a place to be" thing.

About homeless shelters. There aren't enough spaces in them for everyone -- especially when the economy is especially bad.

And they can be rough places.

Lazy? That IS a myth. Homelessness is hard. You have to spend a lot of time stashing your stuff, getting a shower, getting a place to sleep -- just dealing with the physics of life.

You might get your hands on the movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" -- an atypical case (based on a true story), but still gives a good idea of some of what it's like.

Another thing you might do is volunteer at a "food for the homeless" place. NOT to quiz the, uh, customers, but after helping, you could talk to the people who run it about your questions, and their understanding of things.

In San Francisco (near me), there was a proposal, that got shot down, unfortunately. People would put together big boxes of donated plywood, with a lockable door, and storage space. The idea was to tuck a few of them here and a few of them there, for some homeless. (Using car jacks to make them level.)

I remember an interview with one homeless guy who said he'd love it. "I could take more odd jobs that way. Instead of putting my stuff in bus station lockers, where I have to travel to get them, I could lock up my clothes and tools, so I'd have them always available. When something came up, I could take it because I could change my clothes, and grab my tools, and work for the day."

It was rejected for being "degrading" -- oy, vey!

No one was saying FORCE people to take them. Make them available for whoever wanted them. You'd be out of the wind and rain issued blankets (they were small enough that, in our climate, your body heat would be enough to keep you warm),and have a place to lock up your stuff during the day so you could go about your stuff.

Answer 7

Try approaching the 'Big Issue' publishers for an avenue of approach to what you want to learn about.

Sash.

Answer 8

The average American is only two paychecks away from homelessness. There are a lot of people out there who are homeless but you don't notice them because they are working, going to school etc. Most of the time the ones you see are the chronically homeless. Most of them have been homeless quite a while, many are addicted to one substance or another, some are mentally challenged and some have just given up on trying to do better. Restaurant owners are not happy to see them!! Many of them smell bad and they don't have a lot of money so take up a seat drinking coffee.

Most homeless people are just like you and I - they are doing the best they can. But some people dont make enough at their jobs to keep a home, they need help to get into a program( like HUD, MSHDA, or low income housing of some kind). Many homeless are children - some living in cars, some at shelters - shelters are quick to get people with kids into an overnight place at least.

What is really bad is that the majority of these shelters are only open from 7pm to 7 am. -- all the homeless people have to be out and gone by then. To walk the streets of your town with no money and no hope. How desperate are they? (well that depends on the person). This is supposed to inspire them to "get a job" but all it really does is throw them out into the weather!

Answer 9

I gave 5 dollars to a guy once who said he had no money for a bus to take him back to the state he was from.  He said he came to Pennsylvania to work for some lady and she refused to pay him.  A little while later he came into the liquor store I was working at to buy a pint of vodka.  That seems like the kind of decision that if made over and over may land a person homeless.

Answer 10

there are a bunch of homeless people that live in my town, and i knew two of them.  they were on drugs and didn't want to pay the money for rent because they couldn't afford both drugs and rent, but they made more money than me and my ex at the time and we had an apartment.  they had the means and the job, they did not have to be homeless but they were because drugs were more important to them.  and that is how a lot of them are around here.  i hate to say it but it is true.  that is not how it is everywhere, i know, but here, people are into the drugs, and there are plenty of jobs (amazing!) at fast food restaurants and hotels and whatnot but no one wants to work there, so they remain homeless.  

however, in my abnormal psych class, 200,000 homeless people have a serious mental disorder, mainly schizophrenia, that makes them unable to hold a job or function in life.  this is largely due to the deinstitutionalization movement, where people were kicked out of the mental hospitals because they were "better."

Answer 11

Firstly, I've talked to maybe 5 homeless people.  One had his wife take everything he owned and ruined his reputation via accusing of a false crime of rape so he couldn't keep his job or get another one.  Another simply was a musician who could not get gigs (talking to him it became obvious he did know music theory...very well).  :-)  Yet another one had gotten abandoned by his parents at a young age and had learned to sleep with one eye open because crime in the only areas he could legally stay as a homeless person was so high and no public school, for example, would ever accept him.

   Yet another one claimed to be fired from an oil company but asked for large amounts of money to pay to stay in a supposed shelter house where he would not introduce me to the owner....he simply tried to swindle me and rip the cd player out of my car after I went to a drive-thru with him to get him a cheeseburger (tip: never let a homeless person into your car, even if he is much smaller than you and you've already checked to make sure he's unarmed...if you need to get him somewhere, take a bus instead). :-(

Another answerer, "Replace", said

--Others are mentally ill, and have no refuge due to our archaic approach toward mental illness.

   I completely agree.  Many people have simply been treated unfairly and dropped from jobs (particularly retail) and are segregated do to issues like hints of mental illness (even things as small as dyslexia) that have made endless potential employers "randomly" tell them to hit the streets.

   Yet others haven't had much chance or education.  Some were likely born from homeless parents who had made bad choices and were thus taught things like smoking and alcohol were OK.  Yet other had abusive parents they ran away from and ended up unable to support themselves.

   And still, others are just cocky: they think the world owes them money, drugs....without work and are willing to steal to get it.  And others just hate the idea of working themselves to death just to barely afford food for a boss who doesn't seem to work half as hard as them (particularly in retail).  Yet others have families they can't afford to feed and resort to criminal activity to afford to raise their kids thinking "the end justifies the means".

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Personally I was fired from retail...never able to get a retail job again and, in all the while (unknown to the people who hired me) was just about the graduate from grad school.  Most of the people on that retail job said I need to just give up and get on welfare.

   And, soon after, I got a very strong programming job for a very large corporation.  Now 65% of my earnings goes into savings and I own my own property.  But, when I think about it, it could just as easily have been myself who became homeless...when public ignorance is as high as it is.

Answer 12

Yes.  I've studied habits of group behavior and have worked in social services.  This group was one that I worked with in the past and lots of them were once confined in the "state hospitals" for the "mentally ill".  When the majority of the state hospitals were banned, because the hospitals were considered "cruel and unusual warehouses", they quickly began releases these patients back into the public (with medication) but little of them had a stable place(family) to go.  So most of them winded up in the streets as what you see now.   They panhandle for money to consume themselves with drugs or alcohol because they can no longer receive assistance.  In order to receive assistance, they must have an address.  Lots of them felt a need to be free because of the years of confinement so they resist living somewhere and meshing into society.  If you want to do some kind of research, the safest way would be to talk to a social worker in the hospitals because they deal with them on a day to day basis.