BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 05:08 AM

This seems to have degenerate int personal abuse and open racism
Bye-bye thread
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Raggytash
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 05:23 AM

"I am not going to argue the causes and cure of the famine here"

I have offered to send you titles of books which could enlighten you as to some suggested causes of the famine and related issues.

I am not at all surprised to find you have not accepted that offer.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 06:04 AM

"I keep banging on about compassion and kindness on here (and elsewhere)
If one keeps alight in one's heart a spirit of love for one's fellow man and a sensitivity to suffering, one will try to do what one can, and not question the eligibility on the part of the recipients.
Some may specialise in helping animals, the Third World, the old, those in prison. No one group has priority over another, and no-one can be doing everything for everyone."

Senoufou, thank you for expressing these ideals I admire and aspire to. The drum I keep banging in this thread is that homelessness, inter alia, is a logical result of a particular social structure and can be remedied by changing it. And that the "growing fury" helps, and is intended to help, preserve that pernicious social structure.

I think that the idea of a fixed-volume pool of social service resources is another myth that serves the same purpose. Hence I have no problem with Bonzo's preferences: I think it's a dangerous fallacy to hold that a pound given here comes out of the pocket of a more deserving recipient over there.

I don't know how many times I've heard or read something like, "We have no business providing for immigrants/sending aid to Africa/giving free medical care to addicts--until we take care of our own needy/veterans/abandoned dogs, etc." The handy accessibility of this trope as a reason to do nothing should itself be grounds for skepticism.

Compared to most of the world, the per capita incomes in the US and UK are enormous. (Although the actuall figures are misleading, as they are means of highly skewed distributions.) Large enough in the US, anyway, that a conservative congress could pass a tax bill throwing away one trillion dollars in revenues and not miss it.

It's true that "no-one can be doing everything for everyone," but almost everyone together could do a great deal for almost everyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 07:44 AM

Thank you Jackaroodave.
You're quite right in saying that in the West, we have a lot of resources to hand. I've travelled a great deal around West Africa and seen some terrible things due to poverty, disease, civil war etc. (Although it has to be said, corruption in most African states is absolutely rife, and if their greedy politicians took their sticky hands out of the pot, there'd be more or less enough to go round.)

It's true also that no-one can give endlessly to a myriad causes. We have fairly limited financial resources and my husband's enormous family of over 60 people in the compound alone, not to mention his ancestral village of Nafamadougou, are always getting into difficulties. His sister has now contracted TB and we're helping with treatment for her. It's a great pleasure to me to be able to make a small difference to their lives. But this doesn't leave vast amounts for needy people and animals here in UK.

I think the main thing is 'sharing'. Whatever one has, one can share a bit with others. It sounds so cheesy I know, but it's true for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 10:35 AM

At the risk of making poor old Greg foam at the mouth

Sorry, no foaming - but disappointment, disgust, etc. Per your equating animals and humans, once again:

No one group has priority over another

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 12:02 PM

Well I'm glad you're not foaming Greg. But to be fair, we don't really know what Bonzo does in his day-to-day life do we? He might be a very kind neighbour, a stalwart friend, someone people can turn to in a crisis. He may (as my late father did) do a bit of gardening for the elderly, or take non-drivers to the supermarket.
Goodness doesn't just consist of handing money over.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Iains
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 02:08 PM

Raggytash. I live very close to the Abbeystrery Famine burial pits just outside Skibbereen. I have read many different sources on the famine and I am well aware of varied interpretations of the true state of affairs. I stick by my original statement. Many Irish histories paint a very black picture (partly for historical/political reasons), conversely the British often attempt to play down the true severity of the situation.
Somewhere within lies the truth. In that period the mores of society were very, very different. Tramps were shown out of the parish within 24 hours and the paupers ended up in the extremely harsh regime of the workhouse. The situation is exemplified by the hym "all things bright and beautiful":
The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly, And ordered their estate.

Passing an accurate judgement using the mores of today is I would say, almost impossible.


Supposedly we have moved on from such a harsh attitude to the most vulnerable.
But Biafra, Darfur, The Yemen still are allowed to occur. Politics trumps humanity it would seem. We have not really changed- we just keep the bad news buried in the small print deep inside the daily rags and the TV news is always carefully massaged. It becomes increasingly difficult to isolate the facts from propaganda.Does embedding reporters give access to the real story or carefully manage to keep them away from those actions best hid from publicity?t No one denies the Irish famine was a tragedy or that more could have been done and should have been done. But in our days of enlightenment today how many have been massacred in the middle east over the last quarter century.
How many killed by war, terrorism or vital medicines with held by Internationally applied sanctions?

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 04:22 PM

we don't really know what Bonzo does in his day-to-day life do we? He might be a very kind neighbour........etc.

Based on what he's posted for a very long time- which is all we DO and CAN know of him - he might be a complete asshole, and the betting is that way.

Then too, it was not Bozo who stated that humans don't take priority over animals - that was yourself.

Also, who - other than yourself - suggested "just handing money over"? Certainly not me.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 04:56 PM

"No one denies the Irish famine was a tragedy or that more could have been done and should have been done."

Only two things wrong with that sentence. First, the word "famine." Oh, how that little word conveys the sense of of calamitous and unavoidable hunger brought on by nature. But the Irish "famine" was no such thing. Read on. Second, the word "tragedy." Again, the sense of a cruel and unavoidable act of God. Again, no such thing. There was abundant food in Ireland all the way through that "famine." From wiki.


Throughout the entire period of the Famine, Ireland was exporting enormous quantities of food. In the magazine History Ireland (1997, issue 5, pp. 32-36), Christine Kinealy, a Great Hunger scholar, lecturer, and Drew University professor, relates her findings: Almost 4,000 vessels carried food from Ireland to the ports of Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, and London during 1847, when 400,000 Irish men, women, and children died of starvation and related diseases. She also writes that Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon, and ham actually increased during the Famine. This food was shipped under British military guard from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland; Ballina, Ballyshannon, Bantry, Dingle, Killala, Kilrush, Limerick, Sligo, Tralee, and Westport. A wide variety of commodities left Ireland during 1847, including peas, beans, onions, rabbits, salmon, oysters, herring, lard, honey, tongues, animal skins, rags, shoes, soap, glue, and seed. The most shocking export figures concern butter. Butter was shipped in firkins, each one holding 9 imperial gallons; 41 litres. In the first nine months of 1847, 56,557 firkins (509,010 imperial gallons; 2,314,000 litres) were exported from Ireland to Bristol, and 34,852 firkins (313,670 imperial gallons; 1,426,000 litres) were shipped to Liverpool, which correlates with 822,681 imperial gallons (3,739,980 litres) of butter exported to England from Ireland during nine months of the worst year of the Famine.The problem in Ireland was not lack of food, which was plentiful, but the price of it, which was beyond the reach of the poor.

The historian Cecil Woodham-Smith wrote in The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849 that no issue has provoked so much anger and embittered relations between England and Ireland "as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation." John Ranelagh writes that Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine.

Calling it a tragedy, rather than an inhuman outrage, misrepresents the situation entirely.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 05:28 PM

Building our homeless shelter has been an exciting adventure. I live in Placer County, California, which has a population of 375,000. The county spans from the City of Roseville, a suburb of Sacramento; to the shores of Lake Tahoe - with lots of forested mountains in between. The nearest town to me is the county seat, Auburn, with a population of about 20,000.

Back in about 2004, Placer County authorities got caught transporting local homeless people to volunteer facilities in the neighboring county of Sacramento, and a court order was issued to stop that practice. Soon after, churches in Placer County established the Gathering Inn, which provided floor space for homeless people to sleep - in a different church every night. The Gathering Inn is centered in Roseville. Homeless people in Auburn, 16 miles away, had to board a bus at 3 PM every day to get to the Gathering Inn processing center. The 250-some homeless people in Auburn didn't make use of the Gathering Inn very much, because it was so much easier to camp in open spaces around Auburn. But those open spaces eventually closed up, and that left a good number of homeless people wandering the neighborhoods of Auburn. Auburn is a very conservative community in a very conservative county, and people started to demand stricter enforcement and stricter laws to bring the homeless population under control.

The next county north of us is Nevada County, which is a liberal enclave in usually-conservative Northern California. And Nevada County had folksinger U.Utah Phillips. Utah and his wife and friends founded Hospitality House in 2005, and it has become an exemplary homeless shelter that now houses 54 people. And my stingy county had a round-robin shelter that housed 40-60 people on the floors of church halls. And many citizens were up in arms, insisting that our homeless people came from elsewhere and should be shipped out of town. They objected to establishment of a shelter, because a shelter might serve as a "magnet" to bring in more homeless people.

Back in 2011, I joined with three women to study the county jail in Auburn, to try to find a way to end the jail's practice of releasing inmates at night when their time was served - releasing them with no resources, no transportation, and no place to go. We soon learned that many of the jail inmates were homeless people with mental health problems or addictions, so we joined forces with other people and established the Auburn Area Homeless Forum. We began a campaign of letters to the editor and comments in social media, and we sent representatives to every public meeting that had anything to do with homelessness. After the Homeless Forum got its start, a local Catholic priest started a group called Right Hand Auburn. Most of the Right Hand Auburn people are wealthy and conservative, while we in the Homeless Forum are mostly unreconstructed hippies. Right Hand Auburn launched a plan to open a homeless shelter in the recently-vacated minimum security section of the County Jail, two brick buildings that had been army barracks during World War II. The Homeless Forum and other organizations joined forces with Right Hand Auburn, and we were able to open a shelter with 47 beds in June, 2015 - but the county allowed us to operate only from 5 PM to 7 AM. In less than a year, we were allowed to operate a 24-hr shelter for 50 people, and "emergency" space on the floor for another 50 people at night. Now the shelter operates 24/7 and serves 100 residents. It provides mental health and addiction treatment, job training, housing referral, and classes that teach residents how to be good rental tenants.

The shelter was originally supported by donations with a contribution from the county. Soon after the shelter opened, the county started paying for everything but meals - meals are provided by churches and other volunteer organizations.

But the shelter isn't everything. Our community organizing efforts had an amazing effect on the county government. We have two strong supporters on the 5-member County Board of Supervisors, and we're usually able to coax a third or fourth vote on matters that concern us*. And we found that there were talented employees in county government who were just waiting for permission from the public to step forward and do good things for those in need in the community. The Sheriff joined with the Probation Department and County Mental Health to form a homeless task force that serves and patrols the homeless community. The Probation Department started a very successful job training program for jail releasees. The Sisters of Mercy built a beautiful apartment complex for formerly homeless senior citizens, and the county launched a number of efforts to build housing for the poor.

I'm now the outgoing president of an organization called Placer People of Faith Together. We do community organizing on the issues of incarceration, homelessness, and immigration. We try to attend every public meeting that has anything to do with these issues, and we speak out in public meetings and in local news media. We insist on a non-adversarial approach, and that has served us well. In the process, we have made friends and built ourselves a good reputation in the community and an excellent relationship with local government.

And it has been fun. And the taxpayers are paying most of the expenses.

-Joe-

*I'm friends with the one county supervisor who consistently votes against us, and he has often done very generous things that have helped us out in many ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 05:43 PM

One more thing about homelessness and mental health - in a survey taken in my community, 37% of the homeless people said that they had mental health problems. I'm sure this number is different in other countries and other communities, but the number seems right for my community. The majority of homeless people here are "chronically homeless" - homeless for five years or more. And the majority of our homeless went to high school in our county, which refutes the claim by some that our homeless are outsiders who don't belong here.

I also began to hear the use of drugs and alcohol referred to as "self-medication," a term that makes a lot of sense to me. Homeless people often use drugs to dull the pain and misery of a life lived with inadequate food, shelter, sleep, medical care, and safety. Homeless people use the cheapest drugs they can find, because they can't afford anything more. It's a misconception that homeless people would be just fine if they didn't spend all their money on drugs and alcohol - homelessness is a complex and hopeless problem, any way you look at it. But it's amazing how people change after a few days in our shelter. Adequate sleep and nutrition works wonders.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: bobad
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 06:36 PM

I tip my hat to you Joe for your activism on behalf of the homeless - it's one thing to post platitudes on the internet but another to actually get involved in the community and work on solutions - kudos.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 07:58 PM

Yeah, Boo - but what's he done for dogs lately??

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: bobad
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 08:25 PM

Oh, I'm sure he'd help you out if you were in need Greg.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 09:27 PM

I really, really like dogs - but our county just spent $23.6 million on a new animal shelter, which will house 68 dogs, 92 cats. If we could get that kind of money to house homeless people, we'd really be able to accomplish something. We're lucky if we can squeeze $1 million a year from the county to house 160 people in two shelters. It seemed like a miracle when we finally got county funding for our homeless shelter, instead of having to depend completely on donations. And yet we're still funding all meals at the shelters by donations.
Tax money feeds the dogs and cats.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 09:35 PM

our county just spent $23.6 million on a new animal shelter, which will house 68 dogs, 92 cats....we're still funding all meals at the [homeless] shelters by donations. Tax money feeds the dogs and cats.


Surely Senoufou & Bonzo will be pleased- all's right with the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 01:49 AM

Best way to clear the homeless off the street is to build homes.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 02:54 AM

Why not close a few universities where far too many time wasting youngsters sloth away 3 years, then use the dormitories to house the homeless, but they should be required to do something useful to earn their keep, like rescuing and looking after homeless dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 04:19 AM

Quite a few of the homeless we see in Norwich have lovely dogs with them. I sometimes hand over some dog food as well as a pound or two. One chap told me a dog helps to protect him from attacks during the night.

We have several small charities here for rescuing dogs and cats (eg F.A.I.T.H.). In supermarkets they have a box where one can put cat and dog food, and a stall on Norwich market where they sell bric-a-brac to raise money.

My husband finds it rather droll, how pets here in UK are pampered, when on the streets of Adjame (district of Abidjan) one sees terribly emaciated children. He couldn't believe at first that I gave our Siamese roast chicken. Over there, chicken is eaten very very rarely, and only at Tabaski. (one scrawny chicken among ten or so people)

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Iains
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:30 AM

Bonzo3legs. Keeping kids in college makes them debt slaves for life and massages unemployment figures downwards. It's a win win situation for the PTB.

Joe. The example you set to the rest of us is outstanding, long may your good works continue!

The fact that more can be spent housing cats and dogs than on people speaks volumes about the society we live in.

In reality we exist on a knife edge and very little is required to tip us over the edge. What separates us from the homeless is the false perception that we could not sink to that level.
What savings does the average person have?
What percentage are behind on payments for housing , cars etc.
How vulnerable are we to upsets in just in time deliveries, especially of food?
Have lessons been learnt and actioned since Katrina?
Through no fault of our own, a little shock to the system could plunge many more of us onto the streets.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:47 AM

"In reality we exist on a knife edge and very little is required to tip us over the edge. What separates us from the homeless is the false perception that we could not sink to that level."
An excellent description of a failing political system in need of replecement
Pity Edward Gibbon isn't around any more to write its history
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:51 AM

From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:47 AM
"In reality we exist on a knife edge and very little is required to tip us over the edge. What separates us from the homeless is the false perception that we could not sink to that level."
An excellent description of a failing political system in need of replacement

But not to replace just for the sake of replacing it.
Any replacement system must have at least a reasonable chance of improving the situation before replacement becomes a worthwhile goal.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:58 AM

I have no time whatsoever for dogs (more their legions of irresponsible owners, actually), but we are pet-owning democracies and I fully accept the need to have humane facilities for pets that come upon unfortunate times. A discussion which constantly complains about comparative amounts spent on dogs/ cats/students/the homeless is puerile. The people posting in these threads all live in countries that can well afford to look after all the dogs, cats, students and the homeless. It's just that we put our fiscal priorities elsewhere. Tax cuts for the upper and middle classes, tax breaks for massive corporations, indulgent treatment for parasites who hide their money offshore, an unregulated and cruel private rental sector, you name it. In this country, we even have a ridiculous scheme that gives the biggest and richest landowners subsidies of half a million or more a year, when what we should be doing is taxing the arses off them. On top of that, and in spite of the lesson of the last ten years, we have irresponsible and almost unregulated financial institutions that allow people to get to that brink by going heavily in debt. Don't let the buggers divide and rule by squabbling about homeless dogs and homeless people. Always look at the bigger picture.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Iains
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 07:36 AM

" A discussion which constantly complains about comparative amounts spent on dogs/ cats/students/the homeless is puerile."

I wonder how many homeless people would regard the above as puerile?
To ponder the merits of placing annimal housing over and above that of humans? The fact that such a discussion exists displays magnificently man's inhumanity to man.
Does that come under the heading of puerile? I rather think not!
Your rant would appear to make the case that life is not fair. At least you understand something!

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Raggytash
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 08:03 AM

You really do seem to have a problem with comprehension Iains, either that or you are being deliberately obtuse.

Steve is not saying that discussing the homeless and the amount spent is on them puerile, he is saying that discussing the COMPARATIVE AMOUNTS spent on the homeless and stray dogs is puerile.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 08:21 AM

Dare I say it?

Different language at least!

I am getting more and more convinced that it is not just the UK and US that are divided by a common tongue. Different groups of posters on here have the same issue.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 09:37 AM

Iains is constantly and obsessively looking for trouble. We should ignore him.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 02:40 PM

WOOF!!

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 03:04 PM

I've often heard complaints about homeless people wasting money by keeping dogs as pets. The complainers think that homeless people shouldn't be wasting their money on dog food and other pet expenses.

A lot of homeless people have dogs, and the much-maligned pit bull terrier is the dog of choice for homeless people. Pit bulls can be trained to be vicious, but they are very loyal and lovable dogs that can be terrific companions. We have kennels in the outdoor courtyard at the homeless shelter where residents can keep their pets and hang out with them.

When we were doing our initial study of the county jail, we interviewed a hundred homeless people and asked them about the times they had been in jail. One young man I interviewed had a pit bull, and he said he hadn't been in jail for over a year, since he got "his baby." He made sure to stay on good behavior and not get arrested, because he didn't want to be separated from his dog. This man's relationship with his pet seemed to be the only really good thing in his life. That conversation sure woke me up to the importance of pets in the lives of homeless people.

Made me appreciate my own dog more, too.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Iains
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 03:57 PM

Sometimes a pet is the only loyal, protective friend that people have. They can also have a significant calming effect on certain people. Are homeless people not entitled to the same rights as the rest of us?

The link below is one of a number of articles all roughly in agreement:

http://time.com/4728315/science-says-pet-good-for-mental-health/

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 04:53 PM

You hear intolerant things all the time, Joe, such as that homeless people shouldn't have dogs, people on benefits shouldn't have flatscreen TVs, why are people on the breadline buying their kids X-Boxes, how come you can afford an iPhone when you're unemployed, look at that kid with his Nike trainers when his mum's down the food bank most days...

I bloody hate it. What's wrong with us?

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 04:56 PM

There is a great deal of envy in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 04:57 PM

"I've often heard complaints about homeless people wasting money by keeping dogs as pets."

OFTEN?!

For ****'s sake--what is WRONG with people?

As a vegan, I don't keep pets myself, unless you count the ants in the compost heap, but how can anyone begrudge someone who has nothing a few cans of dog food?

It reminds me of Nathan's rebuke to David about Uriah the Hittite and Bathsheba.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:00 PM

Steve, I owe you a coke.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:11 PM

There are vegan brands of beer, you know!

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:16 PM

People are always getting the hump about what other people have, and whether they ought to have it or not. There's an undertone of 'deserving' and much tutting if visibly 'poor' folk have anything nice.
It makes me fume. If a sad, homeless, hungry and dirty chap loves his dog and it gives him comfort, it may be the only good thing in his miserable life, as Joe says above.
It's so cruel and unfeeling to grudge him some pleasure in the love of a loyal pet.
I often wonder if compassion and fellow-feeling have gone out of fashion.
Are people made of stone nowadays?

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: bobad
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:18 PM

If meat eaters acted like vegans

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:24 PM

Musha, God Help Her
Pierce Turner (as sung by Christy)

Ah Sure, musha, God help her,
She's in an awful state,
She's got that husband fellow's run away,
A teenage daughter in the family way,
And she can't pay her bills to nobody.

Poor Mrs. Donoghue,
Out there by Ballynew,
She used to be a King from Davitt Street,
All of them were spotless in their parents' home,
Till she got married to that animal.

According to all accounts,
They never go to Mass,
He's with that young one out in Ballyhack,
She don't have a stitch across her back,
But she can well afford to drink.

I really don't know,
What's to become of them
All the street is up in arms at them,
They make more noise than an army,
When she starts throwing all the cups at him.

I really wouldn't mind,
If they were friendly,
But they don't say hello to nobody,
You'd really think that they were somebody,
It makes me laugh you know,
At the back of it all.

Ah sure musha, God help her,
She's in an awful state,
She's got that husband fellow's run away,
A teenage daughter in the family way,
And she don't pay her bills to nobody.

---

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=53629

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:43 PM

"If meat eaters acted like vegans"

Har. Har.

I've never witnessed a vegan act like that. I have, however, often been grilled (pardon me) about my veganism by carnivores who felt implicitly criticized. This happens a lot less than it used to. More and more I hear things like, "You know, I don't eat red meat, myself. . . or at least not very often."

I saw an actually pretty funny one on a BS thread a while back, though:

"Why did the vegan cross the road?"
. . . . .
"To tell someone he was a vegan."

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 05:53 PM

Ha ha! That bloke's videos are magnificent. My favourite is the one about how to become gluten-intolerant. Genius!

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jan 18 - 04:06 AM

"There is a great deal of envy in the UK."
There is a great deal of and a great deal of disinterest in, even contempt for the poor poverty to give rise to that envy
Windsor is probably the most recent example, but your own posings are regular reminders o both.
"Envy" has become a substitute for a "desire for natural justice" in the vocabularry of some
GROWING GAP
Jim Caarroll

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Thompson
Date: 11 Jan 18 - 04:07 AM

Another reason homeless people have dogs is that a dog snuggled up to you in your sleeping bag in your blow-up tent will stop you freezing to death if you're sleeping out.

This is the world we've made.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Jan 18 - 05:04 AM

In supermarkets they have a box where one can put cat and dog food,

Our local Painsbury's have two. The Cat one, and the Foodbank one. Supported in equal measure, or maybe the Cats have the edge. To bring it back to that comparison.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Raggytash
Date: 11 Jan 18 - 05:44 AM

Good link Bobad !

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jan 18 - 08:11 AM

It's just been claimed by a group of hospital doctors in the UK that old people are dying on trolleys for the want of beds and medical attention
Anybody feel "envious" about that?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jan 18 - 08:25 AM

My poor young brother-in-law Suleyman lay on the floor of a filthy hospital 'foyer' in Abidjan for three days, attended by his mother, who begged for help for him, while sleeping at his side day and night. None of the passing medics would pay any attention unless money was offered. She had none, and on the third afternoon he died in agony of (we think) cerebral malaria, still lying on the floor. He was fifteen. (This was before I met my husband)
I reckon many Third World folk would envy whatever sadly inefficient health care we have here. It's all relative isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jan 18 - 12:35 PM

"My poor young brother-in-law Suleyman lay on the floor of a filthy hospital 'foyer' in Abidjan for three days"
Appallingly inhuman, but hardly comparable to the the situan in the wealth west Sen
Sam Larner put tit in a nutshell when he recited the local rhyme:

If health were a thing that money could buy
The rich would live and the poor would die.

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jan 18 - 12:58 PM

No Jim, it isn't comparable, and that's the point I was making.
One can be jealous of those above one, but all the time, those below are very jealous of us.
I have great sympathy for the homeless in UK, but it's very rare (thank God!) for anyone to actually starve to death on the street. I've seen skeletally thin people, including tiny twin boys, in Dakar, Senegal patently at their last gasp. My husband says a starved person's corpse can lie decomposing for days on the street in Ivory Coast, until the Firemen (!) scrape it up and trundle it away.
All this is horrific and deplorable. But (referring to the thread title) none of it can possibly be a Personal Choice, neither here nor in the Third World.

Subject: RE: BS: Homelessness a Personal Choice?
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 09:43 AM

Watch out, Joe - you could be next:

U.S. NEWS 01/16/2018 09:24 am ET
California Volunteers Share Food With The Homeless, Get Arrested By Police

Police in El Cajon arrested around 12 people from the “Break The Ban” group who were distributing food and other items to the city’s homeless population at Wells Park on Sunday afternoon, according to multiple press reports.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/homeless-el-cajon-california-arrests_us_5a5de4f4e4b0fcbc3a1355f4?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009