So it boils down to luck? Little Timmy’s is born in prison to parents that are drugged out, he gets put in the foster care system as a drug baby, and he’s doomed from then on.

Pretty depressing, and I’m afraid all too common of an occurrence.

Do people ever become responsible for their own lives, or are they permanently victims from birth? I realize people are born into different circumstances, some really good and some very bad, but we all make choices. We don't have to be alcoholics or drug addicts or go to prison because that's what dad did. We make choices of our own.

Parents or not, who doesn't know that being a dropout and going to prison for dealing drugs, rape, armed robbery, or murder will end up poorly?

Thanks Mark, this was the first thing I thought of.

I don't know anything about that guy. I'm just some schmuck doing a job. I only know what I see and hear when time and situation allows for an actual conversation. I dont really have any answers. I do think it might be hard to go back and fix the parenting breakdown for the millions already on the streets though so we might have to look atother possible solutions.
We've met some interesting people on the streets. I just do my best to be respectful, talk to them like they are people and treat them with some dignity. I learned a long time ago that my words will not change any of their situations so I just try to be decent to them.

Well, doing those things likely will end you up in a home. It will have bars and be called prison

Took these in the wild on the mean streets of Oak Cliff a while back.

Pants down, mask up!!

Drugs are the root cause to the majority of it.

I worked at a fire station in Dallas in 2000 or so in the area then where the "homeless tent camps" first popped up. There was an area that has quite a few vacant building after the downturn in the economy in the late 90's. The homeless had a "city" built in that area between a creek and some vacant warehouses. It was impressive what they could construct with scraps. Until one exiled dude set fire to it and burnt it all up. We frequently had homeless around the station and made a lot of calls on them. Honestly the majority of our calls were on the homeless for quite a while.

I would engage in conversation with many of them. Found out int the "city" there was a hierarchy, basically their own governance over their "community". There was one guy who was the top dog, his name was Steve. Steve came by the station a lot and got some water out of the spigot in the front yard and got some ice from us in the summer. He was almost a "friend" and I was kind of sad to hear he passed. He was actually a brilliant guy who came to Dallas from the NE to work because the democratic states had no work for a paint contractor. He had a wife and children. He would travel back home once or twice a month until his wife said she had found a new man and she wanted a divorce. He started drinking, running with the "bar crowd", hanging out prostitutes and degenerates of all kinds. That lead to drug used and the loss of his ability to run his contracting business and then he went busto and was a full time coke head and when he lost his ability to make good money and afford good coke, he went from powder to crack and well that was the end of any resemblance of normal in his life. He 100% owned the fact that he ruined his own life. He was not a victim and did not want nor take anything from the "government" except water and some ice on occasion.

Steve and "his guys" controlled everything in the "city" and who could stay or not. They had a bootlegger, working girls and self medication people. They actually disposed of their trash and had a designated "bathroom" area near the creek and downwind from the camp. It was crazy that these people left living in normal society to end up in the exact thing except as homeless. One night Steve got jumped by some outsiders and the ambulance took him to Parkland in pretty bad shape. A few weeks later 2 homeless guys ended up dead in that area and I asked Steve if he knew what happened and he said he "heard" they were punished for something. Basically they had a hit put out on them in the homeless world. It was wild, to say the least.

Most if not all hated the shelters and the salvation army. Some say there were workers at many of those places that would abuse them and they would throw all their belonging away. They could only have 1 bag. I have been in many of the homeless shelters and most are creepy and awkward to say the least. Most said they now preferred their lifestyle and the fact they really were not burdened with too many responsibilities.

There were the "mental" homeless and the other homeless shunned them and kept them out. They did not want the violence and instability that most of those types brought with them.

It's a whole different layer of society most will never know and hopefully most will never have to live it.



Sorry for the long post

He’s the Soft White Underbelly guy (if you’ve ever heard of that), based out of LA.

I've seen some of his YouTube videos

Yes! That brilliant idea was the beginning of the spiral toward what we have today. I bet there wasn’t but maybe 2 or 3% that voluntarily stayed in the hospitals. It didn’t take long at all for things started going south with the homeless and now we have what we have. I’m extremely glad I don’t live in Portland or San Francisco but I was in Dallas all last week and the problem is rampant there now.

After reading the original post topic, one main contributor was left out...

The Mirror!

Many people can blame themselves for being homeless due to "life choices that have consequences."

...!

No matter how you cut it, at its base, there’s really nothing “we” can do to solve it…and solving for homelessness (I think) is the aim of many posts.

I mean, good luck solving it by making people look in the mirror and take accountability!

I’ll join skeeterokc in giving that a thumbs up…but only when there’s a way to do it.

I will give them money from time to time. I always tell them to go get a bag of dope and enjoy.