Hmmm… Perhaps part of the problem in your area is the result of people acting defiantly.
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My dorm mate one summer did cleaning of offices on the night shift. I’d be talking to him and not get an answer. He said he was so tired that he was often asleep before his head hit the pillow. Rough life.
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Divide those numbers by 5 and that matches my experiences 40 years ago. Things haven’t changed, low wage earners must live with family or a roommate.
Did you not understand
If this helps, it was a shelter set up for homeless people that they could stay at and get their benefits at. He said the shelter was a dangerous place to stay. This guy was pretty old and very weak from drug use. He was unable to defend himself.
Edit: @Nevada_545, maybe I’m misunderstanding you. This was about 10 years ago, I don’t know if they used cards back then and I didn’t spend a lot of time getting to know him. Another problem for homeless people often is not only no home, but no bank either.
The shelter is their address so he had to go there to get his check. Then he had to cash it at a check cashing place that took a fee. That is when the gangs or a stronger homeless, depending on who got to him first, would rob him. If he was lucky, he might avoid detection when he got his check, but if he did, then it went straight to his drug dealer.
BTW, the reason I know tis much about him was that many years earlier, he and my uncle were friends before he spun out of control. My uncle who was in his 90’s at time was trying to keep him away from his home because he was always trying to get money from my uncle. My uncle told most of this to me. He was also being supported by a church that I used to go to when I was a kid growing up there. I visited the church and saw him again there.
Oops… 
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In my earlier post, I should have mentioned that, if the cops are summoned to someone’s home because of a domestic disturbance, that can also result in the summoning of Psychiatric Emergency Screening Services. IIRC, the responding cops relay their concerns to their supervisor, and if he/she agrees, a call is placed to PESS.
A Psychiatric Social Worker is then summoned to the scene, and if he/she agrees that there is a serious mental issue–even if no violence has taken place–then an on-call Psychiatrist makes the decision of whether to transport the disturbed person to the closest Psychiatric facility for further assessment.
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I had some neighbors that became homeless. Did an extension cord so they could have refrigerator etc. They ended up staying at an encapment with others on some vacant land. The group had a nice firepit, couches chairs, tents and cars to sleep in. I am on facebook and 1/2 of the posts are help this or that with money.
A couple cities are looking at solutions to get the homeless off the streets. San Fran vacant apartment tax. Some other city unsold hotel rooms to be given to the homeless. I am not saying homeless people are bad though they can be. Had booked a room in Brooklyn at hotel indigo, called because rates were so goofy. Desk clerk is you don’t want to stay here, half the rooms were prepaid to serve as a homeless shelter. Feces everywhere, smeared on the walls etc., and the stench as they all hung out in the lobby.
We need to have the safety net to help people in need, and get help for those with issues. I could go broke donating to every cause that would have little effect and then be living in my car also.
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I recall that! Where did you wind-up staying?
That was the Minneapolis experience too that nearly wrecked the hotel. Due to age can’t recall the exact details.
You are helping the folks living in their car, by volunteering your time here to assist w/ideas for their car repair diagnosis and maintenance. A large car repair expense was one of the reasons cited the lady and her daughter (the subject of the radio program) could no longer afford their rent and had to move into their car.
I’m not saying some of these stories don’t make sense but unanswered questions. When I first went to rent our apartment in 1972, I had to sign a 12 month lease and a deposit. No way to get out of it early and I wasn’t sure I could afford one of the best in town. Got the deposit back four years later after a thorough cleaning.
If anything, I think the apartment restrictions are more severe now with credit checks and references.
So who gets stuck with the Hazmat Bill???
Any mechanic will tell you that someone that is given tools for free will never (exceptions to every rule) take care of them or take pride in the tools and will loose them etc, but if you have to invest in them, they are more out to take good care of them and they will serve them well…
Same thing with given the homeless free stuff, they don’t pay for it, they don’t take care of it…
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I’m kind of a believer in the skip generation theory. Successful hardworking father raises lazy kids. Lazy kids beget hardworking offspring.
My successful farmer fil rented land to his nephew. He was exasperated the way they cared for their tools and equipment, often just losing or forgetting them in the field, and leaving stuff out to rust.
At my last assignment in the Air Force at Davis-Monthan in Tucson, AZ. In 1998, was the first time we had to jump through those “hoops” to be considered for a rental house. We did not want to buy as I would be retiring from the Air Force in two-years.
What I did find out after three applications, at a cost of $25 to $35 each, was that the actual cost was closer to $10 to $15 then and that the marketing and realtor agents doing the renting were using this “ruse” as a way to make extra income… They would take lots of applications and even if the applications came back positive, they kept taking deposits. And if they did not rent to you, you did not get any refund…
We ultimately rented a nice house from another retiring Air Force couple who was settling in Phoenix and wanted to try their hand as a “Slum Lord…” When we left, we also got back our entire security deposit.
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Daughter rented a whatever that rent a place was. It was OK.
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Driving home from boston, it was late and we were tired. Stopped by one hotel but didn’t like the looks of the guys hanging around there. Figured it wouldn’t be the first time I slept in the car, just no free coffee. Another 50 miles found a place.
Downtown Nashville, may not be able to afford the overnight stay and eat the next day… get to the outskirts of Nashville, may not live through the night… get to the next county (or very close), 15+ miles away in my area and have a good safe sleep that you can afford and still eat the rest of the trip… lol
On our first trip home from my first duty station at Luke AFB, outside Phoenix, to Albany. NY, in 1973, we decided to keep cost down and borrowed a tent and sleeping bags and would camp out at KOA campgrounds and we wanted to make it as fast across the country as possible. We drove from Phoenix to Tulsa, OK., non-stop, just over 1,000 miles on the first leg; boy were we beat… We stopped at a KOA, office ws closed, so we set up the tent, put the sleeping bags inside, and went and took showers. It was horrible, there was no warm water, let alone hot water, but I persisted… But the wife had it a lot worse, she did not want to get her hair wet, but the shower head popped off and hit her head, and the stream of water coming out got her hair soaking wet, since she was all soaped up, she had to rinse off in the stream of cold water.
That was the straw that broke the “camel’s back” and we were not going to stay the night and then have to pay the following morning and we just pulled the tent down and I rolled up the tent the best we could with the sleeping bags still inside and stuffed it in the truck…
We got back on the road, looking for another place and after almost an hour of driving, we heard a sound coming from the back of the car, the trunk??? It was like a moaning, a groaning, an animal???
We stopped and I carefully opened the trunk, and something in the tent moved, I poked it and it “Hissed”, it was a cat, a cat that had wandered into the tent when we went for the shower…
Well, we have always been cat people, so what do you do, let it go, keep it and claim it as your own, or drive back the 50-odd miles and return it… We returned it and let it go outside the office. We then could not go any further and slept in the car, in the parking lot. At least they had working toilets…
That morning, we set out again, hoping to make it all the way to Albany, an even further stretch… But no, it was not to be, we made almost 1,300-miles on this leg…
We had had it with campgrounds, and stopped at a small “family run” motel, named the “The White Stag Motel” outside Scranton, PA. It looked kind of rustic and it had little cabins, and we were beat. To check in, I rang the bell and a sleepy old man came out and slipped a registration sheet to me through a mail slot. And he asked me how long I wanted it and I told him for the night, what else???
I filled out the registration and paid and he slipped me the key through the slot. As we unloaded the car, the old man and I guess his wife stared at us through the windows. My wife asked me why most of the cars had no license plates, I told her I don’t care, maybe they steal plates here…
We got inside and it all came together, the bed was unmade, the bathroom had been recently used and a pair of panty hose was hanging off the door knob to the bathroom.
As we tried to get settled in, several other cottages vacated and the occupants put their license plates back on their cars. This place probably got most of its business by the hour and the patrons probably removed their license plates so no one could positively identify them using that place…
It really was disgusting, I went outside and got the tent and sleeping bags, we spread the tent out on the bed and put the sleeping bags on top of the tent. I slipped a couple of quarters into the “Magic Fingers” coin box and the bed vibrated us to sleep…
Just one more leg to the trip, Scranton to Albany, less than 200-miles, something we could do in standing on our heads…
Oh no, no, no… Route 84 had so much construction going on that the average speed was probably only 25 to 30 MPH… Then we got to a detour over the Delaware River. The Bridge was closed for construction and we had to detour miles thorough Matamoras (never heard of this place…) and I missed a detour sign and we really got lost, really lost and were miles off the detour by the time we realized it… We asked for help and everyone was trying to be helpful, but we were trying to get back to the detour and asked how to get to Albany and got a great tour of the local area as the folks tried to get us back to a detour they were not familiar with…
That last 200-mile leg was closer to 300 miles and it took over 8-hours, but we made it…
With the help of seasoned friends who had experience traveling, the return trip to Phoenix took 5-days, and we stayed at real, respectable hotels and motels… But the return trip left us with no tales to tell…
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Ha ha ha hilarious. I remember staying at the rainbow motel somewhere in Wyoming for about $10. It was fine though.
When we were building our cabin, we would go for the weekend and get a motel overnight
At the nearest town 30 miles away. Usually I could get a choice brand for my special rate of about $20. One weekend though there was something going on and the only place I could get a reservation at was the sonshine inn. Not a typo. It was so bad that my wife slept with her clothes on, and on top of the covers. Should have known better.
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Staying at a motel or a campground while traveling does not qualify as being homeless.
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