Thank you mr.Hyde for sharing your amazing experience. This is something we can all learn from.




Thank you mr.Hyde for sharing your amazing experience. This is something we can all learn from.
"Where there is love there is life"-Mahatma Gandhi
"Be The Best, F!ck The Rest"- P.P.




Thanks for sharing Hyde!
We have a huge homeless population in Austin, and this really sheds a lot of light on the situation.
Hyde, first of all, I'd like to commend you for taking on this project, and for continuing your volunteer work. However, I would like to make a few points. It sounds like you picked the best homeless shelter you can find. I can promise you, they're not all "amazing." I'm not surprised that one built for families is better equiped than what you would find at other homeless shelters. I have a close friend who lives in a homeless shelter and it is not such a pretty picture. She's in a shelter for single women. It's a "wet" shelter, as opposed to a "dry" shelter, meaning people can't do drugs or drink in the shelter, but they can do them outside of it and come back drunk or fucked up, and it makes for some pretty scary situations. She can't be admitted to a dry shelter because she's going through methadone treatment to detox off of heroin (yeah, I know, you could say that was a bad choice on her part, but she's had a rough go in life. Her parents started giving her drugs when she was a child, at a time she was also suffering terrible abuse). She's been robbed and attacked in the shelter, and is frequently threatened. She had to be on a waiting list for the better part of a year to even get into the shelter.
Secondly, I think it's important to remember that homeless people are at a high risk for being victims of violence. Getting a legitimate job at an established business it quite a far cry than agreeing to go with a stranger met on the street to another location for work. There might be reasons other than laziness to explain why some people would choose not to do such a thing.




See, I never thought that begging on the streets was lazy work, considering the risks that Elvia pointed out. Its just another job, basically selling something to people that they don't need.....a feeling that they've "helped" someone out. Most of us don't need drive through dollar menu or chatcki souvenir stores either.
I won't lie, I give homeless people money sometimes, particularly when I am parking my car downtown and they are trying to help me..aka, trying to muscle me out of money with the threat of causing harm to my car.
But I imagine that a few hours painting walls isn't any harder than standing on a busy highway intersection, freezing or boiling, and risking getting hit by a car, runover, or arrested. Plus, imagine the shit they hear from people driving by in their cars, all the name-calling.
I think its easier to do some painting or rake some leaves..but they have made their choice.



Nice try at revising history. The fact is the deinstitutionalization movement in the United States (late 1960's and several decades following) was priimarily a product of The LEFT which claimed that such institutionalization itself was causing more harm than the benefit gained. Law now make it very hard to involuntarily commit parties.



As for managed care, drugs, and therapy to be some magic cure it all - that is nonsense. and its common knowledge that intractable type issues such as substance abuse ( mostly alchohol and to a lesser extent drugs) are intertwined with the entire issue in a systemic way for the vast majority (mentially ill or not) "homeless" - so there are in fact no easy solutions.
Even the name "homeless" itself which the left wing media pushed during the Reagan admin is often very misleading, as many not so much lack homes but friends and family that will tolerate them to live at home and still engage in drinking etc. ABC's Nightline with (far left wing) Ted Koppel a few yrs back followed an alleged "homeless" person for a year and as it turned out (to the embarassment of the show) - his sister in fact had a room in her home ready for him at all times, but she had a rule about drinnking that he would no accept, and of course he was found dead on the streets months after the show aired by some kind of drug overdose
Today the STARZ network show CRASH has as one of their storylines a billionaire who is trying to setup a homeless city in L.A. and their scripts (typical of left wing) have all sorts of mis-infomation including the idea that women and their children are routinlely roaming the streets at night (with all the other homeless) seeking shelter - freezing in the cold and starving etc. Classic hollywood bullshit and it just muddles up the problem further.




True story - when I was very young I had an ex boyfriend who was an addict. His pusher made him keep a stash of drugs in our apt. in order to pay off debt he owed him. He basically became a mule.
So crackheads would come bang on our door all day and night. This one lady lived in our apartment complex. She had one leg and would beg on the street corner. I talked to her one day about her life and she told me all about the life of street beggars. She made enough money begging to support her two kids, her car, her apt., and her crack habit. She said that when money got slow, she would take her kids out with her. She made more money begging than a real job would pay. She had no desire to work. She WANTED to get high and stand on the corner. I was FLOORED. I will never give money to homeless people again. Only shelters, or even pet shelters at that. Just my opinion.
She was perfectly able to work. She just didn't want to. And begging perfectly accomodated her lifestyle.
And no, I didn't stay with that guy long. I moved out soom after that.




I have a situation right now. A friend of mine has a brother who is a homeless speed addict. Right before Christmas, someone set him on fire, right out in the streets. He was in the hospital recovering, and she was about to breakdown..she raised this boy on her own, and she's in her twenties, only a few years older than he is. He promised to seek help.
I used all of my resources to ask around about grants or scholarships for indigent addicts, and got some really solid referrals. I emailed them to her the other day, and she responded that he had already chosen to return to living in the streets. Very sad indeed, to choose that after having third degree burns, and almost dying.
The only thing that would keep this person sober is forced institutionalization, but no one is going to offer that up to a person who is sick as a terminal addict. That's all.
You're thinking of the Lodge Project. Yes, there was a lot of evidence that mental institutions as they were being run did little to actually improve the mental conditions of the mentally ill. However, it offered up an alternative model instead. The Reagan administration, however, ended up using the findings to simply do away with institutions altogether, as opposed to giving other models a chance.



Oh i see Reagan did it? lol. The crazy people in fact were all over the streets on day one of Reagan's term, we heard it about it everyday in the media for 8 yrs.
I realize the left wing continues to live in their fantasy world. However some people need to be locked up , certain mentally unstable people we refer often refer to as "insane" . You can spin that fact anyway you want, claim to have all these alternatives, but it will not change the reality, nor the substance of what the process is.
^^^ And, you can spin it however you want. The Lodge project did indeed exist. Sorry your attempt to rewrite history was a fail.
Yes, some people do need to be locked up. As it is now, the mentally ill usually end up in the streets, or in prisons that are ill-equipped to handle them.
Don't fret. Maybe you can still find a way to somehow link this subject to how women love cheating bastards? I know that always cheers you up.
With all of that being said, homelessness on a continuing basis is MANY times a choice, and in fact the homeless that are visible, IMO, are 99% by choice. My experience with this has shown me that if one wants help, there are plenty of places to find it. If one wants to live on the streets and make do with what they can find, then that's what they will do.
It has also shown me that I will not give some guy on the streets who is healthy one dime. I have now, however, given money, food, clothing, and time to this shelter and I think it helps.
How could you possibly know that? How do you know that many of them aren't waiting to get into a shelter? Every night I see a long line of people camped out in front of the shelters who couldn't get in because it was too full. They spend hours there, sometimes the whole day, just waiting in line for a place to sleep at night.
That's great that you're giving to this shelter, but I still say it's a little heartless and ignorant to write off everyone who didn't make it into the shelter.
I will amend my statement....the mentally ill who are on the streets are not there by choice, necessarily. I did not happen to encounter anyone like that in my project, so I didn't think of them, but I know they exist. Addicts are also something that I can't speak to and I know that they are a part of this equation. Whether there is an element of choice with this group is debatable.
But other than that, I've spoken with enough people that deal with the homeless that I know. The people that work at this place full time pretty much admit to me that the street people that come in are, in most ways, unable to be "saved" because most of them don't want to be.
I invite you to do you own research as I did and see what you find. I am willing to change my mind. It's why I did this in the first place.





I just want to really applaud you for this... I still think there is no harm in giving a few bucks here and there directly to someone on the street, but yes, it is more important that the shelter is there and that is a better use of most of your giving.
But I would point to the fellow you called 'classic homeless'... who is he hurting? What's wrong with him being homeless... it sounds like in his case it's what he wants.... so why shouldn't he have a few bucks in his pocket if some other citizen feels generous?
If he's not fouling up public spaces, I don't care if someone else gives him money. The place that I found that guy was on a sidewalk in downtown Tampa. It was right outside of a Quizno's, and I felt bad for the guy that owns that Quizno's because I'm sure he has to shoo these guys out of his bathroom and I'm sure they harass his customers for pocket change. Further, they slept on the sidewalk there because it's somewhat shelter-ish, and if you walk through there, it's like walking through a smelly mini shanty-town. Why should they be able do this?
But if they're not doing anything like that, I guess I don't care if someone else gives them money...I won't do it...I work too hard for what I make to just give it to some guy who doesn't want to work. But it's not like it's easy to tell harmless homeless from the rest, so no, it's best to just give it to a homeless shelter. They can still get food, etc there, and it's more efficient.





I didn't get involved in that thread, because of the "original" thread about the same subject posted much earlier.
that being said, without getting too involved in a discussion I will simply say:
If someone chooses to give money to homeless people, so be it. It is -their- money. Plain and simple. You* can argue why you don't think they should till you're blue in the face, but it's not your choice.
I will give my money to whomever I please for whatever reasons I decide upon.
*by "you" I do not mean "Mr Hyde". I mean anyone, really. I understand that it is not Mr Hydes stance to tell people what to do with their money. I just felt like mentioning it, since a lot of these threads tend to derail that way.
PS. I'm glad you (and this time I DO mean Mr Hyde) actually got involved and did something. Just be sure to always keep an open mind when doing so.
Don't get me wrong, I am NOT judging anyone for giving money to the homeless. I just think it exacerbates the problem.
There is a park in Ft Lauderdale, a state park that is right across from the beach. It's bounded on one side by a road called Sunrise Blvd. There was a spot on this road that a lot of people used to walk on, and it so happened that one spot on this road was where some raccoons would come out. People starting feeding the raccoons..."oh they're cute! let's give them some food!" whatever...
Well, pretty soon, more raccoons started showing up and after a while, they became a nuisance. They had to ban feeding the raccoons because they were trying to take bags from people's hands and becoming threatening.
Now, this is not a perfect analogy, but here's where it hits...
People give money because it makes them feel good. People gave to the raccoons because it made them feel good. But really, both are detrimental...the homeless don't bother to really get back on their feet because someone will always give them a handout.
With that said, I'm not judging anyone for doing it, I just think it's better to give to shelters.
And I also didn't like being told by Jenny that I hated the homeless or any of that stupid nonsense.





My Hyde, I think it's awesome that you are donating your resources to the Shelter. If more people did this, I feel we may have less people on the streets.
Right now in Colorado Springs, we are having a kind of homeless epidemic. Near one of the main blvds and toursit areas we now have a tent city. This tent city is hurting the tourist business because people no longer want to walk down that area because of the homeless. Also, they have no bathrooms or running water, and so are washing their clothes in the river and doing their bathroom business there as well. They said on the local news they are trying to be clean but its hard without proper conditions.
So, some rich people bought some port-a-potties for them. BUT, this can now encourage them to stay there instead of moving along and letting our tourists feel safe.
I think, instead, those people could have spent their money on helping set up a place out of the way for these homeless to go.
I have to agree that I personally would rather donate resources to a shelter.
"You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories -Stainslaw J. Lec
Confuscius say: "Man who pull bra stap get bust in face"
^^^^^^
The more you subsidize something, the more of if you get.





^^ they're trying, but where will they go?
"You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories -Stainslaw J. Lec
Confuscius say: "Man who pull bra stap get bust in face"
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