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SweetSewerRat t1_j6g1n6r wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Missouri Camping Ban Squeezes Rural Homeless Population by user10085

This isn't the way to do that though. We're at a point right now where people are living on a thinner margin than ever, and we don't have much of a safety net as a society. Once you get behind financially (through bad decisions or through no fault of your own) it has a way of snowballing. No matter how you find yourself in bad shape financially, I think you're at bare fucking minimum entitled to not being criminalized.

Right now the average American has little to no savings, and no assets to quickly sell. No options for a cash infusion to stay afloat, they fall homeless.

Making it illegal to be homeless is addressing the wrong part of that process.

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[deleted] t1_j6g22zp wrote

[deleted]

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SweetSewerRat t1_j6g4jzn wrote

You do realize that I have a job, work full time, have very low expenses, and am still left with very little savings? Good luck getting a job without a mailing address as well. Many homeless people do not have ID, theft/loss of items is a very common problem. This is a barrier to employment. Getting clean clothes? Barrier to employment. Showering regularly? Barrier to employment. The incredibly high likelihood of being arrested simply for being homeless? Well you tend to get fired for a no call/no show, so barrier to employment.

And I guess fuck the mentally ill ones? There are shelters, but there's not nearly enough resources to deal with the homeless problem in large cities that way. They simply are not well funded enough, lack volunteers, and are a band aid fix for a systemic issue.

How does arresting people for sleeping on the sidewalk do anything to combat the core reasons for homelessness? It doesn't. They go and do convict labor for a little bit, make money for the jail system and the cycle repeats.

Talk to homeless people if you can, and figure out their story. Yeah, a lot of them are addicts, but sleeping on the street for a few years will do that to you. Don't judge them so harshly, you are far closer to that end of the spectrum than the other.

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