🚀 go-pugleaf

On 17 Oct 1998 07:42:11 +0200, Axel Boldt <axel@uni-paderborn.de>
wrote:

>darrow@oneillaw.com (O'Neill) writes:
>
>> On 16 Oct 1998 04:32:58 +0200, Axel Boldt <axel@uni-paderborn.de>
>> wrote:
>
>> >If you are poor in the US, you live in a little self-built card board
>> >home in the streets of Los Angeles. The police will come by regularly
>> >and destroy the card board home. You are not allowed to beg for money
>> >(recent city ordinance). As a single unemployed male you don't receive
>> >any welfare payments. You don't starve because there are private soup
>> >kitchens.
>> 
>> Hmm, I wonder where you get this information.
>
>New York Times, Public radio, some of it I've seen myself.

Then you are very selective about what information you pay attention
to.  The New York Times, which I subscribe to, covers the homeless and
poverty issues quite well, and if you read it regularly you would know
that to be poor in America does not mean living in a cardboard box in
the Streets of LA.

>
>> It strikes me as something you might see on TV.  
>
>I don't know, I don't watch TV.
>

well at least we have that much in common.

>> 95 percent of the homeless are not homeless because they're poor, but
>> because they're insane.  Under our constitution, we cannot
>> institutionalize them against their will, because that's a deprivation
>> of their liberty.
>
>And so, honoring their liberties, you proceed to treat them in the
>most degrading way possible. Does it also violate their constitutional
>rights to offer them a place in a sheltered group home or sanatorium
>for the mentally ill and to give them the medical drugs they need?
>

no it does not, it only violates their rights to force them to accept
these offers against their will.


>The fact is that society does not offer the poor mentally ill any
>place attractive enough so that they would stay there out of their
>free will. 

Really, I think you've got your mind made up about these issues but
don't have any facts or experience to back them up.  Most of the poor
in the U.S., if you define poor as receiving welfare, do not live in
the streets.  Welfare can just about provide you with a middle class
existence.

The homeless problem has nothing to do with money.  I am sure that are
a couple of exceptions to this, but by and large, the homeless are
mentally ill, and most of them abuse drugs or alcohol.  This is not to
say that they don't deserve to be treated well, it just means that the
problem is a lot more complex than just building some nice middle
class housing for them. 


>hat is a problem of the society, not of the mentally ill.
>And poverty is the root of the problem: if you developped severe
>schizophrenia tomorrow, you would be treated properly and housed in
>some institution till the end of your life, because your health
>insurance or your family would pay for it. A poor guy with exactly the
>same condition would end up in the streets, looking forward to daily
>abuse by the police.
>

I would say that would be due more to the efforts of my family than
society.  I have heard stories of upper and middle middle class
families that have lost a family member to the homeless problem.  But
I admit that it is less likely for a person from a solid family
background to end up on the streets.  

The erosion of the family structure is a problem here in the US.  It
causes problems that money cannot solve, and money, or the government,
cannot do much about it.  Actually, the government does not take the
extended family into consideration when giving out benefits.  If it
did, I think it would strengthen the family quite a bit.

There is a hidden type of welfare in the US in the form of the foster
parent program.  Let's say a woman has three children, but is a drug
addict and her children are taken away.  The government needs to find
foster children.  It turns first to the woman's family and will try to
qualify a sibling or parent, or even a niece, etc., as a foster
parent.  The government will then provide a very decent stipend to the
family member for taking care of its own relatives.  Oftentimes, these
stipends are the main source of income for the foster parent.

Not long ago I got a call from a woman who wanted to sue the
government because she had taken care of his sister's child for three
months and she thought the government should pay her.


>And as we are talking about constitutional liberties, what about the
>right to free speech? Why are they not even allowed to beg for money?

O brother you are misinformed.  Walk down 9th avenue in New York and
you'll see they have no problem begging for money.  The courts have
consistently supported their right to beg.


>Face it, the public generally hates the homeless. 

Some do, but most don't. 

>It sees them as people too lazy to work.
>

Well, now you've got to make a choice, are they mentally ill, or too
lazy to work?  



>> For the most part, your scenario is not true.  To the extent anybody
>> lives in cardboard boxes, it is for reasons other than the absence of
>> governmental assistance.  Shelter is always available to families, and
>> in most cities even to a single unemployed male.
>
>Shelter of a quality which makes people prefer cardboard boxes. Go figure.
>

Do you think that is the reasoning of a sane person?


>> Singe unemployed males can and do receive welfare payments as well.
>
>This is false. They can get Social Security if they are disabled, but
>welfare is for families only.
>

Sorry pal, single unemployed men can and do receive welfare.   The
rules have tightened up, and he would have to show more than the fact
that he's unemployed, and he might not be able to stay on the dole
foreover, or even very long.  He will be given shelter and food.

>> The rules on this vary from state to state, and most states now have
>> some limitations.  But food and shelter are always available, no
>> questions asked.
>
>Provided by private charities, not by the state.
>

Well you have your mind made up on this one.  It is impossible to
state any such general rule.  We have 50 different states and
thousands of municipalities, but I suppose you know that there is not
a single governmental source of food and shelter in this country?


>-- 
> Axel Boldt  **  axel@uni-paderborn.de  **  math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/