Hobos, adaption, acceptance and today’s proud homeless
By: Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda
In many homeless forums I’m noticing a general apathy among the active homeless — a sort of contentment or lack of interest about changing their housing situation.
In a post from the GREAT CAMPFIRE FORUM a man expresses his dreams of homelessness and freedom:
“I’ve often thought of doing just that, livin’ off the land, hangin’ out with fuzzy woodland…”
Good Fortune and Bad Decisions
Acceptance and adaption seem to be changing the perception of many who are living homeless today; at least, if I am to accept much of what is said in the homeless forums.
But, one wonders if these forums actually represent the mainstream of today’s homeless population. Or, do they represent a class within a class? Certainly, in the homeless communities dotting the landscape of America, we have developed several social classes within the homeless community. One can observe this simply by spending one night in a shelter and watching the variety of residents.
Among them, one can witness the following:
- The Underemployed
- The Student
- The Displaced Worker
- The Veteran
- The Youthful Party Sect
- The Addicted Personality
- The Disabled
- The Insane
- The Bad Decision Makers
- The Tough Luck Charlies
The Underemployed
These are people who exist in the homeless shelters across America because they lack the training or skills to meet the requirements for jobs that pay a living wage. They generally work in entry level or minimum wage positions with very little opportunity for advancement. Many of them will tell you that they have never collected a government benefit in their lives; and in many cases, it is this sense of “pride” that has kept them exactly where they are…struggling for very little.
The Student
Certainly, there are a number homeless college students across America. Many live in transitional housing; out of their cars; or even couch surfing their way between many the sofas of the many friends they easily pick up.
They spend less time worrying about finding a way to survive, than getting their education. For the most part, these homeless kids aren’t exactly the types that come to terms with their station in life. Their needs are still very material and they see hope in the future, once they graduate. They may be homeless, but they still have the latest technology in cell phones, computer games, and other technology.
The Displaced Worker
America’s construction workers, plumbers, electricians and many other fields have been without work since the foreclosure crisis halted the sale of homes. They are now displaced. Many have experienced this in mid life, aging into their sixties now, homeless. As a result, many feel let down, lost and with skills no longer in demand; they are stuck hoping for a solution to pull them out of their problem. There are several who have decided to retrain. These heads of families who have lost their jobs and homes, due to the housing bubble.
The Veteran
As the war in Iraq has come to a close; many of our nation’s soldiers have come home shrouded with a number of psychiatric and physical disabilities. Some have turned to substance abuse to deal with the confused feelings they have. Some are merely lost and having an impossible time trying to find their way towards adapting to a normal life, again. They wander through life seeking a way to exist, but suffering from recurring feelings that fight with opportunities for healing. Sometimes, this ends up creating a financial dilemma that brings them to homelessness.
The Youthful Party Sect
Sadly, there is a nonchalant group of spoiled kids in their twenties and thirties who spend many nights in homeless shelters, often too high to go home after a night of partying. They finance endless parties by not paying rent and staying instead, in shelters, as an alternative.
You can often spot them. They waltz into the shelters with their dreadlocks and booze breath, or glassy eyes; their voices always loud and annoying. They have little regard for others and often pretend they are having more fun in life, than life should allow. Eventually, many of them turn into addicts and remain in the shelter existence.
The Addicted Personality
These are your drunks and druggies. They have burned every bridge they have encountered with their substance abuse. Now, they have now landed on rock bottom. They will either seek help and try to move up from here; or live a life in and out of homelessness, like many do.
The Disabled
Today’s disabled are not always easily detected by simply looking at them. They may be mentally disabled with disorders as undetectable as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, to as obvious as experiencing a series of ticks and walking the manic depressive shuffle.
They may also be as serious as suffering end stage cancer, going through chemotherapy, and holding onto the last threads of life they have left. They may be temporarily disabled, without insurance and waiting for a surgery that may correct their condition; but knowing that social health services take years to get them to that awaited operation.
The Insane
And they may be as insane as the old bag lady with sores all over her body, a continual bad hair day from the matted snarls of filth accumulated after months of not bathing. They may be the women that continually scream frustrations to no one in particular; but directed to every man that made their life hell. They may have been rape victims that never got treatment and carry box cutters now to use if any person comes too close. They may be the old lady that stands in the corner of the shelter, raises her skirts, squats, and pisses like a race horse, watching her steaming urine run along the cement as she laughs insanely.
The Bad Decision Makers
Some are people who have a pattern of making the worst decisions in the world, and do this over and over. They seem to live their lives playing a continual poker game with their well being.
They risk spending rent to buy some meaningless thing they figure they can’t do without at that moment and regretting it later. They plan to collect an outstanding debt from a friend who has no intention of ever paying his obligation, in order to pay the outstanding rent they owe. When they find out they gambled poorly, they end up homeless.
They spend their time in the shelters still making those risky decisions, shirking responsibility for their bad logic. Some are also ex-gang members who have opted to re-enter society as they age into creating families of their own. In addition to this, many ex-convicts are trying to find their place in society at all, and they have been released due to the overcrowding of prisons.
The Tough Luckers
And some people simply have the worst luck in life. They appear to have an omen floating over their head in life. They may have lost a number of relatives to death. They are fabulous employees; but they are laid off during downsizing, over and over, just because they have a trade or skill that falls out of demand. Maybe, they have even suffered a number of house fires, drownings…situations so many horrible that we can’t believe it is happening to THEM again.
Youth and Utopia
I’m not sure if this new adaption to homelessness is simply the naivety of youth speaking out from living a vagabond lifestyle that offers less responsibility and more freedom. Kids in their twenties seem to have affection for flopping in friend’s homes; until they grow up and realize that someone has to pay the bills. And they haven’t lived through the hobo days; so they romanticize that era.
Or, is this is a movement among the homeless to adopt some utopian view of a new society of poor? People creating intentional communities that attempt to create an ideal society revolving around homelessness?
The idea of this bothers me more than the idea that a few students are simply having a good time learning to survive on the streets and imitating the hobos of yesterday.
Why?
Because, it means that capitalism might possibly have marginalized the homeless to the point of adapting to less and less. And this could have sad implications.
Capitalism creating lean living
In essence, it is possible the homeless today are creating a new, leaner lifestyle. They may be following the hobo lives of our historical past, and accepting their situation.
I took a freight train to be my friend, O lord,
You know I hoboed, hoboed, hoboed,
Hoboed a long long way from home, O lord,
Hobo Blues by J.L. Hooker
In the article, The American Hobo, by Colin Beesley the hobo is described as follows:
…the hobo remains something of an enigma. For many Americans the word “Hobo” is replete with contrasting and often contradictory images. To some the hobo is a harmless n’er-do-well, for others a sinister vagrant. He is seen as a “reckless, perambulating soldier of fortune” or as a “waste product”, a drunken bum littering the sidewalks in the less salubrious quarters of America’s cities such as Chicago’s Hobohemia. Most certainly these superficial impressions of the hobo are compounded by his invisibility, because for the most part his life is lived beyond the redoubts of the settled society from which he is often alienated and excluded.
What concerns me about that is many of our nation’s hobos were excluded from prevailing societies; and I wonder if today’s homeless, choosing to accept their plight for whatever reasons, will be excluded as well.
For instance, I can see the corporate elite managing voting districts by bankrupting communities and eliminating the voice of today’s unfortunate. And with corporations now having the dubious honor of being “persons,” I wonder if we aren’t giving the elite additional power by marginalizing entire categories of people…namely, poor people; because as “persons” the corporations can now manage their affairs by suing in court.
I wonder what implications this could have on the rest of society.
If capitalism can marginalize a poor man to the point that he accepts the most miserable conditions in life, and grows to feel that living this way is acceptable, then what does the next financial class of people give up? And if this happens, who are the people that stand to gain the most and have even more control?
Today, in contemporary western society, the capitalist mode of economics has presented us with a dilemma. We now have a yearning for material wealth, instead of a model that satisfies our needs with a demand that fulfills our needs. Because of capitalism we are unfulfilled and divided from ourselves and others.
I do know that many of the definitions of Colin about the hobo’s perception of themselves appear to have been adopted by this new breed of homeless proud people:
“The hobo works and wanders the tramp dreams and wanders and the bum drinks and wanders.” Most hobos are unanimous in that they are committed to the work ethic, as Road Hog (1997) a hobo for over forty years insists, “Real hoboes are workers…”
To be sure there are some differences in emphasis, some “worked to be on the road” and others were “on the road to work”. Whatever their motivations they became part of a distinct caste, that of the hobo. Equally important and fundamental to any delineation of the hobo, and an aspect which is seldom included in attempts to define them, is the use of the train.
For the hoboes the train was their primary method of transport as they ranged across the country in search of work. From this most hoboes developed an intimate connection with, and knowledge of, trains and the railroad network.
In today’s economics, what is our latest hobo optimists enamored with?
They certainly aren’t the romantic hobos of the past, who hang out around railroad yards, in rough groups, roasting a day’s meal over a fire. But who are they?
And what will this new breed of homeless bring to the rest of society’s expectations in life and living conditions?
Excellent points to begin with. I once knew a couple who were actually trust fund kids who made use of shelters and programs for the homeless on a regular basis “just because.” The difference was they allways had the money to fall back on. They wanted to try on the lifestyle which is defeating to people actually living it.
Another catogorie you forgot to mention are the truly violent. I think there are a few floating out there who make use of the homeless population both for hiding and for their violent tendacies as they are less likely to be detected committing crimes against the homeless.
That was today’s post, actually.
[Quote=Article]And what will this new breed of homeless bring to the rest of society’s expectations in life and living conditions?[/quote]
If present trends are any indication, expect homeless to be the new normal in the next decade or so if the present order isn’t destroyed right away…
I think, adaptation, in and of itself, could constitute an entire article. The reasons for adaptation are as many as the reasons for homelessness. First of all, if you don’t feel you have any other choices, the best solution is to learn to adapt. Second, is the relief from pressure, such as attempting to keep up with the Jones, paying your bills or following societal rules. As Grainne pointed out, this type of homelessness also attracts the violent who find the lure of victims nobody cares enough about to investigate thoroughly an easy target. But don’t kid yourself. The homeless who form communities usually know enough about each other to know when the perpetrator is one of their own or is a hate crime perpetrated by someone who still lives within society’s safety net.
I think the corporate mind is as short-sighted about how distribution of the wealth works as they are about wasting natural resources. Their wealth depends on the sales of goods and services. Each time they downsize, putting people out of work, they dwindle the number of people who can afford their goods and services. Each time they take a loss in sales, they raise the prices to make up for their losses, thereby dwindling down some more the number of people who can afford them. This rank and file financial busting works its way up the ladder. I can imagine a future where the corporate wolves will have nobody to feed on except each other.
I don’t think an adaptation to homelessness is wrong any more than i think there is any wrong doing in a nomadic society. I just feel the wrong doing was in allowing no other choice than to knuckle under arbitrary rules meant only to improve corporate special interests or bow your way out into complete dissolution of home, job skills and family.
I think people who use money to buy stuff and then complain about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer are either hypocrites or they don’t understand what ‘money’ and ‘stuff’ really are.
Stuff is all the crap we have in our cages (homes) that isn’t absolutely essential for our survival and well-being; ie. material goods in general IMO.
Money is the living symbol of “worthless crap,” that can be traded for stuff or services that we may or may not need. Worthless crap is what we get in exchange for man-hours served as slaves.
So, certain slaves are working to make stuff (like the new Nokia cellphone, or the BMW X4) so that other slaves who work will have something to buy.
The way I see it, our essential needs are provided by the earth for free with just a little effort on our part. Everything else is crap that we don’t really need yet have to pay for.
It’s a lose-lose situation as far as I can tell.
But fear not. There is a way out. Stop wanting crap that you don’t need. Stop feeling like you deserve crap that you don’t need.
OMG THE GIRL IN THE TV HAD A GUCCI HANDBAG!! *FAINTS* I WANT ONE!!!!
No money, no crap, no need handbag.
There is however a true universal currency that I am familiar with. This currency really does bring happiness, and the more you have the higher your living standard is guaranteed to be, regardless of where on earth you are. It is called awareness. And the more you give it away, the more you get back.
I know what you’re thinking. That this idea of discarding money is ridiculous and impossible. <– this is why you are a slave.
Karlsie, I agree. Adaption is an interesting psychological need.
But sometimes, one adapts to negative things more quickly than to positive things. For instance, in my sessions on PTSD behaviors, I have learned how my internal wiring adapted to the negative impulses of loud noise. I never used to be bothered to noise. I jump now; because of the associations I have with it.
The same could be said with homelessness. You can learn to adapt to the easiest way of dealing with your circumstance; or adapt to the idea of surviving and overcoming your situation.
Sometimes, being homeless IS a feeling of being free of social responsiblity. You become exhausted from simply trying to survive. But you get bitch slapped by reality when you take over a spot to sleep and are suddenly awoken by the police shining lights down on you and telling you to move at three in the morning. Why? Because those in power control your existence.
At times when I was homeless, I found myself wanting to give up and accept an alternative life. But it was things like hearing that 13 people I knew got arrested for sleeping under the eaves of a church (which had given them permission) that changed my opinion of that. They were required to go to court to fight this. And when the fines were handed down, some didn’t have the money to pay the fines. Guess where they ended up? That’s right! Jail. There is no freedom in Los Angeles County jails. The jailers there are known to beat whomever they wish, threaten and harass people awaiting release.
This is why you have to keep yourself focused in a time when you are merely existing.
I agree with you about corporate short-sided thinking too. When you downsize your customer base, you lose in the longrun. We’ve seen how many businesses have gone under from this. Look at most inner cities these days. The closed up shops tell it all about corporate greed.
Ph, you may think you can survive in a community without things and money; but you become enslaved by those in power when you set yourself up, like this. For instance, every homeless tent community is at the mercy of those who allow them to set their tents up in that location. Every hungry person is at the mercy of those who offer to feed them from the lands they own and grow food in. In short, if you set your life up to rely on everyone else to support you, you may end up at their mercy too. Unless…you own your own lot…which means you are not really homeless, are you?
If you don’t own “the earth” these days, you may be kicked off of it and sent scurrying to some dried up unproductive lot, where the harvest won’t support your needs. The sad thing about today’s wealthy is that the more they have, the greedier they get. And the more power they need. We see evidence of this in the police state they have created in America today, to protect their stuff.
I’m not advocating consumerism. I don’t think that is the answer. But I certainly can’t advocate telling someone not to try to claw their way out of the homeless hole. Simply, because I know that it leads many times to the enslavement of being held against your will, or being subjugated to dealing with hunger and no sleep.
Jennifer, you’ve touched down on my biggest complaint concerning the homeless situation. Even when they create communities where they can survive; in an abandoned lot, on the edges of a town, even in remote areas, sooner or later the police come in and bust it up. Even churches must go by the guidelines set up by the municipal assembly. Recently, after an entire month of severe minus weather resulted in a rash of frost bite from exposure, our municipality agreed the churches should be allowed to shelter more homeless. I thought then, what the hell? When should a church be governed in respect to how many homeless it can serve? When should a church be told it can or cannot allow a homeless person to sleep on a pew? What happened to the status of sanctuary?
The same thing is true if you own property. You can’t just start allowing people to set up tents on it, or you’re going to be hit with a lot of code violations. In other words, you don’t own your property, you’re just borrowing it for awhile, even if you have the title in your hot little hands.
Instead of looking for viable solutions, the government is designating a large number of people to failure simply because it passes laws that don’t allow you to be of genuine assistance, nor allows the homeless to discover a new life style by building from the ground up. I find this extremely ironic as Anchorage began as a tent city, and the vast majority of the early homesteaders began with a tent and utilized the resources on their land to build from the ground up. The first settlers of that bygone era would be the first law breakers of today.
A stigma has been placed on being poor at a time when more and more people are sinking into poverty. Not everybody has the willpower or the energy to claw their way back up. Not everyone wants to rejoin a society that has become viciously cut throat and increasingly unstable. If the corporate pigs don’t pull their heads out of unmentionable places soon, they’ll have no choice but to feed on each other because everyone else will be nomadic and non-productive.
Jen, I’ve already turned my ideology into reality. I don’t believe I could ever be poor or homeless, because the truth is that I am poor and homeless right now and I’m loving it.
I believe it is certainly possible to overcome all the barriers of society. But I suppose it would be easier to just get a job and pay rent. So.. if these homeless you speak of can’t even get a job, they probably wouldn’t survive hunting/gathering in the desert. But who am I to say?
Seriously though, why don’t these homeless fellows move out of city limits and set up their own tribe in the wilderness? They could at least try. Wasn’t this how the Israelites started out?
“Not everybody has the willpower or the energy to claw their way back up.” I completely agree with you. But many do. And when we glut the system with those who are too tired to claw their way back up, it rains harder on those who cannot.
For instance, when college aged neohobos use homeless shelters as a crash pad after they party too much, they rob beds from those who may actually have no alternatives. They may eat the food in a shelter that only has enough to barely feed the homeless, leaving many hungry who actually need the food.
This idea of neohoboism is a bit selfish to me, for that reason. I think of the time I watched a local Glendale gang member steal Cup of Noodles from a local homeless man. He waited until the man’s back was turned and took his soups and ran. What cowardice this idiot showed in stealing from the most devastated of the community. And I called the little prick on it, several times when I ran into him later, yelling out in front of his “homies” that he was from the poor-assed Cup of Noodles clic. I knew they’d beat his ass for embarrassing them that way, because even gang bangers don’t want to look like they are poor. And I did it because that could have been that man’s last meal, yet this selfish jerk who had a home, robbed him!
i’ve seen the neohobos with their designer grunge wear, numerous silver studs pierced into their ears, tongue, cheeks and God knows where else, pulling out daddy’s Visa or Mastercard when they want something to eat and later checking in stone drunk at winter shelters. They make me sick to my stomach because they exploit the homeless.
They aren’t checking out of society, they are very much involved in consumerism, materialism, and themselves. Their politics revolves around MTV
“Not everybody has the willpower or the energy to claw their way back up.” I completely agree with you. But many do. And when we glut the system with those who are too tired to claw their way back up, it rains harder on those who cannot.
For instance, when college-aged, 20-something neo-hobos use homeless shelters as a crash pad after they party too much, they rob beds from those who may actually have no alternatives. They may eat the food in a shelter that only has enough to barely feed the homeless, leaving many hungry who actually need the food, when they can go home in the day and raid mom’s fridge.
This idea of neo-hoboism is a bit selfish to me, for that reason. It reminds me of the time I watched a local gang member steal a few Cup of Noodles from a local homeless man. The gang member waited until the man’s back was turned, walked up quietly, and took his soups and ran. What cowardice this idiot showed in stealing from the most devastated of the community.
And I called the little prick on it, several times when I ran into him later, yelling out in front of his “homies” that he was from the broke-assed Cup of Noodles clic. I knew they’d beat his ass for embarrassing them that way, because even gang bangers don’t want to look like they are poor. And I did it because that could have been that man’s last meal, yet this selfish jerk who had a home, robbed him! Just like the neo-hobos are robbing genuine homeless people who have no other options.
i’ve seen the neo-hobos with their designer grunge wear, numerous silver studs pierced into their ears, tongue, cheeks and God knows where else, pulling out daddy’s Visa or Mastercard when they want something to eat and later checking in stone drunk at winter shelters. They make me sick to my stomach because they exploit the homeless.
They aren’t checking out of society, they are very much involved in consumerism, materialism, and themselves. Their politics revolves around MTV flavor-of-the-month intellectualism, the shows most people find vacuous: Jersey Shore, Teen Mom 2, Snooky gets bitch-slapped type of crap that hardly represents society. They aren’t the kids who sleep in cars and go to school, or the 20-somethings who have left abusive houses, or even kids who are genuinely homeless and struggling. They masquerade as homeless the same way people pose on street corners begging for spare change and later drive away in brand new SUVs.
I understand people don’t want to regroup with pissants that treat them poorly. I feel the same way about corporate America. I don’t care to ever join them again in my life. But I don’t choose to remain unemployed so that I don’t have to join them. I find another way to succeed.
I knew many people during my homeless time who were ridiculously lazy. When handed an opportunity to have a home, they refused it because…location, the size of the place, any excuse you could imagine. I knew women who stated point blank that they had no intention of working again, and were relying on collecting disability, hopefully; even when they were anything BUT disabled. I knew women who had lost their children from neglect and were only trying to get their children back when they realized they would qualify for housing if they had them. And even when they got their kids back, they still neglected them.
I know it isn’t politically correct to admit that there are horrible people who end up homeless, but there are. That doesn’t mean that the majority of them are…but like you said, the criminal element does hide out in shelters and so does society’s other crap.
sorry about the double post…I hit submit by accident
Jennifer, now you are talking about a whole different breed than the homeless by desperation. You are talking about punks who have never put in their hours of hard labor, who are spoiled and selfish and have no respect for anyone; not even themselves. I think we need a new name for them; Ghetto Corporatists. With a corporate mind of entitlement, they are doing the things the police and corporates can’t do; undermine the homeless from within and making it appear that society is the victim of the homeless instead of the other way around. Eventually, they’ll get caught for some petty crime, get thrown in jail, call mommy or daddy and whimper awhile. Mommy or daddy will bail them out, put them in a rehab program, and they’ll pretend they’ve turned a new page while still sneaking around doing nasty, obnoxious things. They turn up in every generation and change what could have been a good thing into a failure because of their blatant abuses, like the deadbeats and hard core druggies that ruined the early communes.
One of the resources that is dwindling is labor. The baby boom generation is going into old age. Many – who have not lost their jobs – are reluctant to retire because they don’t feel their retirement funds will cover their expenses. They can still do desk jobs, greet Walmart crowds or operate machinery, but their years of being able to do hard labor are over.
Hard labor is what is needed to alleviate the homeless situations. I believe the homeless should be allowed to take over vacant lots, abandoned dwellings and other uninhabited areas to build their own ground up societies. Labor is needed now more than ever, it’s just that the money mentality doesn’t see it. We need labor for reparations of our decaying infrastructure. We need it for cleaning up the industrial waste the corporates left carelessly behind. We need it for remodeling or tearing down the strip malls that glutted once arable land, paving it over and choking it into uselessness. It won’t make the corporates money. It won’t make the government money, but it will give people a second chance.
Labor does incredible things to character. Labor teaches a person to take pride in his work as he becomes aware of what his labor has accomplished. It teaches respect for others hard labor. The feeling of entitlement is slowly erased and replaced with a feeling of community effort. As a rural person, i have seen this happen over and over again; people who have moved in just one step ahead of the law and discovering the only way to survive is through hard labor. Some, it’s true, opted for the easy route; transferring into a nearby city where they could continue their lazy, con artist practices (or become ghetto corporatists); but the ones who stay begin to realize they have found a place as a valuable member of society. FDR figured it out and installed a civilian youth corps and the homestead act. These two initiatives worked, giving people a chance to rebuild their lives that would otherwise have been homeless. To think that we can’t initiate a labor force now that would clean up the mess we are in and solve the housing crisis is just bamboozling the public. Like every other decision that involves legalities, they’re just looking for ways they can capitalize off the problems.
We think alike, because I have been saying for a few years now that the bank owned repossessions should be sold off to the homeless for a buck, or even donated to them.
Instead, in many communities with high foreclosures, these houses are being torn down. They have been stripped of copper plumbing, wiring, etc. They are deemed unlivable; but what homeless person wouldn’t prefer to camp in these homes rather than on the streets? And with all of the shelter screaming they are full to capacity, it would alleviate that problem too. (Not that they want this, because homelessness has become a commodity too, with many going into the business to gain a good living from grant and entitlement monies, instead of actually helping the homeless.)
Why not Section 8 these properties to homeless families who demonstrate an actual need and a skill to do the repairs and allow them to live in it and repair it? Instead of paying people general relief to do nothing, pay them a wage to restore the homes to the way they were, and allow them to live there for a year or two, until they get on their feet. Maybe even offer to finance them if they choose to purchase the home, after offering them counseling on money management. That way, the properties don’t sit empty and get vandalized.
It’s a win-win situation as the homes are occupied, the people are housed, the homes are repaired and the housing situation changes.
Can’t wait for the next post in the series, great read!
Thank you, Erik!
We couldn’t finish our discussion last month, so I’m gonna continue it here, Jen.
My question is: Why don’t you feel sorry for all the filthy rich people who have millions of dollars stashed away in their bank accounts? Why not write an article dealing with all of their problems?
I mean after all, they are just as alienated from the spirit as poor people. So why this focus on a random group of people who you have judged to be less fortunate than yourself and thus deserving of your sympathy? Don’t rich people deserve sympathy?
Are these homeless fellows less fortunate because they don’t have homes? Maybe it is their fate to not have homes, so they will struggle to find a home. Maybe they are meant to be homeless, for their whole lives. Who knows?
First of all, who are we to judge who is more or less fortunate? And on what grounds? What is the standard that determines who is better or worse off?
I believe all people are free to do with their lives as they please. I find it impossible to feel sorry for any man or woman because I fail to see them as victims.
If I were to feel sorry for anyone, I choose to feel sorry for humanity. Poor fucked up humanity.. has no idea wtf is going on.
It is not because I “feel sorry for” any of these people. It is my disgust with those who have exploited them; and those who tried to exploit me when I was in the same position.
Your statements imply they need pity. That sounds like a personal observation to me, telling more about your feelings, than mine. Because, I have not stated these people are “less fortunate,” but I have clearly said some are less motivated and in some cases, spoiled. Did you miss that?
It may not be a politically correct position, but it is an honest observation. I’m not writing about homelessness to earn brownie points, though. I’m writing about what I saw when I was homeless…period.
The reason I write about the various homeless communities has to do with the fact that people have asked me to explain what I saw when I was homeless. If your homeless observations were different, then, by all means, chronicle them. There certainly is room to write other observations on this subject.