How to help those who don’t want to be helped
The mayor has created a working group to find out how other cities go about helping the homeless who don’t want to be helped. Put more bluntly, how do you persuade homeless folks to move out of the public eye when they’re not interested in “moving up” to sobriety, a small subsidized apartment and a boring job?
jeather 15:56 on 2024-04-12 Permalink
Are we truly at the point where we’ve helped all the homeless who DO want to be helped? Because I bet we’re not. (I also don’t know — do all of this group not want to be helped at all, or do they not like the restrictions on the help on offer.)
Kate 10:44 on 2024-04-13 Permalink
They need to find ways to help all of them at the same time. There will certainly be some people in a condition of homelessness following misfortunes or setbacks, who can be helped with a hand up to get a place to live, especially now with rents so high and places so difficult to get, because they do want to get off the street. It’s hard enough to get money and political motivation to deal even with these willing folks. But there seems to be a growing cohort of people who’ve placed themselves permanently outside society, maybe because they’re mentally ill – and self‑medicating with dangerous drugs, making their physical and mental state worse all the time – who basically don’t give a shit what happens to them. How do you mobilize the kind of resources it will take to persuade them to come in out of the cold?
jeather 13:47 on 2024-04-13 Permalink
I’m not saying we shouldn’t help them too, I guess I feel like this working group is a way to put off helping people who do want help.
Kate 16:23 on 2024-04-14 Permalink
I doubt most of them will even be aware of it.