Where I live this is a common occurance. Below the snow line we get and even larger number of people that migrated down or get run out of affluent areas. I frequently refer people with a printed card that will get them on mass transit that will take them directly to the center. A good 80% of the time they trash it or pocket it and stay right where they are.

Sad because Scramento, like many communities, has an excellent comprehensive program that will help those who want to help themselves. Yes there are rules and you can't do drugs, be drunk and abusive, steal from other residents, or tear up the facilities but they get food, shelter, clothing, and medical care, includeing childcare and a school for anyone who has kids.

I give a great deal of time and money to support this program because sometimes illness or violence does drive people to the streets. Mental illness is often a cause.

More often homelessness it is unrealistic fantasy that the rules don't apply. You don't have to clean up after yourself, go to work, be a good neighbor, or pay your rent before you party. Lot of people refuse to face the fact that houseing doesn't often afford the luxery of living alone. Many have family that has helped support them off and on for years but they steal from them, assault them when they are told no, and refuse to take medication they need.

Unfortuneately when you give to bums on the street you are giving to people who refuse to work with in the system. They are not sick and tired enough of living on the street because they like not having to do anything but what they want to and they get enough attention and money to entertain themselves. Many are on public assistance and blow it. Many live with elderly family members and are not in fact homeless but don't want to be asked to give the needed care they have promised so they stay out of the house the majority of the day.

Giving bums money you are almost always going to find it will be spent on drugs or alcohol or tobacco.

You buy them food they will swap it to teenagers usually for whatever small change a kid will give them for it. Or buy coffee and load it up with as much sugar as the fast food place will give them to keep them from getting drug sick until they get enough for a fix. Or buy one thing every so often to hang out in the fast foods eating food out of the trash or off the tables.

Almost always you give a woman money an able bodied person is getting the majority of it. Homeless women have usually already abandoned their kids or had them taken away from them and the state is supporting them in the foster care system.

Vets with or with out amputations have even more houseing alternatives and income, plus medical care. Many of the people who say they are vets are not or were dishonorably discharged. They have income; maybe not a lot but certainly enough to pay for a board and care placement.

Bums pan handleing because it is very lucerative sometimes earning several hundred dollars a day. What they are pick pocketing when you are not looking is also a problem. They steal your cell phone and run up as many long distance calls as they can until you discover it is missing.

Bums will also beat up each other for these choice spots in high traffic areas. Sometimes gangs even shake them down or give them drugs.

You offer most bums work they will outright refuse it, steal from you, and quite possibly try to force you to have sex with them, if not steal your purse or car.

If you really want to help deserving people donate to the food banks that assist the working poor or establishe programs.

Almost all of these people are mentally ill. It is the choice of each person if they want to give them money on the street or give to a charity that supports the poor.

Now my head hurts...

get offa da corner and go to target...

Very articulate,very poinant and very very good Star,that was well written,im impressed again....
And it is in sac where i meet most of my "bum stories",mostly along J street hehe.

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Almost all of these people are mentally ill. It is the choice of each person if they want to give them money on the street or give to a charity that supports the poor.

True it is a choice. A painful one when you know that a person can't help being mentally ill.

But giving a mentally ill person money that keeps them on the street is especially cruel. They are the most vunerable to assault, being a pedestrian accident, hyperthermia or heatstroke. On the street they are even more dehydrated and malnurished which makes it even harder for their bodies to cope with whatever form of mental illness they have wheather they choose to take medication or not. On the street people will sometimes give them alcohol, spoiled food, or even poison to try to make them act stupid or pass out so they are less of a nuscience or can be dragged away and dumped elsewhere.

On the street they are way more likely to be arrested. Which often results in some form of injury because often they don't have the capacity to not resist. Police officers don't know how dangererous a mentally ill person is so they are much mre likely to tazer or even shoot. Police know that the mentally ill are often a frequent flyers and have hurt family members or other officers. In jail they are consistently abused by other prisoners. Being arrested rarely means treatment even when needed. Homelessness is not grounds for committment.

As sad as it is hunger is one thing that will drive a mentally ill person to the help systems and or treatment.

If you give the first homeless person you see every bit of money on you every time you see a homeless person...

you will carry less money.
And maybe feel a little better about yourself.

I kick em in the balls, and then stand over them while I pour strait whiskey down my throat, and roll around in it, pointing at them and laughing hystericly.


I be sure to show up with a steak and baked potato dinner, and eat it, right in front of them, and in their face between each bite I
brag about how Im leaving there in a minute to go ride in my mans benz, and that Im going to get laid.

And then take a dump on their begging sign, and rub it in their face.