How can one do most of that when the walls are thick concrete? Yes, paint and plants can happen.

And nowhere here or in the article is the mental health addressed. Mental health issues are the majority of the problem with the chronically poor and or homeless.

Mental health issues make people unable to take care of themselves properly and the mentally ill do not realize they are mentally ill.

Mental health issues were very obvious when I worked for the welfare department. We would try to find them help but it is not a priority in our health care system. So they would be out on their own again without the proper help.

Again I have an issue with what was said about the poor in the article which also adds to the issue of seeing a penitentiary as a "good" source to house the poor.

The cells are made of two feet of solid concrete so they are planning on housing people in 10x8 rooms of solid concrete. There is not much renovation that can be done with that without just tearing the whole place down.

Very good point.... maybe that's why they wanna use an old prison...
the old out of site, out of mind mentality...

Could be.

Also the poor are victims of accepted prejudice in this country. Kinda like fat people.

It is socially accepted to speak badly of fat people after all it is their own fault they are fat, right? Wrong. it is just not that simple.

Same goes for poor people. People want to make it their fault they are poor and a drain on the system but that isn't correct in most cases.

In a capitalistic country there will always be poor people, there is no way around it.

But that doesn't mean they should be stripped of all human consideration.

It always ends up showing through that people who are "hard" on other humans for false reasons they feel are justified are the people that are angry and frustrated in their own lives and want to abuse others in their anger.

Another thing, trying to force "self responsibility" on others is no different in harmfulness than possibly making them too reliant. It is just a different angle at causing the same problem. Forcing others to live by your beliefs. That is wrong.

I agree with you here. As I understand it, it was specifically mental healthy funding cuts that lead to a huge increase in california 'homeless for life' population a few decades back.

hey...if you want to see it that way, then that is your choice.

I see that it can help (or at least they are trying to do something to help)

Is it ideal...no.

You can put doors in place of the bars btw and put windows and remove the window bars

In my experience, there are different subcultures here. Amongst some liberals, you cannot appear to criticize fat people, or ever insinuate its their fault.

In some parts of the country, there are groups of people who think that fat is normal. They would never criticize a fat person because basically everyone is fat, but they might criticize an obese person.

But in other places i've seen a lot of what you are talking about - people thinking that fat people are ugly, fat people are immoral, fat people are less than other people. And while I would say that the vast majority of fat people would not be fat if they exercised and ate well, its still true that a lot of the fat-hating thinner people aren't exercising or eating well either - they just lucked out genetically.



I agree that the analogy works really well. Ever individual poor person has their own unique history - and there are many people who have been a recent victim of some great event and simply haven't finished recovering from it yet. There were many such people after hurricane katrina. In cali a lot of people have lost their homese in wild fires. There are people with huge medical bills for something beyond their control. People who lost everything in a divorce. Victims of crime.

That said, the vast majority of the seriously poor people I've spoken to (most of them in california, most of them permanently homeless) actually do have issues with personal responsibility, laziness/work ethic, attitudes of entitlement, etc etc - but these same spiritual cancers are at work amongst wealthy people to. These poor people are not more irresponsible than wealthy people - but they suffer more directly for their irresponsibility.




I'm curious about this statement. In the long run, people benefit from being held accountable for their actions.



I completely don't understand this statement. It seems like the opposite would be: Encouraging people to be irresponsible, which is exactly what certain excessively liberal agendas do, IMO. Everyone that I love, I want them to have sufficient personal responsibility to have the happiness that they want in their lives. I want the same thing for the poor people that I don't know.

personal responsibility is personal empowerment.

I wouldn't know. But prisons already have laudrymats, restrooms, showers and cafeterias. Plus this is big enough to accomodate more people than an empty apartment building.

This isn't meant as a permanant solution. It is meant as a temporary one until they can get on their own feet.

Some prison's even give out condoms too!

People learn self responsibility not by it being forced on them. Resentment and low self esteem comes from being forced to do anything. Self esteem grows when people motivate themselves to do what they want to do in life.

Those who are "hard" on people unlike themselves are imposing their own personal issues onto others. Not constructive. Not empowering. Not positive. It is just anger and prejudice being imposed on people the "hard" people don't even know. If you do not know a person personally and well, how can you judge motives and intentions? You can't. So it is all assuming and prejudice.

Not if you do not discover it for yourself it isn't.

Making choices for others is just as damaging to personal empowerment as providing too much in the name of help.

I emphatically agree, from my POV this is part of my point, and it supports my point.

But rarely is anyone truly *forced* by another person to do something in this world. Offering different kinds of conditional assistance is not forcing anyone to do anything.




I agree this is sometimes true. But always? Would that be 'everyone that you see as being hard on people', or 'everyone that I see as being hard on people', or should YellowRose be the ultimate judge of what it means to be hard on someone?

Maybe some of those that you see as being 'hard' on people are not imposing their own personal issues, but simply offering a higher form of help.

I'd also like to note that this cuts both ways...some of those who really want our government to be extremely supportive of people are imposing their own personal issues on others.




I agree that this happens sometimes.

There is not "higher" form of help.

That is the bull **** the imposers want people to believe.

There is heartfelt kindness and there is manipulation to get people to do what they want. You can tell the difference.

Also a person who had the poor's best interest at heart would not say the things they said in the article nor would a prison look like a good place for them to go.

Do you completely reject that favored aphorism:

"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for life."




Only two approaches? I see dozens and dozens of approaches, not just two.

Also, I think its illogical for you to set these two up as mutually exclusive sets.

There is:

1 heartfelt kindness combined with conditional help to get a person to do whats in their best interest

2 indifference or maliciousness combined with manipulation to get a person to do whats not in their best interest

3 heartfelt kindness combined with short-sighted feel-good efforts

4 indifference combined with a standoffish acceptance that people choose their own misery




I actually agree, that someone with love in their hearts would not think of a prison as the best possible place to provide services for the homeless.

Seeing as how no one is building resorts for the homeless, we can ask ourselves "how can we provide the best help to the homeless with what we have?" An open-minded person might at least consider what good might come from adapting prison, rather than reject the idea immediately and completely.

1 heartfelt kindness combined with conditional help to get a person to do whats in their best interest

2 indifference or maliciousness combined with manipulation to get a person to do whats not in their best interest

3 heartfelt kindness combined with short-sighted feel-good efforts

4 indifference combined with a standoffish acceptance that people choose their own misery


#1 is manipulation with the person trying to make everyone believe they are caring.


There is still only two options.

Either it is heartfelt kindness or you are trying to manipulate.

All you listed here just proves my point.

If you give in kindness that means you do not stipulate what is done with what you give. It also respects the mental capacity of the grown person you are giving to that they are not a child and need to be "taught" anything.

By the way, the four things I listed was by no means meant to be a list of possible approaches - it was just an attempt to illustrate that "kindness" and "conditions" are not mutually exclusive.

Lets try specifics.

Suppose you have a friend who was a junky who uses heroine several times a day, and they come to you and tell you they have run out of money and don't have money for food, and will be evicted if they can't pay their rent in a week. They are asking for a loan, which you can easily afford to give them.

What do you do?



The way I see it, that means the giver is too lazy and uncaring to put the extra effort in to be sure that they 'help' they give actually helps the person. They prefer to pat themselves on the back and feel good about themselves to actually see what effect their actions have.



You can respect the person while being realistic about their current state of mind and abilities. Some adults are very much like children. I really like your statement above about learning responsibility. All humans, adults and children, are usually given responsibility in stages according to their abilities. This is true when raising children, in the professional world, in academia, even at communes. I see no reason that the super-poor should be exempt from this very sane and sensible approach.

You've touched on the fact that some people might assume that poor people are irresponsible, across the board. I agree with you that this is wrong when relating to people as individuals.

Suppose you have a friend who was a junky who uses heroine several times a day, and they come to you and tell you they have run out of money and don't have money for food, and will be evicted if they can't pay their rent in a week. They are asking for a loan, which you can easily afford to give them.

What do you do?

The kindest thing I can do in this situation is not give anything. Refer the person to NA. I don't keep drug addict friends. There is no true friendship in an addicted environment.

QUOTE:

If you give in kindness that means you do not stipulate what is done with what you give.


The way I see it, that means the giver is too lazy and uncaring to put the extra effort in to be sure that they 'help' they give actually helps the person. They prefer to pat themselves on the back and feel good about themselves to actually see what effect their actions have.

This is what is called respect of others. If you give, you give, once out of your hands it is no longer your business where it goes or whatever. The person on the receiving end, adult, should be given the human respect to not be treated as a child.

Well, most of what I would have to say would simply be repeating things I've already said. I'd like to emphasize that I do agree wit this:



I see a thousands and thousands of possible actions, each with qualities that exist on spectrums (of generosity, kindness, perspective, effectiveness).

I submit that there is a degree of conditionlism to your generosity, since you recognize that there are situations where giving someone money is unkind. Perhaps you would think it 'manipulative' if you told that friend "I'm sorry, I won't loan you money as long as you are an addict. If you ever heal yourself of your addiction, and find yourself needing money, I might give you money (and friendship and...) then." To me, that wouldn't be manipulative - that would simply be being honest about a sane conditional approach.