I don't know. I guess I'm not looking at it as a prison. I am picturing it more with a new paint job....doors, windows. The yard a place to relax and have visitors come see you (without the barb wire and guards though)

It's a big place that could house a lot of people in need. Not meaning to sound flippant, but plants, curtains, pictures, etc can really change a place.

I want to clarify something - saying 'don't know how to clean yourself' may sound horribly condescending...I mean, what kind of adult simply doesn't know how to turn on a shower and stand beneath it, right?

But there is some sublty and complexity to this issue. There are issues of personal pride (not having self respect, self esteem, not being motivate to care about ones appearance). There are long established habits. There are issue of self-awareness. There are shifting perspectives of what is expecting, appropriate.

I've known poor people who have perpetual fungus issues, who hang out with other people who have permanent fungus issues, and the entire group of them simply accept rotting fungus smell as a normal smell of human beings in everyday life. In a way, I prefer this attitude over the the elitism of typical middle class people - but when it comes to getting employment and integrating into mainstream society, this kind of 'acceptance' will work against these people.

I once arranged for a homeless friend to work for a day at a farm that I worked for. It took him almost 2 hours to take a shower, brush his hair, his teeth, change his clothes, etc - similar actions took me 15 minutes. This is partly because all of these actions were practically forgotten by him. I was seriously tempted to school him into how to perform hygiene acts more efficiently - but I was already risking offending him by schooling him in basic etiquette for the job.

I've known homeless people who have gone so long without making regular use of a mirror, nor caring what they look like, that they have to relearn to do so.


People with these histories actually do need to relearn things we all take for granted.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

how much money do you think they wanna spend on this?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.