stella41b
Posts: 4258
Joined: 10/16/2007 From: SW London (UK) Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: TheHeretic Well of course, Arpig. Good intentions are all over the entrance to this path. Straight up truth, though, is that if I agree to help so-and-so out if he is back home from the big city, and he shows up high and/or crazy, he isn't going to be in my house very long. He's going to find the rules and policies of my home "uncomfortable" for his lifestyle and leave on his own. Exactly and that's why there's hostels and night shelters and why setting up as many of them as possible is a good thing and why foisting them on well-meaning friends and relatives doesn't work. Homelessness is a stressful, traumatic process and even though only a visible minority succumb to alcohol, drugs or mental illness it's still worth implementing a resettlement program to examine how someone became homeless in the first place and working at ways to prevent them becoming homeless in the future. Here in London you cannot get off the streets without going through the resettlement programs in hostels and night shelters. Now if you want to sit around on welfare, drink alcohol and get high then okay but what gets you along the resettlement process is working to change your own circumstances, paying your service charges regularly on time, seeking out meaningful occupation, going back to college, retraining, seeking employment, not 'kicking off' and showing that you are a responsible human being, and you have to show this over a period of time before any resettlement worker is going to consider offering you any sort of accommodation. quote:
ORIGINAL: TheHeretic When people wind up living on the streets, or far below the norms, because of choices they have made, nothing changes until they make better choices. It cannot be forced on them. By and large yes, I agree with you here, but a considerable number of the homeless become homeless despite trying to make good choices and not having any options available to them, such as women escaping from violent or abusive husbands or even men going through divorce who are at the sharp end because they're men and expected to deal with their situations without any support or help. But about the homeless generally needing to make better choices is a point I agree with you on and this is why a resettlement process is so necessary so that the homeless person can be seen to be consistently making better choices over a period of time before being allowed to rejoin society in their own accommodation. However in order to be able to make those choices, they need to have options and unfortunately nowadays unless they are considered vulnerable in some way there are no options, just the streets. ETA: My God! Have I just posted in agreement with TheHeretic?
< Message edited by stella41b -- 8/1/2009 6:51:54 AM >
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