* Make Them Visible

I have frequently asked and wondered the same about those who do what little they can when they could do more in a more direct way.

IMHO it appears to be a fear thing and from what I have seen with my own eyes, it is at least partially justifiable, it is much safer to do things by proxy and not get your hands dirty or place family and property at risk of abuse and loss.

One funny thing about the aspect of safety when doing charitable work for the homeless is that they are about as out there and naked and vulnerable as they could be, this is the aspect of being on the street that scares me being in the situation that I am in personally.

A lot of homeless get really good at being as invisible as possible for their own physical well being as they are frequently targeted by nearly everyone in one way or another.

a reply to: projectbane

originally posted by: anon72
Good thread but we have to look at reality also.

Yes, they could be given homes but they don't have the means or desire to maintain them properly.

85% are homeless because they want to be. Not everyone wants to be like you/us?!.

I have a college frat bro who is living large in the Miami area-being homeless. He left his wife and two kids in PA and never went back..... go figure. (he is missing most of his teeth though-from the last pic I got of him).

You're very misinformed. Please share how you came up with the numbers 85% of homeless people want to be homeless. Do you realize how high homeless numbers are rising?


Numbers for survey done in state of MN

And you think it's because people want to be homeless. Could it have anything to do with the lack of jobs or the lack of good-paying jobs while prices are skyrocketing.

A few years ago, an unprecedented 45 million people are on food stamps, then what happens...grocery store prices go through the roof. Why? Because, the industry realized 45 million were on food stamps so why not jack the prices up, heck, it's not there money right? It's taxpayer dollars (the government), so, just like every other industry, let's fleece the government. While milk, eggs, meats, and just about everything else in the market is rising in price, incomes aren't keeping up. Food stamp benefits don't increase so there benefit doesn't last the month, they are using there little bit of cash anyways, making it harder to pay bills.

Take a look at social security benefits...how much have benefits raised over the past five years, while prices have skyrocketed. People on social security nowadays are broke within a week of receiving their benefits and have to live on absolutely nothing for the rest of the month...not even money to do laundry, get dish soap, or get extra food, let alone have any sort of entertainment in their lives anymore because everything cost too damn much.

Prices continue to rise from gasoline, groceries, entertainment, to household necessities, while incomes stay the same...it's no wonder homeless numbers are rising at unprecedented levels. People are simply giving up and believe me, it's not by choice. It's not because they want to be!

I know these things because I'm living it and I see it within my own family. I know of three very close people to me who are on social security and all three of them are broke within a week to two weeks and then, have to find a way to live the rest of the month on nothing. If they run out, they simply have to wait. Dirty laundry piles up, among other hardships. They've learned to go without and adjust barely maintaining their residences. Prices go up anymore without a rise in benefits, they may just be the next homeless statistics, and it's not because they choose it!

originally posted by: Goteborg
a reply to: AccessDenied

There are homeless near where I live which is new , some of them are even living out in the woods and marshland out beyond the city limits and that's dangerous as hell.

How is it so dangerous? If your smart, you get a sleeping bag and a cheap nylon hammock and you are set as long as its dry. All you need after that is a tarp.

a reply to: Bongripasaurus

You've obviously never spent any quality time in a marsh, people who do not know what they're doing in the wilderness should not walk around in marshland alone because if you make one wrong step out there you're a goner. The rest of the area is forested and we have a wild boar problem out there, it's bad enough that I have to carry my shotgun with me when I go out to my back property just in case one of them wonders in. I'm not talking about people camping in a Metropark.

Honestly... videos like this can only be taken so seriously regarding certain assertions.

I would've had more respect for the display if they had included some people who did recognize their relatives. I find it very hard to believe that all of the people who they did this with didn't recognize their family member.

Obviously it's a problem that, to some, the homeless aren't even worth looking at, but this video seems to paint that as the majority. It is clearly set up to make a point regarding a conclusion that someone came to before they even did this study/investigation.

Homeless people are seen by TPTB as a control system, homeless people are just us a few years down the line. Deep inside we know this and as such fear to look at our future. TPTB use this to push us harder, work more for less or become like the homeless. Not so long ago I read in the paper how the workers of France were seen as lazy becouse they had paid holidays and worked shorter weeks then people in the USA. The people in France are been treated as human were as the people in the USA are slaves. Homeless people are been used to control the people, just one of the many ways its been done.

originally posted by: Rezlooper


Do you realize how high homeless numbers are rising?

And you think it's because people want to be homeless. Could it have anything to do with the lack of jobs or the lack of good-paying jobs while prices are skyrocketing.

A few years ago, an unprecedented 45 million people are on food stamps, then what happens...grocery store prices go through the roof. Why? Because, the industry realized 45 million were on food stamps so why not jack the prices up, heck, it's not there money right? It's taxpayer dollars (the government), so, just like every other industry, let's fleece the government. While milk, eggs, meats, and just about everything else in the market is rising in price, incomes aren't keeping up. Food stamp benefits don't increase so there benefit doesn't last the month, they are using there little bit of cash anyways, making it harder to pay bills.

Take a look at social security benefits...how much have benefits raised over the past five years, while prices have skyrocketed. People on social security nowadays are broke within a week of receiving their benefits and have to live on absolutely nothing for the rest of the month...not even money to do laundry, get dish soap, or get extra food, let alone have any sort of entertainment in their lives anymore because everything cost too damn much.

Prices continue to rise from gasoline, groceries, entertainment, to household necessities, while incomes stay the same...it's no wonder homeless numbers are rising at unprecedented levels. People are simply giving up and believe me, it's not by choice. It's not because they want to be!

I know these things because I'm living it and I see it within my own family. I know of three very close people to me who are on social security and all three of them are broke within a week to two weeks and then, have to find a way to live the rest of the month on nothing. If they run out, they simply have to wait. Dirty laundry piles up, among other hardships. They've learned to go without and adjust barely maintaining their residences. Prices go up anymore without a rise in benefits, they may just be the next homeless statistics, and it's not because they choose it!

Thank you for the post Rezlooper. These are the facts that don't fit into the stereotype of homelessness/ or on the brink of it. Many do not even know of the ones who couch surf or live out of vehicles. All we see in our heads is the bag lady pushing a shopping cart, the old man mumbling to himself, the junkie passed out in the alley way...This is just one fraction of homeless people.I find many have their opinions so high in the clouds they have no clue what's going on , on the ground. I suppose we are all fighting to survive and just do not want to see what we could become in a worse case scenario. It's like looking at your own demise in a society that so values money and things. If you are a have not you might as well be invisible. It's disgusting.

Thank you for sharing this video! This is one of the hardest realities that exists that shows how far we have become disconnected from ourselves, quite literally. I have never felt right about walking past a homeless person let alone getting in the habit of it when I would visit chicago and now here in Madison, to look away and ignore hurts everytime. Sadly we are all caught up in our own world of things, our own financial / emotional / physical/ spiritual [problems, the myriad of issues we face. However this issue truly cuts to the core of each and every one of us, for it is going to take each an every one of us to fix this problem. We have to do it in every level of our life, through innovation, compassion, selflessness all things that are emerging more and more and will continue to. I do not know who this quote is from but I read it somewhere, without suffering there could be no compassion and this is only one component of what this sad reality teaches us!

I thank these people for putting this experiment together, regardless of them being an advertising agency or whatever other members are choosing to focus on. It is bringing this perspective to the table that is what we need. For it transcends your blood family, everyone is a part of the human family and we are not here to profit off each other as those who profit off of us have taught us, we are here to help each other and live in balance with each other, our animal family, and our beautiful planet known as our mother earth!

Over the past few days I have seen many more headlines addressing this issue and circumstances surrounding it. Even worse is the trend that goes along with it.In scenes reminiscent of the movie " The Fisher King", angry,selfish groups of youth are targeting the homeless with zero regard for them as even human.
Case in point, last year a homeless man in my province, known to his community, was found dead, burned to death in a bus shelter. Many wanted to believe it accidental. But recently two young men have been charged with pouring gas over him and setting him on fire. His only crime was that he had a mental illness.
LINK TO STORY
Not in any way does this justify the actions of the young men, but the growing unemployment, fighting for jobs with immigrants, the rising cost of living,added into a demographic of children raised to feel 100% entitled or they throw a tantrum, and you have a growing generation of young adults with so little respect for adults and authority, if any, that I fear for our future as we get older.You can see the frustration and rage in those under 30 as they fight to have any lifestyle equivalent to their parents or grandparents. They younger they are, the worse it is.So in a fight for survival what do the stronger do? Pick off the weak and vulnerable. I see it happening, and not just where I am. Sadly many in my province go west looking for employment, and then I read this article:
LINK TO ARTICLE
Jobs apparently abound, but where you gonna live? Make $30 an hour but live in your car?
I think this is something we should all pay attention to. This isn't a small problem, it's a HUGE problem, getting bigger.
I have noticed an alarming trend in a few short years. There are far more people seeking housing than is available, and landlords are tightening the reigns on who they rent to. Many are being FORCED out onto the street, even with FULL TIME JOBS! Minimum wage does not pay enough to survive.I don't foresee this getting better. I believe we need to somehow learn to adapt to the changes taking place, or we too will become invisible.

a reply to: MyHappyDogShiner

Up here in the north west the shelters are pretty much life savers, but the shelters are anything but safe or really a place to rest you weary mind, you head sure but not somewhere you can really move on or come to cope with any problems you may have internally or externally. But when night comes and the temperature drops well lets just say I think they find a few of them every year frozen, but I do believe the favorite and least scary way to go is overdose on something, some of them are really high, cant blame them tough, even remember a guy once the dude was so high he was walking around barefoot and with his shirt off in the snow, probably did not feel a thing as he was high as a kite, but he sure ass hell felt it all when that passed.

Really I would have to say that those most likely to survive and come through it are those who removed and detached themselfs from the whole thing, but even that has its hazards and living off the land as some are going and doing is not exactly the safest way. That and 99% of the homeless are basically city dwellers they have never really learned or have the processes necessary to survive any other way, if they did then they would not be homeless, and humans being social animals its pretty much a death sentence, its ultimately why they all stay in cities knowing were its likely all to go, what other choice exists? None that is, hence most cities invisible citizens dilemmas.

A by product in many ways of the very things they have supported and intrenched themselfs in, case in point there are just as many stories of people making it out and back into the rat race, as there are not. That is till you look at the fact that those who do not make it out, did not, and do not have a story to tell by the sheer fact that there more then invisible there dead, and did not blog or write about it. That which makes to most noise is that which most exists in the populous eyes.

a reply to: imod02
HA! Sorry just reminded me of this George Carlin vid, seems its been a depressing few minutes every time I log on ATS, always something super sad now a days, its enough to even make me go watch some puppy vids or something. But then again I have seen some #, you would be surprised what we walk by every day without seeing. Its amazing what you can do to turn the minds eye away from something that would be right in front of you, in fact its not hard to do that as the mind is a malleable thing, and I have done it myself in a few instances become invisible, sometimes all that is needed is the right clothes to wear. Lets just say the homeless and poor people just may be the least of the invisible things going on around you everyday to which you would be blind to.

Good news guys! I got inot an apartment just last night, so no more sleeping at the park for this man

a reply to: LucidWarrior

Good for you!!!!



I got a job interview for Thursday morning!!
Only 1.5 miles from my home!!!