• taxiiiii@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    My parents wouldn’t even have the fucking space to let me stay.

    And then we have people like musk, who grew up with a golden spoon and view those on social security as parasites.

  • RabbitBBQ@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Forced Homelessness is the policy of many Governments and the DOJ in the United States as a means of punishing those they are after without any due process. Your ability to work or even have ID can be taken from you if they choose to do it. Your money can be taken. Your bank accounts can be frozen.

    City, State and Federal Governments have been creating these zones where large numbers of homeless and poor people are forced into with a kind of virtual redlining. Usually, these are downtown areas in major cities, and then the system creates the ability to target them with systemic drug usage, even to the point of the government supplying pipes and needles for people to use. They are given just enough food to stay alive while forced into this position. No employers are going to hire anyone and it isn’t like it used to be where someone can just walk into a factory and make enough money in cash to live for a week.

    In many ways it is a public execution system that just operates very slowly and you’ll only occasionally notice the dead body— which even are often not recorded as a death correctly, and it’s nothing you will see in the obituary sections of your newspapers. Imagine a system that lets tons of your former neighbors die slowly on the street while everyone walks by inside their little tech bubbles of safety, confident in the belief that it could never be them.

    At some point, it’s really about your view of a human life versus your value of money. At some point along the way, it was decided that the amount of money someone has at that point in time determines their value as a person to even keep existing, or to have basic rights…

    If Governments wanted to solve the problem, they could find a building to put people in, they could force drug rehab on some, others probably should be in jail. The ones willing and able to work should be given the opportunity, with a path out of the state imposed public execution systems, and back to a life where they are capable of taking care of themselves.

      • RabbitBBQ@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        “When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.”

        Well said!

  • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    No one should judge homeless people. It’s easy to judge being in a privileged position, but without having experienced bad shit yourself you should just shut the fuck up. Maybe help the less privileged, otherwise you will be judged by my.

    • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      I don’t think people judge them specifically, around me are a lot of scammers,asking it very difficult to know who needs “help”

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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        54 minutes ago

        That shouldn’t be a reason to ensure more money to go to the ultra rich while making the lives of the poor even more miserable.

  • Sean Tilley@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    my view of homeless people changed forever when I learned that more than half of them were foster kids who aged out of the system and were left with no family or resources.

    Jesus, that’s dark.

    • Luccus@feddit.org
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      12 hours ago

      Sure, it may sound bad when children become homeless. But have you ever thought about how much money it saves? Just think of all the good things we can afford with all that money!

      Like anti-homeless park benches. Or those little speakers that emit ultra-high-pitched sounds so that young people don’t … enjoy … existing somewhere or something, idk.

      And just because I’m unable to actually satirize reality at the moment, yes, /s

  • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    Even worse a ward of the state loses ALL benifits permanently if they are convicted of any offense, guess how motivated social workers are to find an excuse? For anyone that’s never been through these systems when you spend a lot of time with a social worker, I’ve never been more clearly threatened more credibily by anyone my entire life. I told one that I needed help with child care and they said ‘‘you don’t want to tell ME that, if you’re having such a hard time watching your kids, maybe you need them removed by CPS, I can have an office over there before you get home if you’d like, or can you manage without talking to be about it?’’ Imagine being 18, right out of foster care, trying to get enployment or training through health and human services, and they know all they have to do is get you on any technicality and case closed. I know they’d get you a job with a van picking you up, and let police have a look at your ID and run it to find any lapse. Had a cop pull over a van with 8 people, never even talked to the driver, just demanded everyone in the van give over ID and, clearly targeting, went right for one guy and ‘‘found out’’ he had failed to report the job we all started that day to his case worker who set up the job assignment, and got him charged right there. The business we were hired by was furious, because apparently they’ve lost vital numbers of workers this way, and the social workers did this fairly regularly, also the amount of times they send you paperwork that gets to you on the 9th, and had to be turned in by the 8th was VERY precise and consistant. The welfare state isn’t about helping anyone, it’s about reducing the burden on the tax prayer by any means necessary. They do not care about getting you kicked out permanently. They want your case closed.

    • AlexLost@lemm.ee
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      18 hours ago

      It’s because those orgs have been captured by their enemies, people that don’t want to help. They blame the people that need the services as being leeches, but they are the ones getting paid to fail at their jobs. They don’t want to see it succeed, they want it to fail so they can say how bad the system is.

  • the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    When I see things like this it makes me so proud of my parents. They are the few people I know who do foster care because they care. They have actual love for every kid that ever walked through their doors. They have had so far 3 kids that moved back home at one point or another and for all 3 of them the only question They ever asked was “how soon do you want to move in?”

    At the same time stuff like this hurts me because I always thought unconditional love was the standard growing up. The knowledge that most people didn’t / don’t have that is so sad.

    Anyway on a side note I am going to call my folks and tell them how great they are.

  • collapse_already@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    In addition to the appalling foster care kid stats for homeless, around 13% of homeless are veterans (obviously some qualify as both). Funny how support for the military dries up once they get discharged.

    Then we have the complete lack of any kind of assistance for the mentally ill.

    We shouldn’t even pretend that we are civilized. We treat our fellow humans so barbarically.

  • ZeroOne@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Never looked down on any homeless people in my entire life & would like to keep it that way.

    My sister though, holy crap

  • ameancow@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    FYi readers, I don’t know the actual statistics on foster children who grow out of the system and how prevalent that is in the homeless population, but from what I know at least, particularly in my own time homeless, is that most homeless people are actually small families who live in their car or in someone’s garage.

    I think we need to do a lot better to show what poverty really looks like in the USA, because we picture the media-spun image of America that we have a huge middle-class in nice suburban homes, and then there’s the “the poors” who are like, generic homeless dudes who are grizzled old bums warming their fingerless-gloved hands over a burning metal drum down in skid-row.

    The reality of the distribution is the “middle class” in America is much, much smaller and more poor than most people realize. Most people who seem to “have it all” are in immense debt, and the larger percentage of families in the US are working poor, people who live in shared homes and apartments with too many other people, people who live in their car and go to work and school every day, people who live in motels and abandoned homes or who “Stay after work” to take advantage of the company showers before sleeping under the desk. These are not jokes or tropes or memes, this is really how many, many Americans live… in the wealthiest country in the world.

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          I’m pretty sure the whole “van life” trend started with homeless people documenting their humble lives in their vehicles, and the weird romance of having no responsibilities that attracts every child who had dreams of running away and riding boxcars across the country.

          Now every “van lifer” is some white college kid with perfect teeth living on their parents’ dime while saying all you need for a happier life is this $90,000 RV that you can just drive up and down the coast getting high by beach bonfires every night.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    fuck.

    One in four foster kids will end up homeless.

    https://nfyi.org/issues/homelessness/

    up to 3 out of 10 homeless people are foster kids who aged out.

    what the fuck.

    I thought it was bad enough knowing about the veteran rights.

    some of the studies show higher rates.

    The studies. on the homeless children.

    • greenhorn@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      Also black families are over-policed, and their kids more likely to be put into foster care “National estimates suggest that 53% of Black children will experience CPS contact by age 18, as compared to 28% of White children” “We consider that, at their root, these inequities are the consequence of systemic racism: there is no inherent relationship between race and child maltreatment. Rather, race is a proxy for the societal and institutional privileges and oppressions people experience because of their membership in a racialized group” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9325927/

      Movement for Family Power is a great advocacy organization if you want to get involved https://www.movementforfamilypower.org/

      • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Also impacts Native Americans. ICWA was put in place to basically stop DHS from kidnapping native kids. (The Right has been waging a war against ICWA for a while too - they tend to be against any form of oversight in child welfare/adoption. They want kids to go to “quiverful” white families)

      • samus12345@lemm.ee
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        21 hours ago

        there is no inherent relationship between race and child maltreatment

        The pipeline is systemic racism -> poverty -> child maltreatment.

  • TheRealLinga@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    I’ve been a homeless teen, thankfully it was over a decade now though.

    Shit sucked. I get angry when I hear people make excuses about how homeless people are just lazy or trying to rip you off somehow. Like stfu you have no idea what it’s like!

  • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    Recently found a pretty interesting video about China and how they combat homelessness (sorry on reddit). You can buy a 1 room apartment for $15.000 and the monthly costs are minimal. Of course I don’t truly know if there really isn’t any homelessness in China, but we absolutely have the technology to solve this problem lol

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      It’s probably mostly accurate, most other developed nations DO prioritize housing and caring for their homeless because it just makes sense that if you don’t want decay in your population, you do SOMETHING to take care of them.

      Now that said, I am far more concerned/curious how China is handling one of the leading causes of homelessness which is mental and physical health problems, and how much access the average person starting to slip through the cracks can get to proper healthcare.

      I am not well versed on China’s healthcare situation though, and it’s been almost 17 years since I’ve been there last, when I was there people seemed kind of… miserable. Overworked, unable to afford more than the most basic amenities and living conditions. At least the working-class drivers and clerks. Honestly, China 17 years ago feels a lot like many places in the US right now.

    • Padit@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      Well, for 2022 I found that the average wage is 2600¥ or 330€ per month (with enormous differencs between the regions). That means a flat is 4 annual salaries on average, assuming ithe 15000$ or 14000€. That’s not that much off a difference to Germany, where I am from.

      So one could argue that this is just the advise “get a job and buy a house!!!” To a homeless person.

      • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        But absolute scale makes a difference, especially if you compare having a job or not, and how expensive it is to give a home to a homeless person. My impression was that they just give you an apartment for free.

        The proper comparison would be complicated, when building and maintaining an apartment block, how much money is siphoned off as profit to the capitalists?

        Also e.g. Germany has a lot of regulations which is sometimes nice, but also lead to higher costs. Like converting your car to electric isn’t done in Germany, because regulations demand you make an EMF test which costs something 5-10 thousand euro. So there are practically none. That held back private innovation for EVs. There are countless regulations for building too which might sound good on paper but have been tweaked to only benefit the capitalists and make costs go up and projects take forever.

        Then in Germany you wouldn’t give an apartment as a homeless person for free, you’d have to show that you’re jobless and that has to be verified then they give you money then you can pay rent to someone. Although I’m not quite sure how the situation in Germany is overall.

    • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      In China if you are homeless the cops pick you up and say if you work as a street cleaner you will get a home in excange.

      If you don’t like that arrangement you dissappear.

      • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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        20 hours ago

        In case your source for that is serpentza, then you should check this reply with more links debunking this guy and his racist views.

        Obviously China is not a utopia and with a billion people things will be bad at some place or another. But cherry picked examples and wild accusations like “they will dissappear” is just anti-China propaganda.

        • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          I don’t know who that is.

          I read news articles.

          The news articles I read said they offer homeless people housing for work, if they refuse they are “reeducated” which is one of the many ways people dissapear in the China meat grinder.

        • TheLoneMinon@lemm.ee
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          19 hours ago

          I went to Shanghai last year and there were, in fact, homeless people around. Not many at all, but I was surprised to see any.

        • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          17 hours ago

          I got a weird vibe with serpentza.

          One one hand, yes he does tell the truth about China sometimes. But he also have this weird vibe like putting “My Chinese Wife” in youtube titles (like imagine a white guy in America putting “My Black Wife” in the youtube title) or even a video title designed to clickbait people like “Are Chinese Men Cowards” which its just like WTF is that title, he did answer “No” in the video, but this guy clearly doesn’t care about Political Correctness (aka: Politeness).

          But he literally made a video recently proclaiming the USA is “the best” country in the world. Not “one of the best”, he said “the best”. The Video was made after trump won the election for the second time.

          You can’t take this guy seriously.

          The homeless thing is real tho. They exist. But my point is: serpenza is a joke.

          Edit: This is the video where serpentza said the “America is Best” thing: https://youtu.be/1hePvgiYyhU?t=1029 (Starts at 17:09)

          “America is the best country I’ve ever lived in” Which is because he have lived in 3 countries, South Africa, PRC, USA, of course the US seems the best, because he haven’t lived (as in long-tern) in EU countries, but then he doubled down in the next sentence:

          “America is the best country in the world” LOL nope. Dude forgot the EU Exists. 🤣

          Video was published in December 30, 2024, like… bruh… forgot the LGBT people? Minorities? Immigrants? 🤔 This is white privilage in action. Maybe he isn’t malicious, but this is peak ignorance and being totally out of touch, even if he has good intents.

          • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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            17 hours ago

            Serpentza is compelling and interesting on a cursory glance. And I don’t know if he is consciously racist or how far his biases go. The bigger problem is that there are “algorithmic forces” shaping content and content creators.

            The content creators wants to make money, needs to make money. They will experiment with various things. They make compelling content, don’t have time to deeply study history or sociology or economics, only enough to project an image. Psychological needs from narcissism might make them unable to resist rationalizations in exchanges for clicks.

            There have been quite a few cases with supposedly liberal or leftist icons suddenly turning to reactionary rhetoric. It’s hard to understand and somewhat traumatizing. Recently TYT. I think the moral of the story is that much of it is subconsciously performative and not well thought out beliefs. And economic reality makes ideology a lie.

            I think Serpentza fits in there somewhere, if he’s not outright paid indirectly by the state department to spread propaganda.

            • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              17 hours ago

              outright paid indirectly by the state

              I think he realized the US’s turn towards fascism and amp up the right-wing rhetoic to secure his adjustment of status. AFIAK, he is still a citizen of South Africa, and I’m not even sure if he has permanent residency in the US, or just some visa. I think he’s bootlicking to make sure he doesn’t get deported to South Africa.

              And he’s a cishet white man, so this spiral into fascism doesn’t affect him, which is why he’s too blind to see the shit that’s been happening.

              And its also the fact that he criticized South Africa and China too much, he just has to keep his mouth shut about the US to stay out of trouble, kinda similar to how Snowden went against the US, and now he is in a situation where he can’t criticize the Russian government.

        • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Yes because they kill the ones who don’t agree to work for housing

          Thanks for helping explain how homelessness works in china you dumb bot

          • davel@lemmy.ml
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            6 hours ago

            You have no actual evidence for this assertion besides your brain on McCarthyism. I think you start from your preconceptions and then work backwards, solely within your mind palace.

            • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              Yeah no, there’s decades of China’s documented oppression of its people.

              Sorry you are too stupid or proud or whatever to engage with the real world like a big boy.

              It sure sucks when you can’t just ban all dissent!

        • davel@lemmy.ml
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          17 hours ago

          Removed for “misinformation,” from Reuters, Bloomberg, CNBC, and Wikipedia 🙄

  • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    This right here is my biggest fear for my daughter.

    She’s lazy. She’s unfocused. She’s isolated.

    She is one of the greatest artists I have ever encountered in my life. Bad shit seems to come with that. I am afraid that the world will never know it because she isolates almost completely.

    Her mother died from breast cancer when she was 13. I have been so unkind to my body and I’m afraid I won’t be here long enough to help her the way she might end up needing it.

    She has her step dad who has remained a big part of her life since her mom passed away. He’s a great man and she and her mother were very lucky that he’s the one she found. She can’t get along with any of her mom’s family. I believe that my wife would always look out for her, but I wish they’d get closer. Her mom made that hard by saying only days before she died, “If you replace me with that woman I will spend eternity rolling in my grave.”

    I have survived in this world because of my mother and my uncle. Without them I would have been homeless over and over again. I wish she would get closer with her mom’s family. I can’t make her stay with them though. Her aunt takes her to school if she misses the bus, so maybe she’ll look out for her.

    It keeps me awake at night more than anything else.

    • upsiforgot@programming.dev
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      1 day ago

      Has ADHD ever been ruled out? Cause being treated, this immensely increases the chances of a healthy and successfull adulthood…

      • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        We’ve been trying to get a diagnosis for a few years. Everyone seems to agree she has it, but they’re scared to medicate her because of my issues with addiction I guess.

        We’re pushing the issue next week actually.