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Internet Giving Homeless a Home
Wired is reporting that many individuals currently without permanent housing still manage to stay connected via a cellphone, laptop, or some other gadget. Many homeless have email addresses and find that it offers them a way to get their foot back in the door of 'normal' society. From the article: "Hellerich slept on benches but she frequented a women's shelter with a cluster of internet-connected computers used mostly by the children who arrived at the safe house with their mothers. She started blogging and conducting a business. As an independent internet marketer, she was able to maintain bank accounts, nurse existing client connections and forge new business relationships. The business brought in only about $100 a month, but that was enough to help get her life back on track."
The woman in the TFA wasn't exactly homeless homeless. She was staying in a shelter and so able to keep clean and not smell of pee, have clean clothes and so on. I don't imagine anyone going off to 'forge new business relationships' if they hadn't brushed their teeth for a week so I'd say the general 'technology is so great it evens rescues the homeless' message is hype. Even charging up your cell isn't going to be easy when you're sleeping under a bridge.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
"They are the alcoholics, the drug addicts, the mentally insane. Their only goal in life is their next drink. You can institutionalize them or let them be on the street, but you can't help them."
I have no idea how a comment this odious got modded as insightful. There are services available that can and DO help members of all three of those groups recover and lead better, functional lives. While some mental illnesses may as yet be untreatable, many of the homeless in America could no doubt be helped were the medical system remotely responsive to the needs of the poor. Likewise, drug addicts and alcoholics recover all the time, it's such a normal part of society that I'm amazed that you would even say something like this. Perhaps it's different for you, but I know people who have recovered from such situations and gone on to have productive lives. Some people call them 'family,' and I think it's disgusting that you can dismiss them like that. Have you ever given a guy a sandwich and had it thrown back at you? Just because some people out there are going to use money to feed there addictions doesn't mean that all compassion for the homeless is wasted. Have a fucking heart.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
Yeah, I give food to homeless all the time. druggies and alchies, they eat it. There are programs in nyc to distribute food to the homeless, by going out into the streets and subways... I've never seen anyone turn down food. Its not quite right to say that you can't help group 2. I've known some group 2'ers who have gotten themselves together, i know group 1ers who became group 2ers... alchoholism, drugs, depression... all easy to get fucked up by when you're out on the streets. The idea that only group 1 can reintegrate and 2 can't isn't entirely accurate, Mitchel Duniere has shown in his ethnographic study of street vendors on 6th avenue between 8th and west 4th in manhattan how what you call group one'ers can help and mentor group 2'ers and help them get clean and help them start becoming self-sufficient by giving them jobs (manning book tables, scavenging, saving table spaces overnight. Many number 2s were once number 1s. Of course you can't help everyone, and of course some people relapse.. but people with homes relapse as well. The homeless of any kind don't always rely on the housed for help, a lot of them help each other or themselves. This isn't always the case I agree, but many times it is.