On the other, a well paying job so you can feed yourself etc is a social good.
We all need food, clothing and shelter. The best way to get that is a job. Jobs at Google tend to pay well.
It's always odd to me how people think it's only a social good if you are feeding and clothing someone else, not yourself.
Not being on the street just isn't really enough to write off all other ethical considerations though. Some might wish to set a slightly higher bar than that for people who are being compensated as well as people in software are in 2019 (I say this as someone working in software in 2019).
You say that what you needed most was finding an earned income. Based off this statement, I have a few questions:
- Some cities are going into homeless camps and handing out housing vouchers. Their argument is that once you get people off the streets and into a domicile, many issues tend to resolve themselves, allowing the formerly-homeless to work toward stability. If you were given the opportunity to receive a housing voucher, would it have helped you get to where you are today?
- To my knowledge, one hurdle the homeless must overcome when finding a job is what address to put down on a job application. Did this hurdle pose a challenge for you when trying to find a job? (An idea I just came up with: providing the homeless with a free P.O. box to allow them to still receive mail. Perhaps this program or one like it exists, but I've never heard of it before.)
- Many homeless live in cities where the job market is highly competitive. Imagine an employer provided short-term housing for the homeless but was not located in a city. (Example scenario: a factory in rural America.) Do you see any potential in this program?
Thank you!
> It's always odd to me how people think it's only a social good if you are feeding and clothing someone else, not yourself.
These people seem to have never learned some pretty ancient wisdom. One phrasing of it goes, "give a man a fish; feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; feed him for a lifetime." Skills (however simple or complex) pay the bills.
I doubt it.
I was offered housing on more than one occasion. Sometimes, it was a friend sincerely trying to help but it was very far away (thousands of miles) and substandard. I have health issues. I need my housing to not be making me sicker than I already am.
Sometimes, it was in exchange for sleeping with them. This was a non starter for various reasons.
A home is more than a roof over your head. It means you belong, you have some kind of security and so forth. Some homeless people float from dive hotel to dive hotel and are not literally out in the street. It's still a huge hardship to live that way.
I have researched housing policy and homelessness. We have some serious housing supply issues. I'm trying to figure out how to write about that on a blog called Project: SRO. It's so far got an About page.
I'm not up for trying to outline our complicated housing supply issues in an HN post. I think I need an entire website for that and I'm struggling with where to start that explanation.
Re addresses. I always (technically) had a mailing address while homeless and usually had access to mail service. I would like to see more mailing address services for the homeless, plus more free phones and some kind of storage locker service. People sometimes have job interviews and don't know where to stash their backpack.
I provide various informational resources in the form of a group of websites. This includes talking about making money online.
A lot of homeless people have personal handicaps and a regular job may be a poor fit. I began doing freelance work while homeless as one piece of the puzzle for resolving my own issues. I think that's a better option for some people.
I'm famously poor.
It also affirms that adequate earned income is a healthy, positive thing.
We do this weird thing where feeding others as an act of charity is clearly a good thing, but somehow feeding ourselves is not.
I think there are problems with that idea.
It's all good. But I happen to be very serious about the importance of an earned income as a social good. I think we need more of that.
Cheers.