Hacker News Reader

Comment by pen2l | Hacker News Reader

I visited SanFran a couple of years ago, and this reminded me of a homeless guy, in his late 60s I imagine, that I saw at a fast food chain.

So I was I think at in-and-out, and a homeless guy was going through the garbage bin to find food. When I came over to dump my stuff in the bin, he was immediately considerate and stepped aside so I could dump the covers and napkins, whilst making sibilant sounds and keeping his gaze down in a strangely submissive manner. And then the staff came over and tried to make him leave the place. I recall he said no actual word but put a mild challenge with more sibilant sounds but eventually left. And I remember thinking, well, he smelled and I tried to avoid physical contact, but was there really a need to make him leave, and take away what small dignity the world had assigned him? Clearly mentally off, I don't know, but trying to survive in the way that he can. But I find myself thinking again what I thought then -- there, but for the grace of god go I

View on HN

I would assume that you would have to very mentally stable to resist all that humiliation without going nuts.

I have a friend that wasn't homeless, but all unemployment money was used on rent required to keep his shared custody (without an apartment to house the kids, you cannot have custody). He always was clean and used good clothes, but he made the line with homeless people to get free food daily. Otherwise he wouldn't have money to eat.

He said that the worst part of all was the look from voluntary women that were working on the food delivery organization. Each woman reacts differently to men. But he says that this is completely different. The look is like if he wasn't even a man - it's like they are feeding a lesser species. He says that he have never experienced the same reaction from women in other contexts, and that it hurts. It steals away all feeling of manliness. Luckily he got out of that situation many years ago.

This is a very interesting observation but also one that could support a few different interpretations. Is it that women enjoy at last a social circumstance where they are superior to men? Or is it men realising the brunt of their experience and the extent of their fall when receiving help from women? I would think it’s mostly the latter, given the volunteer women or men I know all have dedicated significant part of their lives to helping people, not men or women or children or elders specifically.

> He always was clean and used good clothes

An alternative explanation could be that the women thought he was abusing the service to get free food even if he didn't need it, and thus put on some faces that he misinterpreted.

As if if someone has the means they would totally go out and eat with the homeless just to 'abuse the service' and get free food. Right.

Sadly, there’s no shortage of people who believe such abuse is rampant. I heard such a claim the other day from someone I generally regard as intelligent, and who I expect to know better.

> there, but for the grace of god go I

You might be interested in this:

https://graceofgodmovie.com/

[Disclosure: that is my movie.]

I look forward to viewing it this evening. And FWIW: It could motivate me to _buy_ ($20) rather than _rent ($4) [from Amazon] if I knew the respective portions that go to (your) production company rather than just to Amazon.

+1 on this. I’d much rather spend more money if I knew it directly supported the creator/maker/etc. I often do this with my purchases where I look for their direct website and purchase from there.

Yes, I get a cut of every sale and rental, thought I don't recall exactly how much. It's a very small income stream and I don't really need the money. So much as I appreciate the gesture, you should feel free to rent. Frankly, a good review is worth much more to me than a sale.

> I remember thinking, well, he smelled and I tried to avoid physical contact, but was there really a need to make him leave

A homeless person was going through the garbage in the middle of a fast food restaurant... yeah, I assume that would be off-putting to customers & detrimental to their business.

Yeah I really don't understand this line of thinking. I imagine most would sheepishly agree that they would also do the same thing if it were their restaurant.

Offtopic but I feel I must add, sibilant sounds are an effective way to get boring meetings to end quick.

They are also tropes in old movies and cartoons when someone wants to pretend “there is nothing to see here, I’m just whistling in the wind… minding my own business” maybe throw in some foot shuffling.

Pro-tip on charity - see someone eating out of the trash? They could probably actually use your money. Much more effective than giving it to panhandlers.

Or at least a meal from the restaurant.

Yea, there is that aspect of it. Ideally, I will go buy them a meal, so they can't use the money for other things. I personally don't indulge in "other things", but I don't know how concerned I am about them using the money for that either. I think it's very, very difficult for someone digging through trash to get their life together, so if they indulge, they indulge. Note that it's not a comment on their character or anything of the sort, just the sheer number of things needed to re-adjust in society from zero, with zero real help.

Another point is that in most countries outside of the US, panhandlers are either "working for themselves" and make decent money, perhaps better than at a low-end job while having proper living arrangements, etc (and thus "rob" the true poor from the donation). It can also be worse, with situations where panhandlers are actually curated by an organizer who pays them a salary and takes a profit. The latter schemes are also mixed up in exploitation.

Now that I type it all out, I am realizing that buying a meal also prevents the second scenario too. Good stuff.

I had a guy ask for $5 to buy cigarettes and beer. I gave it to him. Too often, I can't buy honesty at any price.

From a logical point of view from a resource management perspective you giving them money is better and allows them to get more bang from that gift.

You buy a McD combo drop it off and feel good. They have to eat it right away. There stomach will not be able to handle it all. They cannot save split the food.

If you give them money they could still dumpster dive for food, keep the money and buy other things they need like (maxi pads, or 1 food bar every morning for a week or a stamp to mail someone or quarters to make a call). They can buy a smaller meal or food in a form that will allow them to space it out over time. Most importantly they can buy the type of food that works best from them.

5 dollars could have multiplier effect. A pre-purchased fast food meal will leaving the homeless person craving for days.

The homeless are drinking/doing drugs less than homed people drinking/doing drugs because they don't have the resources. I would be concerned with salaried beggers.

That's a valid point as well.

if you give someone begging on the street with a drug habit money that they use for drugs, they either won't have to steal to fund their habit or they won't suffer through painful drug withdrawl, neither of which is good (the first for society, the second for them) so there's that. whether it'd be the ethically correct thing to refuse just because you don't approve of drug use is a complicated question...

They're looking for recyclables (for deposit refunds), and other things of value.

I have been wondering how I'd feel if someone cleaned out our recycle bins, before the truck picks them up. Our house alone goes thru a lot of aluminum.

In NYC a few years back, old women and men (elderly, often Chinese?) would regularly go through the trash refuse bins and collect cans and bottles. It was apparently a way to feel useful and busy while also earning some money.

One of my passing thoughts is that recycling could be a way to keep people occupied and also perform an extremely useful service. That is, expand on this.

The cynic in me, however, feels that this would turn into a dystopian nightmare rather quickly.

In NL we used to have door-to-door collectors of metals, paper, vegetable matter ('schillenboer') and glass. Then it all got industrialized and a couple of large companies got exclusivity from the municipalities. Who now have to supply them with mandatory minimums in tonnage or face steep contractually agreed upon fines. And here we are trying hard to reduce the amount of waste. It's such a complete fuck-up. Every yard now looks like a miniature recycling center, with up to five containers in some municipalities (we only have four, but they take up a lot of space and the smell is incredible). (the categories we have are 'remainder','plastic','vegetable/green','paper', and they are emptied irregularly and have a strange mix of capacities, in total there is about 1000 liters of volume across those four containers, and they take up 2 square meters).

Living in one of the worse parts of San Francisco, for the past few years (west SOMA), I can say that people going through your trash is quite a nuisance.

You'll put your trash out for pickup day, and a significant portion of the time, someone will come and go through it. And often as they are going through it, they will just throw random things on the ground. So our little side street kind of has a constant layer of trash.

The city does employ people to come through and pick it up, and they do that regularly, but they would have to do it daily to really keep the street clean. I think they come more like weekly.

Tangentially, I was walking my dog this morning, and had to ensure she didn't step on the used hypodermic needle on the sidewalk. Nothing covering the needle. This happens all the time.

Right now they are at least 3 tents on my small side street block.

For businesses, like if you were at an In-n-out you must have been at Fishermans wharf, that's the only one in SF. They regularly have to ask people to leave who are acting in various disruptive ways, and bothering their customers.

A few years back, I was sitting at a bar in SF, that had outdoor tables. I think I was on a first (and only) date. I guy walked up, took my dates glass of white wine, drank the whole thing down, and then said "I'm an alcoholic". And then just stood there looking at us.

(Also as someone who's lived in San Francisco for years, I just can't help but be triggered when someone says San Fran.)

Yeaaaa, but you guys have SEALS and electric skooters that tell you where the bad areas of the city are (where you can't leave your scoot). It's good times all around. And that windy road thingy.

> people going through your trash is quite a nuisance.

Sure, but who is ultimately responsible for this, the people going through the trash, or the people who have structured our society in such a way that there are people who think their best option in life is to scavenge other people's trash? Because I'm pretty sure that the people going through the trash would stop in an instant if they were offered a better alternative.

> Because I'm pretty sure that the people going through the trash would stop in an instant if they were offered a better alternative.

Mostly, yes. Having been homeless myself for an extended period, I saw just how much mental illnesses impact so many people experiencing homelessness.

In my completely unscientific lodgings with them, I'd say its probably around 30% of the people have some sort of debilitating mental illness. I had other reasons for homelessness (lost job, eviction) which are much more mechanical and easier to fix.

I've talked with my SO about the mentally ill on the streets, and the only plan that seems to might work is to forcefully treat them, get them mentally sound, explain their whole situation, and have them choose. It would be in writing, and sealed with a palmscan. And I get that forcefully treating them once may be considered abhorrent, but they are not able in their state of mind to make decisions for themselves.

Once they're of sound mind, they should then have complete agency to choose to remain on the streets, or to obtain emergency services to get out of homelessness.

AFAIK, it is kind of cycle. Being mentally ill makes you more likely to be homeless. Being homeless makes all your mental health issues much much worst.

> AFAIK, it is kind of cycle.

For folks who need meds, getting them to stay on them can be hugely difficult. It's even harder when that person lacks shelter and support.

Or maybe just offer them some basic food for free, so they don't need to dig in trash cans for it? At least the western societies (I don't know and have no opinion on others) are producing enough food that there is no reason not to offer some basic nutrition to everyone.

(created alt cause of HN's idiotic "posting too fast" - how dare I have a conversation with people online)

I don't understand what I said somehow excludes helping in other ways.

My views are probably a bit more radical, in that I think that everyone should have free food. Homeless, homeful, working, unemployed, citizen, foreigner. Everyone. No exceptions. And, we already have a basis to maintain this system - SNAP.

So when I talked about how to help those whom are experiencing homelessness combined with debilitating mental illnesses, I'm talking of making that program... Not by destroying other programs.

My 1 second old idea is for their psych clinic to offer free food in trade for checking their blood levels. It the meds are insufficient, they get Rx food.

Can't tell if I'll offer that idea again, once I think about it.

> At least the western societies are producing enough food that there is no reason not to offer some basic nutrition to everyone.

I live in one of the southern US states that tends to be hostile towards people in need. My kids and I had on-and-off hunger 2008-2018.

No one is really looking for food in the trash cans in the Bay Area. They are looking for recyclables that they can turn in for cash. Or other things that have some value that they can turn in for cash.

In the Bay Area there are plenty of ways to get fed. Happy to be shown I'm wrong, but I don't think it's common to be lacking for food.

I was homeless for less than a year. In my case, my mom (term cancer) and I were tossed from our long time family home.

The way - the only way - my homelessness ended is I had help.

I know it is a tempting idea, but forced treatment is an oxymoron. You can't force anybody to get healthy, unfortunately. As usual, prevention is worth a metric shit ton of treatment. Apart from that, all you can really do is reduce harm and marginally improve quality of life through housing, etc. Not that a marginal improvement in QoL is anything to scoff at.

This isn't true, and the fact that you call it forcing people to get healthy shows you're missing the point.

It's not about getting someone healthy, it's about getting them to a point that they are of sound enough mind that they can make rational decisions.

If you hear voices that tell you that antipsychotic medication is going to kill you, you won't take it. The idea that you're choosing to not take medication of your free will is wrong - your free will is compromised by a mental illness so severe that your perception of reality isn't even correct. How can you possibly decide what's best for yourself if you can't accurately understand the world around you?

The point of this kind of forced treatment is to get people into a state where their brain isn't lying to them and they have a basic understanding of what's happening, so that they can then make decisions.

The folks who say it's unethical to force this kind of treatment sound like they're sticking up for folks with severe mental illness, but they're really just condemning them to suffer from that mental illness for life, because without some kind of outside help they simply can't take the actions needed to stop suffering from it, because it prevents them from doing so.

There are very few mentally ill people wandering the streets in Oslo, Norway. I have seen one guy with unkept dredlocks who seems to enjoy hanging around and chatting to passers by, but he almost certainly has a public-funded apartment and generous disability pension.

The difference is very striking compared with Boston (a city with similar climate to Oslo) where there are many obviously mentally ill people wandering around talking nonsense, begging for money, carrying their things in plastic bags, and sleeping on the ground.

I live close to Los Angeles so here’s my take. Even where I live an hour away there is a sizable homeless population.

Most people who enter homelessness leave it within a couple of weeks. That’s because these are people like you and me who due to unlucky bad circumstances are out on the street. They want to get back on their feet so they take advantage of social services, don’t have drug addictions or mental illnesses, and maybe have broader support structure through friends and family.

Then you have about 40% of the chronically homeless who are unfortunately not served well by the public services. These folks have mental illness that is left untreated and it’s sad to see them die slowly on the streets. These are fellow humans who are mentally incapable of making decisions, and they need full time care or something that puts them in a safer environment. We have ignored mental illness in this country.

The remainder is basically people who willingly want to be homeless and do drugs. They won’t enter shelters because you can’t do drugs there. They won’t take up temporary housing because the hosts ask for basic decency like no raging inside.

I think we need to make a clear separation between mentally ill/addicts and those who want to just do their own thing. Ultimately I’m paying A LOT in taxes and I feel that I have a right to access the public parks and not have to deal with belligerent people who pose a safety threat to the community. I can excuse the folks with mental illnesses or drug addiction as I believe we have an opportunity to help them - but if some folks adamantly refuse help then I’m not going to settle for letting public places just become dumping grounds.

> Most people who enter homelessness leave it within a couple of weeks.

I'm a bit skeptical of the "Most" claim but it's based on anecdotal evidence from recent years of interacting with our sizable homeless community. I haven't seen any stats.

> They want to get back on their feet so they take advantage of social services

While the first part is undeniably true, the latter depends on the availability or existence of social services. Southern US states are openly hostile toward folks with long term vulnerabilities. Where services exist, politicians here proudly trim them back where they can.

>and maybe have broader support structure through friends and family.

My mom rescued me from homelessness when I was a teenager. The odds of escaping homelessness without help are ~0.

you are interacting with the chronic permanently homeless population, what gp is talking about is the fact that there is an even larger population of temporarily homeless. although the statement is true, i don't think it is a useful distinction, because what most people mean by 'homeless' is those chronic cases, anyway, and that is the problem society, government and homeless charities are trying to solve. acknowledging there is another set of people with similar problems is great, but as pointed out, these people generally are getting the support they need, and are a 'solved' problem (in some sense) unlike the people you have been interacting with, who still need some kind of help and are not receiving it...

the skepticism is justified by simply defining homelessness as being without a home for more than a few weeks (the 'usual' definition, tbh) thus making gp's statement obviously false, i suppose.

there are no "people who structure society" in a meaningful sense. no one sat in a meeting and said " ok lets design it so some people have to eat out of the trashcan"

yes some people have more pull than others, maybe a lot more, but even the president doesnt have that kind of ability to "structure" the day to day reality of average people ina generalized way

> there are no "people who structure society" in a meaningful sense

That is ridiculous. Our society is governed by laws and social norms. Those are not handed down from heaven by the gods, they are made by people. Yes, it's true that "the people who structure society" is not a small or easily-identifiable group. That doesn't mean that this group of people does not exist. It most assuredly does (and if you are on HN you are probably a member of that group).

If all of HN is in this group than the group is so large as to be meaningless. 1% of all Americans is more than 3 million people.

I certainly don't wake up in the morning and ordain where people get there food from even if I'm an incremental part of structures that have some influence on the economics of America (all voters are)

> That doesn't mean that this group of people does not exist.

This logic sounds a whole lot like what a moon landing denier would say. I'm not saying you are in that group but the line of reasoning is the same.

That is equally ridiculous. A group does not become meaningless once it gets beyond a certain size. The Republican Party is very large. That does not make it meaningless.

righ which is exactly my point. the republican party as a structure has influence. that does not mean being a member of it gives you any meaningful influence. the collective has distributed power. this is in the same way as how the government as a collective determines a lot of how our society runs without their being people who "control society" even though the government is made up of people.

It’s not quite distributed though, it’s concentrated into a few hands, and we can name those individuals. Those hands passed a tax bill in 2017 that sent 80% of benefits to corporations and the top 1% of Americans. It was the only major piece of legislation they passed after getting into power between 2017 and 2019. That was a choice as to how they used their power, and they used it to help the richest Americans. That’s what people mean when they say “the people who structure society”.

>> no one sat in a meeting and said " ok lets design it so some people have to eat out of the trashcan"

What are panhandling ordinances if not exactly that?

San Francisco is on track to spend about $1.1 Billion dollars on homelessness this year, and $600M next year.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-has-an-unpre...

So it's not for lack of spending. But 40 years ago, we decided to downzone the city because we don't like even mid-rise buildings, and then we got a massive jobs boom.

Combine a huge amount of wealth creation, with a very constrained housing supply, and you're going to have price shocks, which will push the most vulnerable out on the streets. That's what we see.

And I happen to live in the neighborhood that that used to be much more light industrial, and happens to have the most shelters and services for anyone experiencing homelessness. Generally the others parts of the city fight against any kind of shelters or services... so it all ends up here.

It's a city, not a mall. If you want to keep alcoholics away from your beverage, it would make sense to not have it out by the sidewalk when they stroll by. Otherwise, that's life in the (sorta) big city.

You are victim blaming, and have low standards.

I, for one, would like to live in a city where I can eat/drink outside without fear of someone stealing my food.

And I want a pony

> that's life in the (sorta) big city.

Not in any city where I have had a drink in a pavement café! Not even in the US.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com