What is wrong with this country that there are over a million homeless people. There are other countries that?

Question

are poor and no one lives on the streets. In Canada, there aren't homeless people. Think about it-this society, this culture, this life-that people have to have money in order to have a safe place to lay their heads at night. So many families are not close and not connected as units. If you think about it, do you see how twisted it is? What are you compassionate thoughts on this?

Answer 1

IF YOU ARE DENIED THE ABILITY TO BUILT WHATEVER SHELTER YOU MAY TO PROTECT YOUR VERY BEING FROM FOUL WEATHER AND COLD,FROM DISEASE AND HUNGER!!TO HAVE A SAFE PLACE EVEN AS ANIMALS HAVE A RIGHT TO SEEK WHEN WEATHER THREATENS...THE PROBLEM IS NOT WITH THE HOMELESS AND THE UNFORTUNATE BUT IT IS AN INDICTMENT OF OUR ENTIRE CULTURE OR LACK THERE OF!!!MORE WOOD IS THROWN AWAY IN AMERICA EVERYDAY THAN MOST COUNTRIES HAVE EVER POSSESSED AS A MUCH NEEDED AND COVETED RESOURCE!!!FURNITURE THAT REQUIRES ONLY MINOR REPAIR OR REFURBISHING FILLS OUR DUMPS AND LAND FILLS,STREETS AND SIDEWALKS!!!FOOD FILLS OUR TRASHCANS AND DUMPSTERS WHILE PEOPLE DROP FROM HUNGER IN THE ALLEYWAYS AND STREETS OF OUR CITIES!!!PEOPLE PAY $4 TO $6 FOR A CUP OF COFFEE AND THROW HALF OF IT AWAY...THAT WOULD PAY FOR A LOAF OF BREAD TO FEED A FAMILY FOR DAYS!!!SOME HOMELESS WALK UP TO ASK FOR CIGARETTES,A DRINK OR COFFEE MONEY AND THEY THINK THAT IS ALL THEY NEED ..WHICH FURTHER JEOPARDIZIES THEIR BASIC HEALTH AND RESISTANCE TO PNUEMONIA AND DISEASE!!!IF EVER A SOUP KITCHEN NEEDED TO BE IN EVERY CITY IT'S NOW!!IF EVER A COUNTRY NEEDED A PROGRAM TO PROVIDE PUBLIC URINALS,BATHHOUSES AND HOUSING IT IS NOW!!BLESS JIMMY CARTER WHO IN HIS SMALL WAY WITH "HABITAT FOR HUMANITY" AND "THE MELLVILLE CHARITABLE TRUST" ARE THE ONLY GROUPS EITHER GOVERNMENTAL OR CIVIC ARE EVEN IN A MINIMAL WAY DOING ANYTHING TO AMELIORATE THE RAMPANT AND STEADILY DEGRADING SITUATION IN AMERICA'S CITIES!!!THOSE WHO CAN HELP NOW MAY NOT BE SOLVENT ENOUGH TO HELP LATER WHEN IT WILL BE THEIR LOT TO BE EFFECTED DIRECTLY BY A SITUATION THAT THEY WERE PLEASED TO LAUGH ABOUT AND IGNORE!!!!

Answer 2

Not only the homeless. The native American population in this country is the poorest of any people anywhere in this country. The politicians keep promising to do something about both of these groups, but instead keep stealing the money earmarked for use to help these people on projects that will make them money and screw everybody else up. The U.S. Government has been paying (supposedly) into a fund to Native Americans in this country ever since they were placed on reservations. There should be about $50 billion dollars in this fund to help Native Americans. There is nothing in this account because the politicians have spent it on their own bogus projects and the Native Americans are just as screwed now as they were when they were displaced and put on reservations. The same thing happens to the homeless in America. Every time their is money for the homeless the politicians end up spending it before anything gets done and then bemoaning the fact that there are no funds. And in the Native Americans problem, think of this. On the Lakata reservation in South Dakota where 75% of the population is unemployed and the average income is less than $4500 per year. Coal companies have been authorized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to mine coal on this reservation. Do the Native Americans get anything from this? NO! An illegal alien is hired to drive a skip loader and paid $15 to $20 per hour, while a Lakota Indian from that same reservation is hired to shovel a ton of coal just to make minimum wage and no one on the reservation gets any money from the coal companies as recompense for the use and the destruction of their land. So, the homeless actually have it pretty good compared to the Native Americans in America today.

Answer 3

I understand. . In this country everyone is out for themselves. We are quick to form opinions, an dslow to lend a hand. Also, people have figured out that it is quite profitable to sleep in box and stash away the money strangers hand out to them. Our government, while they want to help, must drive on perfectly smooth roads.Some people don't think this is what we should spend money on. We could attempt to have, I think it is called, a free-enterprise...everyone working together for the good of the group, but as in every work place some people are just more efficient workers than others..They make the rich richer, and the poor poorer, which is where the have the control, but they are so busy minding third world countries, because honestly no other country gives a you-know-what, they just decided that the harder and the crummy your job is, the less money you ought to make. As far as a safe place is concerned...it is actually cheaper to live outside the city, than in it with the crime. Our laws are a lot stricter than Canada's and our gov't a lot more class prioritized.

Answer 4

Today, in almost every urban centre across Canada, the situation is changing, and conservative estimates are that there are some 200,000 Canadians -- men, women and children -- who are homeless.



Three years after the launch of the most aggressive nationwide strategy in a generation to solve homelessness, there is evidence that it may be working: The number of street people in cities across the United States has plummeted for the first time since the 1980s.

The drop-off reflected in street counts of the homeless taken over the past year has ranged from 30 percent in Miami and 28 percent in Dallas to 20 percent in Portland, Ore., and 13 percent in New York. In all, 30 jurisdictions reported declines in their homeless populations, including the 28 percent dip recorded in San Francisco a year ago and a 4 percent drop reported this week in Denver
The plummeting homeless counts, taken in one-day tallies in shelters and streets at varying dates across the country, are "not an aberration," Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, said in an address to the National Summit for Jurisdictional Leaders. "They are part of a national trend.

"So does this mean we have done enough?" said Mangano, President Bush's point man on the issue. "No. But are we doing better? Absolutely."

The goal of the 10-year plans is to put the most dysfunctional homeless people in the country -- that 10 percent to 20 percent who are continually on the street with addiction or mental problems -- quickly into permanent "supportive" housing with counseling services to help them get healthy. Those chronic cases are a tremendous financial burden on their communities in hospital, jail and other services -- hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece annually in some instances.

Assistant Surgeon General and SAMHSA Acting Deputy Administrator Eric Broderick, D.D.S., M.P.H noted that many of the estimated 600,000 persons who are homeless on any given night have serious mental health and substance abuse problems that can be treated.

Answer 5

No homeless in Canada? Might want to rethink that statement. Why in March did Toronto try to conduct its first homeless census?

Oh, and yes other contries have homeless, lots and lots of them. It is not just a US issue.

To those people that love to spit the hate Bush tread. It is not Bush's fault and neither the rich. It really started when Reagan cut mental health spending. He sent thousands of mental patients into our streets.

Why that happen people can debate for years and there always seems be that lame liberal, blame it on the conservative, but the liberals did nothing to help it when the were in office. Both sides have failed on this issue.

There just is no easy fix and raising taxes on the rich is the dumbest way. You will make more homeless. When you tax the rich more, the middle class pays for it, end of story.

Start by fighting for a flat tax, illiminate the IRS, save thousands of dollars trying to comprehend and enforce our current tax code. If you get rid of the tax loopholes for eveyone and we all pay our FAIR share, we could help a lot of issues.

Answer 6

Actually in the extremely poor countries, everybody is more or less homeless so it seems that nobody is homeless.

Just about every decent sized nation has the homeless...It's just the way things are; there is a distribution and there is always a tail and that tail is the homeless/poor.

Some of the homeless in the US are homeless by choice, i.e. they can do something about it but choose not to. But most are there by circumstance.

Answer 7

Where have you been? There are countries that have hundreds of thousands homeless. In Canada, the "homeless have a lot of open country to squat in not to mention that being without shelter there is fatal. We have homeless because we don't hinder nor help people. The latter is to our shame.

Answer 8

Salsa get used to it. the way things are going with the world having high peak oil production we should see some serious changes in our economy with a generation or two.

When it happens the hardest hit will be those that fall from the penthouse to the gutter. I come from a poor background and ok with being poor again. How many will be though?

Answer 9

Document your figure, PROVE there are over a million homeless people in the USA. At least tell us Where you got the figure and how THEY (whoever THEY are) came up with it. Who defined just what a homeless person is?

Just because you've pulled a number out of your, Ah hem, pulled it out of the air, doesn't mean we should believe it.

people throw statistics about like they have meaning. They DON'T have any meaning till we understand the context. It seems to me, if you can't provide that context, then how can you expect to convince us of ANYTHING. If you really CARE about this topic as opposed to just proving how 'compassionate' you are to your friends, you'll take the time to do your homework.

Furthermore,you are seriously mis-informed about there being no homeless people in Canada.

Answer 10

There are homeless people in Canada. Have you been to Toronto lately? I don't know where you're from but, every country has homeless people, moreso in the third world countries.