a question about the homeless?

Question

do you think the homeless people on the streets are choosing to live that way or are they just stuck and no place to go?we dont see too many here in the town where i live,but i guess there are in the bigger cities.do you have any,where you live?

Answer 1

Mostly they have nowhere to go. They usually have no money and cannot get a job due to a lack of address, or drug or alcohol abuse. They usually have no family.

Answer 2

I live in suburban LA. Obviously there are homeless. There are many reasons why there are homeless. There are those that stay long term on the street. A vast majority of those have mental disorders or chemical dependency issues. Others just simply don't have enough $$$ for housing, which is not too uncommon in the Metro LA housing market.

BTW- I was homeless for a little over a year based solely on not making enough income.

Answer 3

I'd say both. I used to see this homeless person everyday while driving to work. I sent an email to some help-the-homeless person asking what I needed to do in order for the homeless shelter workers to get this man into a home. He told me chances are the homeless person already knows about the available resources but prefers to live on the streets. Strangely enuff after the day that I received the email, the homeless person disappeared..(i.e. I don't see him around anymore).

Answer 4

I work in downtown Miami and there is a very large population of homeless people. Even though some of them do look like they probably live on the streets because of previous drug problems i do think that some of them really don't have anywhere else to go, one of my professor told me that most ended up unemployed and one thing leads to the next and then your out on the streets. Then again there's those who fake it, me and my coworker use to feed this homeless guy and one day we recognized him on campus wearing nice clothes and clean, we were really shocked now we're skeptical about approaching a homeless person. Anyways to answer your question most of them dont have anywhere to go they stay at the shelter and many in the streets.

Answer 5

i can say with 99% that they don't want this. It can often be very complicated between what we want and what we do. Not to mention mental illness, stress, fatigue, exposure, malnutrition, all affecting the physical/ mental self, as well as society, stigma, you smell,

Some places do a better job of sweeping stuff away, social services, overall smaller populations and more empty land so people aren't just laying on the street like in a crowded city.

Some people choose to be a drifter, maybe forced into it, but then they walk a fine line between going somewhere and doing something and just lying around and dying or begging.

sure some choose to beg and learn to even, rely on this for whatever reasons, not good stuff, but not the story of every individual out on the streets.

Perhaps every individual has thier own story, reasons, motivations and goals or lack there of.

Answer 6

Some have no place to go, and some choose to live that way. Some have had some tough breaks, and some have made some bad life decisions. There are a lot of different reasons why someone becomes homeless.

Answer 7

When I was 21 I took some time out of my life and chose to live under a bridge for 4 weeks. ( I cheated a little and went home twice for a shower) I did get to meet a whole lot of really nice people, and some of them had chosen to live there because they were a bit Paranoid about the Government knowing all about everything they did, I met a couple of people who had no choice, they'd lost everything and been forced to live on the street, I met a couple of kids who had been born on the streets and didn't know anything else. There are a lot of reasons people live on the street, most of them seem quite happy ( I think except for the ones who had lost everything and were trying to get back on their feet). It was an amazing experience and I recommend it. There was only a couple of times I felt scared, most of the time I felt welcomed and accepted.

Answer 8

I think its a mixture of reasons. Some may have just give up on life, some have mental problems, some may be stuck

In any case its really sad, and I wish it all could change. There are only a few where I live. When I traveled to Oxford, England from where I live in Canada. I saw a lot of the streets.. I think they try to sell things for money. I'll never forget how I was eating at a McDonald's and one came in and sat right beside.. he was asking me for food/ money as he sat right close to me I was so uncomfortable.. being a poor traveler staying in hostels I gave him my happy meal toy.. but that's it.

Answer 9

I live right outside of a pretty big city and they are EVERYWHERE. I think they get so broke and eventually don't have a choice. Most of them would rather pay for drugs than rent. I used to let this homeless woman cut my grass and pay her and she did get her a small apartment, so some of them do want to better themselves, but how many people do you think would employ them? Not too many, so they really have no way of making any money.

Answer 10

I believe there are some people out there who are down on their luck, but here where I live we have a guy that stands out at the entrance of our local Wal-mart just about every day and begs for money, when people gave him food, I saw him throw it away, and then a couple weeks later he came in to where I worked driving a nice, well taken care of Oldsmobile, and he was the only one driving it. He was also wearing nice clothes and he purchased about 40 dollars worth of stuff, and none of it was food...

Answer 11

A good proportion of homeless are mentally ill (untreated) and/or drug dependent. Most would like to have a place to stay, but do not want to accept the psychiatric treatment that would make it possible.