Comments on: Homeless-No Solution, No End

By: carol ann augustus

carol ann augustus — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:37:55 +0000

Rod in SE Boise. Hang in there! Not everyone is against you.

By: carol ann augustus

carol ann augustus — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:21:45 +0000

I used to just stop and give people money when they were down and out. God knows I used to be there. Now I stop, take a moment and park my car. I give them job leads. Most of the people I talk to don’t even have paper and pencil, that tells me alot. I used to be homeless and I don’t know any homeless support facilitys that wouldn’t be happy to give paper and pencil for job leads. I’ll never forget “the 10th girl” that I talked to one day, though. I call her ” the 10th girl” cause I had already talked to 9 people that I could tell were con artists. This girl had about 8 months sober and she really seemed like she was doing her very best in life. She was a bit homely, so needless to say, she had no one taking care of her.
Be careful out there, but please, keep an eye out for the “10th” person.
christmas carol

By: Angryman

Angryman — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:58:29 +0000

I don’t think there is much difference between democrats and republicans when it comes to taking advantage of the american people and bungling various policy decisions. The Bush talk is getting a little old though. We get it, both sides need to stop with the talking point regurgitation.

My thoughts:

Helping those in need, short term, who have shown a willingness to help themselves or are unable to help themselves due to a verifiable emergency such as job loss or unforseeable life change = good.

Helping those in need who have squandered previous attempts at getting back on their feet and have not shown commitment or a desire to improve their situation = bad.

In most cases, those people that are truly in need are already being helped.

Unfortunately, some of those we commonly see downtown take advantage of those trying to help them. The dollar or two you give them in kindness is immiediately spent on alcohol. They then get smashed and are later causing problems which cause them to be housed on our dime in the jail.

Two different animals.

By: cyclops

cyclops — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:25:01 +0000

Sam, would you share those “parachutes” that Reagan dismantled?

By: sam the sham

sam the sham — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:12:22 +0000

How do we keep people in their homes? We already know that is less expensive to keep someone in their home/apartment than to get them back into a residence.
Back in the days before Ronald became president there were parachutes to keep people safe. But we watched them dismantled during his presidency. It was a terrible thing to watch. And now how does a society undo such a mess?

By: JIMV

JIMV — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:09:13 +0000

“The term “Hoovervilles” should forever be changed to “Bushvilles”.”

Does anyone know when ‘Hoovervilles’ fretty much went away? When Hoover turned the army on the squatters on the National Mall demanding the government live up to the promises they made to WWI soldiers that the feds had sort of forgotten (not unlike the old promise of free health care forever for the member and his family that became a non promise a decade ago)

http://www.militaryhistorywiki.org/world-war-two/chief-of-staff-douglas-macarthur/

By: JIMV

JIMV — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:00:32 +0000

Come on folks…we all know there is no homeless problem when democrats are in charge…they completely disappear from the media and only reappear as a problem when republicans win…

By: Sisyphus

Sisyphus — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:29:08 +0000

You got it right Rod. No worries.

But Kappa TA gets to the heart of the matter. We’re all diminished when those around us are floundering.

By: Rod in SE Boise

Rod in SE Boise — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:29:32 +0000

To answer my critics: I’m not really a fan of Clinton, Carter, or even Obama. I’m not a big fan of Democrats or Republicans, either; but you have to admit that G. W. Bush has set the standard when it comes to bad presidents. He did more harm to our country than all the other presidents combined. He did more to start the current depression than anyone else, and his way of getting us out of it was to throw money at the banks. That is like reverse Robin Hood, stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Indeed that is what his entire presidency was about.

I only mentioned Vietnam because Bikeboy questioned my age, and for no other reason. It’s not relevant to a discussion of homelessness or which president caused the current depression. And I didn’t tell any Vietnam stories.

By: Zippo

Zippo — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:45:31 +0000

Another idea would be to reduce our efforts supporting globolization… but that won’t happen until our leaders see America as a higher priority than the rest of the world. We have an oversized navy. Why? Because the peace it brings to the world supports globolization thus providing a safe place for our jobs to be outsourced to. I think our government needs to spend those efforts to bring peace to our worst neighborhoods not outsourcing our jobs.