Speaking With the Homeless

[Debp]

Your experience is a lot more positive than mine.

I volunteered weekly for what? about 15 months? What I found was that most of the unhoused were either mentally ill or addicted to drugs. Theft and assault were considered normative.

Closing the mental hospitals in America was a terrible mistake.

Here in Los Angeles, the head of the Union Rescue Mission lost both of his legs due to something he caught by working on skid row with the homeless. He was at the mission for many years. Finally retired to live with his family in Kansas. He was a pastor.

 

[Grailhunter]

Yes the LAHSA (city homeless program) was found to have defrauded the Federal government out of multi millions of dollars meant for the homeless. That's why President Trump wants to give the money to faith based programs that actually work to help people.

Like the Dream Center ministry...all sorts of programs, rehab, food, shelter, etc.
They have been doing this for at least thirty years in Los Angeles.



I knew a lady that succumbed back into alcohol and became homeless because she nearly burned her apartment down. Every time she ended up in the hospital they would place her in a nursing home to recover. The social worker would try to find a nice halfway house for her. But she didn't want to go to a halfway house....she went back on the streets. Eventually died I think as she disappeared.

About the only homeless program that I know of that works is here in Farmington. Homeless cafe' it is a homeless shelter that focuses on food and clothes. Not much of a shelter they only have showers and cots. It is more for bad weather, hot or cold. I see them walking over to it a lot. Church groups will donate clothes and cooked food to the shelter.

 

[Brakelite]

Sometimes you do not know what to do. Sometimes doing anything can get you in trouble. I was pulling out of gas station and saw a young girl siting against the building with a back pack. When I got close I could see she barely had enough clothes on to cover her and she was bare foot. So I got out and talked to her. As it turned out she was 15 years old and had run away from home because her parents would not let her take drugs. I asked if her parents were abusive. She said, No.
What was I to do? There was no way I was going to let an attractive half naked 15 year old in my truck. How many ways could that go south? So I gave her 20 dollars and called a State Trooper friend of mine.

Mmmm. Situational suspicion is endemic today, even in legislative guidelines for ministers and elders/deacons and youth workers in churches. I drive a school bus. So many rules is hard to act natural toward kids without protecting yourself from others thinking you are "grooming". Even being a grandfather has the imposition of limits on contact etc. Probably all fully justified because of the prevalence of genuine abuse. The times we live in. So sad.

 

[sondring7]

Here in Los Angeles, the head of the Union Rescue Mission lost both of his legs due to something he caught by working on skid row with the homeless. He was at the mission for many years. Finally retired to live with his family in Kansas. He was a pastor.

About the only homeless program that I know of that works is here in Farmington. Homeless cafe' it is a homeless shelter that focuses on food and clothes. Not much of a shelter they only have showers and cots. It is more for bad weather, hot or cold. I see them walking over to it a lot. Church groups will donate clothes and cooked food to the shelter.

View attachment 90771

EXCELLENT PROGRAM

 

[Behold]

Reader,

Of course if you can provide food, room, and board, to a "homeless" person, then that is rescuing them..
However, if this is not available for you to provide, for any number of reasons then the next best provision you can provide for them, is some money.

And your job isn't to try to find a reason not to help them, by trying to justify it with some bible verse escape hatch.

And yes, there is a difference between a helping hand up and a hand out, yet, when you are sleeping on the street, ... its all the same to you.
Its just a blessing.