Quote:
Originally Posted by quiettiger
Living on the streets is brutal. There are several things this article does not cover that people end up experiencing.
1. Detachment: People are driven to be social so when you are in this situation you ultimately create a different social pattern which if you are not careful can lead to some pretty dark places. We are not all wired that tight. This is a kind of experience that many people are not equipped to deal with.
2. Knowing your rights cannot stop you from getting the crap kicked out of you. There are very few Bruce Lee types wandering the streets. You body tends to lose muscle integrity and unless you carrying around canisters of protein you tend to get soft quickly. How do you work on your cardio if you are homeless?
3. Health is a constant issues. A cold when you are homeless can kill you. A small cut can get infected and you will find yourself with "toughing it out" when a the simplest of care could have saved you.
4.Maintenance issues are b****. Where do you do laundry? Who is going to sew that tear in your shirt? How do you get out of that situation when everyday plays against you? You end up creating infrastucture from nothing but in the end you have to be ready to leave everything.
5. There are not many homeless people that I would immediate trust with my stuff. They did not all get homeless from no fault of their own. It is hard to build integrity into a person who has personal problems. Overall it is hard to figure out who you can trust in that situation until you've been down that road for awhile but the first time you get burned it's a brutal lesson and one that is often repeated.
I am not an expert on homelessness. I have never really HAD to live off the street but as this increasingly becomes something that people are discovering it is something that more and more people...whether they think it will happen to them or not...will have to try and understand.
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I was lucky in a way, that when i did my stint, i was homeless with an actual friend...
But those points you listed are very valid.
My friend Dean got beat up, peed on, and then set on fire.
The types of people you work with on a day to day basis, most won't talk to you if you end up homeless.
Also, find the line between pride and dignity.