Las Vegas: Don't Feed the Homeless

Many of the illegals ARE homeless. Or are you refering to the God-fearing American homeless? Is there a distinction?

But oh so quotable, because it's true.

Let me put it to you this way. American homeless should get jobs. Even if you have to work at BK or McDonalds then at least you have a job. Join the military if you have to. You get medical insurance which is more then you have right now, you get food money and at least you can get some sort of training for some sort of job. If you have to work 2 part time or even 2 full time to get back on your feet, then do so it is better then living in a park talking hand outs from those who don't want you to work so that they can feel better about themselves and take more money from the people who do work to care for those who don't work.

As for the illegal aliens who are homeless I guess they wouldn't be in any worse shape if they were rounded up and sent back to their own countries. We have a bad enough issue of dealing with our own citizens who don't work we don't have the time or the money to deal with you. It should be your country that takes care of you not the US.

So NOT true.

You people are amazing....Amazingly stupid.

Sounds so simple, when in reality it isn't. Why work at BK or McDonalds for $6/hour when disability insurance pays far more?
Moreover, the those individuals on physical and mental disability, can't work, no matter how hard the social workers push.

Did you know that a large percentage of the homeless are suffer from sever depression and many are non-medicated psychotics?

The issue in nimh's article is not that homeless people are asking the US for help. It's that the city of Las Vegas is criminalizing volunteers who give food to the homeless because they want to. That's different. America is a free country, and there is a valid case against the government robbing Peter to feed Paul. But this is not that case. Here, Peter wants to feed Paul, and Paul wants to be fed by Peter. That's a private issue between the two of them; the government should stay out of it.

Re: Las Vegas: Don't Feed the Homeless

Welcome to the dark side of American liberalism. Have you read the Op-Ed by Dukakis and Mitchell, the one where they advertize the minimum wage as a deliberate policy for pricing Mexicans out of the labor market? You may be surprised that Democrats don't really give a shît about poor people. I'm not. `Progressives' have been doing this kind of stuff since the early 20th century, when their selling point for minimum wages was to keep women from competing for white men's jobs.

I knew a man who lived in the woods. He had been suffering from MS for a number of years. He gave his disability checks to his wife and kids to provide a better life for them. He said that when his MS got so bad that he could no longer walk he was going to take some medications and end it all. Perhaps its rare to find a selfless homeless person - but I met one.

a significant percentage of the homeless--an estimated 1/4 to 1/3--are mentally ill, and a significant percentage of the seriously mentally ill are homeless. "getting a job" is probably not an option for them.

here's a recent study on the subject:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050201101738.htm

That means 3/4 - 2/3's aren't mentally ill and should be working.

Thanks for the link, Thomas. Good points in that piece.

yeah, well it may take them time to find a job. on an application, you usually have to give an address, phone number, references, work history, and all that. if you leave them blank, or fill in "homeless" or "n/a", it may reduce your chances of being hired.

regardless, why should a citizen be fined or jailed for giving someone food in a park?

I suspect the percentage is actually higher. I doubt that anyone is homeless simply because they are lazy.

Re: Las Vegas: Don't Feed the Homeless

I did actually read that, and I was ready to post excerpts from that article here somewhere. I think they make a great point. Illegal immigrants working for hunger wages don't "take the jobs Americans dont want" - they take the jobs Americans dont want at a hunger wage. To point out that obvious elephant in the room is a good and important thing.

You say that their perspective proves that "Democrats don't really give a shît about poor people". Thats two fallacies in one. First off, Dukakis has suddenly morphed into the "Democrats". I didnt know that he spoke for them. Secondly - a disgust at employers dodging the law and legal labour relations in order to pay people hunger wages doesnt sound like "not giving a **** about poor people" to me. It sounds like opposing the attempts by business to trigger or further a downwards cycle in wages and labour conditions, to squeeze those who already earn the least ever more to max their profits.

The West, too, had immense and painful poverty just seventy, ninety, a hundred years ago. That poverty was eradicated or at least reduced by a decades-long struggle to, one step at a time, put in place decent working wages, decent labour conditions, some employer responsibility for health and disability. Those employers, out of logical business interest, will do what they can to erode that progress - and illegal immigration provides them with the perfect tool. But doing away - or letting employers get away with dodging - those long-fought for defences against structural poverty may benefit individual illegal immigrants in the short term - but in the end victimises everyone. Those immigrants will want their children to benefit from reasonable institutional protections against workplace abuse and exploitation too - so its not necessarily in their interest to let businesses get away with destroying them either.

Basically, I dont buy the alternate narrative (the one you are implying?). That allowing business to hire illegal immigrants at illegal, far-below minimum wages is in actuality a social kind of thing, a redistributive thing - because those illegal immigrants were poorer than the American poor, and the begging wages they work for in the US still make them richer than they were back home. I dont think that allowing business to take away from America's poorest to give to illegal immigrant poor is what it really means to "give a shît about poor people" - that's some sick Robin Hood there. In the old days we would have just called it for what it is - playing the poor off against each other, and the rich smile. Good for Dukakis cs to speak up about it.

Meanwhile, none of that has anything to do with happened in Las Vegas. As you very articulately pointed out in your preceding post, this story is not about whether the state should provide for its people, legal or illegal - its about government actually forbidding individual people to help each other. As you pointed out, that is a wholly different ballgame, and an unambiguously outrageous one.

Added a whole paragraph to the above post, second to last.

It's not a private issue when it's being done on public land. Gail Sacco is, I'm sure, quite free to invite the homeless to her place for a nice meal or maybe even some carryout. Just because the homeless must be fed doesn't mean that they must be fed in the public parks.

A good point. While there are more and more organizations these days trying to improve the situation, it is still the case that many are willing to exhort the homeless to work but few are actually willing to hire them.

It finally happened! McGentrix said something that made me laugh with him and not at him!

Re: Las Vegas: Don't Feed the Homeless


I've moved this discussion to a new thread:

A social-democratic angle at the illegal immigration issue?

it's so easy to get a job, certainly! raise your hands all of you who would love to have homeless people for your coworkers! oh. noone? funny that.
yes, i can just see BKs and McDonalds breaking their legs to hire homeless people. If one in ten 'makes it', I would call that a success.