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Joe the Homeless Millenial

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you stupid hockey lovers should read about this hockey stick sized curve for homeless

it shaped alot of what we do here

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5223068

Mr. GLADWELL: Well, it says, for example, we've invested a lot of money in shelters over the last 25 years. Giving them a place to stay isn't dealing with the kind of underlying issue, which is there's a very small number of people who are addicted to drugs, are mentally ill, have severe problems with alcohol, and they live on the streets and every winter they fall down drunk four times and get taken to the hospital and have to get a cat scan. They get complex pneumonia, so they run up a $20,000 bill. Maybe once, twice, maybe three times in a winter they get hit by a car and they get blunt trauma to the head. On and on and on. Very small number who are running up medical bills in the course of a year that could be $150,000.

The guy you step over on the street is costing the system more than anyone else in your life except for the person with end-stage metastatic colon cancer. Right? Now, once you understand that, you think, wait, wait a minute, we could get a full time assistant for that homeless guy and put him in a suite at the Hilton and we could save money.

If these guys cost that much money just by living on the streets, it's cheaper to take them off the street, give them an apartment and assign a full time caseworker to make sure they get back on their medication, back on their feet, help them get a job.
 
My father used to work in Manhattan in the early-mid 80s.
He would take me to work 3 or 4 times a year.
The subways back then were REALLY an experience. Homeless everywhere.

I have always been under the impression that there were 100K-150K homeless in NYC.
 
Wow Archie got fired up in this thread. We finally found his weakness. Vagrants.

My guess is that most big cities have similar rates of homelessness, according to population, no?

To say certain panhandlers are more needy and deserve your pocket change more than others is pretty ridiculous. Generally speaking.

People dislike Joe because he's not miserable. Good for him.
 
My friend Tom used to be homeless. Like me he's an addict. But he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and got sober and now runs CAST Canada which provides training to front-line workers in the fields of trauma, addictions (and, to a lesser extent, eating disorders).

That's been going on for 15 (?) years now. I don't think he's getting filthy rich but he does well. I did lots of volunteer work for/with him while I was self-employed and it was great.

Only problem is now I get many, many touchy feely messages that he distributes on facebook. Kinda goes hand-in-hand with the work. They are invariably full of truth but I have my limits for that stuff.

Here's the latest:

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I know.

Tom usually posts really thoughtful stuff - as I say, full of truth - but a lot of it. But that's his world now. I've seen it. If it was anyone else, I would probably have him on mute but I let it go in his case.

He lived on the streets of Toronto and Brampton for a few years. Fast forward to a cancer diagnosis/treatment a few years back and he now has so many friends, people were tripping over each other to provide help.

Something to see.
 
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