Post by Velvetshady on Jun 15, 2014 19:57:05 GMT -5
What, you all haven't read the bible story The Sermon of the Spikes? Where Jesus preaches the wonders of spikes at keeping the dirty homeless off your lawn? No?
Just ignore that in most of the New Testament, Jesus and his cronies were the homeless ones...
Post by irishbride2 on Jun 15, 2014 19:59:25 GMT -5
BTW I agree that many shelters are terrible. That is absolutely something that needs to be fixed.
Also, a large number are religiously run and force religion (force prayer before getting food for example). And that is not ok. Offer religion? Sure. But you shouldn't force someone to decide if they want to do something they don't believe in or pass up food and shelter.
The big issue we have here are many shelters require you to be completely sober and clean from drugs. I get the rationale behind it. I do. But the people who run them act like its some easy choice to just stop drinking or taking drugs. That is not the case for everyone. Addiction is complex. We need to do something for those people as well.
Because some building owners install spikes is not an indictment against the whole of Christianity.
1) Her comment says something good about Christianity- that one of the tenets of our religion is that we should help others. 2) Churches and individual Christians don't do enough. We just don't. We can make all the excuses we like, but if we all did more to follow the beliefs we claim to follow our country would be in a much better place (I'm not just talking about the homeless, either).
As a Christian, I think that we should be horrified that people are homeless, and children don't have necessities, along with so many other atrocities, and yet we claim to be a Christian nation.
I agree with all of this, but, and this is a serious question, how is Tesco supposed to do any of those things? Those sound like things for the government to address, so why are people protesting Tesco instead of the government? If Tesco put up a "no loitering" sign and hired a 24 hr security guard to keep people from sleeping and hanging out there, would that also be wrong? Do business not have the right to say what they are ok with happening on their property?
A human can take pitty whereas a spike is a spike. A human may offer hope or help but a spike never will.
I think homeless people have plenty of interaction with the police. I don't see a lot of evidence that that is necessarily helpful to them.
All I'm saying is that I think that the anger at Tesco is slightly misplaced. Tesco isn't the cause of homelessness. Tesco doesn't really seem to be in a position to solve it. The government cut funding for programs related to homelessness. I'm just saying that directing activism energy towards the government to get the funding reinstated might be a better way to get the homeless help. Does sleeping in the window ledge of a Tesco really help them? They're still homeless.
Homelessness is a deeply complicated issue. I cannot even begin to claim that I understand all of the causes. Some homeless are mentally ill and don't trust shelters. Some are addicts and cannot stay in shelters, since shelters require that they not be high or drunk. Some are just regular people who fell on hard times and had zero safety net whatsoever. The last group certainly has the most straightforward solution. The first two... I have had my dealings with family members with mental illness and addiction, and they were not homeless, and solving their mental illness and addiction problems turned out to be basically impossible. I freely admit to have no idea what the solution is to help people in those groups. And then there are even people who are homeless by choice because they prefer that kind of life.
There are serious problems that go along with homelessness. There is a group of homeless people who have been camping near my neighborhood for over a year on and off. They urinate and defecate in full view of several of the houses that face their camp. They have set camp fires (we live in a dry climate with bad wildfires). There have been drug dealers making stops to sell to them. I am not in the "eff the homeless" group. I give my time and money to a local homeless shelter. I have a homeless uncle. But I wouldn't tolerate public urination and defecation, illegal and dangerous fires, or drug dealing from anyone who wasn't homeless, so why would I tolerate from a homeless person? Our neighbors have asked the police to address those secondary problems repeatedly, but they keep happening over and over and over again. They will happen as long as they are there. We (as a neighborhood) have not asked the police to run them off. We could easily end the problem of them camping where they are if we called the police on their (seemingly successful) panhandling, but we won't do that. So basically, we have all just accepted that this is something we are living with for now. I wouldn't blame someone for saying that that's something they just can't live with. They are very serious issues.
I would much rather explain to my children why some people have no other place to pee other than in a Gatorade bottle, what a condom is, and how to stay safe around strangers than why I have installed human snaring spikes outside my home.
FWIW I live in an upper middle class neighborhood and a sex offender lives across the street and a house down. Sex offenders are everywhere ... and metal spikes will not keep them away. Also just because someone is homeless doesn't mean they are dangerous.
I have had homeless people sleeping around other more urban homes I have owned or rented and I never though of my homes value or of a child seeing them and being traumatized. Honestly ... this thread has had me a little more pearl clutchy than finding out that a lot of people on here go comando.
I think that the bolded is a little dramatic. They aren't sharp. They are blunt nubs that make it impossible to sit or lay comfortably on them. I would call them more rude than inhumane.
I know we have our own problems, but when talking about a Christian nation, does the UK identify as such? Since the OP was written about London and all.
I know we have our own problems, but when talking about a Christian nation, does the UK identify as such? Since the OP was written about London and all.
I guess I should have reread lol. I don't think the UK refers to itself as a Christian nation anymore. They dropped that back when they decided to pretend they've only ever been a small island nation that can't do anything on its own.
I know we have our own problems, but when talking about a Christian nation, does the UK identify as such? Since the OP was written about London and all.
I know we have our own problems, but when talking about a Christian nation, does the UK identify as such? Since the OP was written about London and all.
I never really thought of the US as a Christian nation, I thought it was like 50% Christian and 50% other and don't have religion, but I guess the interwebs told me I was wrong...
Either way, I think homelessness is too often left to non-profits and religious groups to try to combat. The main shelter in our town was started by a guy who started a coin-collection shop, made a little money but, was concerned about the homeless people in front of his shop downtown and therefore started a shelter for his son to run. It's all non-profit/private, which seems so weird. I love that one man can make a difference in the community, but I'm also flabbergasted that it wasn't a larger city/county/state issue to begin with.
I also think moving them from city centers and areas of mass people is worse for all of us and am not for any architectural methods to remove the "comfort" of sleeping on a concrete ledge or park bench. That ish is terrible - they already have to sleep outside and worry about their next meal, they can't have a frickin' hard bench or area of concrete slightly out of the elements?
I sort of feel that people who are better off should be confronted by the fact that homelessness is a serious problem b/c then maybe something will change for the better and not just look at homeless people as a nuisance.
I know we have our own problems, but when talking about a Christian nation, does the UK identify as such? Since the OP was written about London and all.
I never really thought of the US as a Christian nation, I thought it was like 50% Christian and 50% other and don't have religion, but I guess the interwebs told me I was wrong...
Either way, I think homelessness is too often left to non-profits and religious groups to try to combat. The main shelter in our town was started by a guy who started a coin-collection shop, made a little money but, was concerned about the homeless people in front of his shop downtown and therefore started a shelter for his son to run. It's all non-profit/private, which seems so weird. I love that one man can make a difference in the community, but I'm also flabbergasted that it wasn't a larger city/county/state issue to begin with.
I also think moving them from city centers and areas of mass people is worse for all of us and am not for any architectural methods to remove the "comfort" of sleeping on a concrete ledge or park bench. That ish is terrible - they already have to sleep outside and worry about their next meal, they can't have a frickin' hard bench or area of concrete slightly out of the elements?
I sort of feel that people who are better off should be confronted by the fact that homelessness is a serious problem b/c then maybe something will change for the better and not just look at homeless people as a nuisance.
I think that benches and parks, which are public areas, are a different story. I absolutely think they should be allowed to stay there if they want. I just think that a property owner does have the right to say whether or not they are ok with someone sleeping on their property like that.
I think that the man who started his own shelter is a wonderful example of how companies can help. He started a shelter, he didn't just let them be homeless in front of his shop, which seems to be what some of these activists are claiming the solution should be. I just don't see how someone being homeless and sleeping in a Tesco window sill is helping them. I also don't see how building buildings without windowsills, or with bumps to make sleeping there impossible, hurts them more than calling the police on them, and having them either run off, or potentially starting a conflict between the officer and the homeless, resulting in arrest for the homeless.
I know we have our own problems, but when talking about a Christian nation, does the UK identify as such? Since the OP was written about London and all.
I never really thought of the US as a Christian nation, I thought it was like 50% Christian and 50% other and don't have religion, but I guess the interwebs told me I was wrong...
Either way, I think homelessness is too often left to non-profits and religious groups to try to combat. The main shelter in our town was started by a guy who started a coin-collection shop, made a little money but, was concerned about the homeless people in front of his shop downtown and therefore started a shelter for his son to run. It's all non-profit/private, which seems so weird. I love that one man can make a difference in the community, but I'm also flabbergasted that it wasn't a larger city/county/state issue to begin with.
I also think moving them from city centers and areas of mass people is worse for all of us and am not for any architectural methods to remove the "comfort" of sleeping on a concrete ledge or park bench. That ish is terrible - they already have to sleep outside and worry about their next meal, they can't have a frickin' hard bench or area of concrete slightly out of the elements?
I sort of feel that people who are better off should be confronted by the fact that homelessness is a serious problem b/c then maybe something will change for the better and not just look at homeless people as a nuisance.
Also, Roman Catholics ARE Christians. You need to add the Catholics and other Christians to the Protestants, and then you get 78.2% Christian. ETA: NM. Reading comprehension fail! I totally skipped the part where you said you found the chart and it told you you were wrong about the 50-50 thing.
Post by cookiemdough on Jun 16, 2014 11:38:32 GMT -5
This is not the way to treat people. I don't care if they are a nuisance. The thought that the best option is to use spikes as a deterrent is an incredibly lazy solution to a problem.
Also, Roman Catholics ARE Christians. You need to add the Catholics and other Christians to the Protestants, and then you get 78.2% Christian.
Oh that is what I meant - it was more than I thought (>75%) and I had always thought it was more like 50%, which is why I said, I was wrong.
And you're right that private property is different than public, but it seems that it's a pretty gray area in a lot of cities b/c the sidewalk is public, but the edge near a building isn't or maybe even the boulevard is still private property maintained by a private owner, but the sidewalk is public. My point is, I think specifically designing your building to prevent homeless people from congregating is identifying the problem, but not being part of the solution. Then again, we also see those types of spikes and weird rails to try and stop bikes and skateboards from doing tricks on benches and concrete platforms in our neck of the woods, so I'm guessing there is a whole architectural utilitarian side of things that we only see after the fact, like these spikes.
This is not the way to treat people. I don't care if they are a nuisance. The thought that the best option is to use spikes as a deterrent is an incredibly lazy solution to a problem.
This is actually partly why I believe them when they say they want them there to keep teenagers from hanging out there all day and smoking and just being little shit teenagers. You know those kids will just keep going back because they're so cool that they aren't even scared of the cops at all! ETA: And to keep people from using the widow sills as benches while they eat, which inevitably results in littering, or messy food scraps being left, and/or cigarette butts being left everywhere.
Yay England! Oh, and gross as a nation that they allow this to happen. Awful. I wonder what their homeless backgrounds are (I saw Vets and LGBQT were mentioned as largest populations here).