r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Garey_Coleman • 8d ago

Where are the homeless supposed to go?

Cities have been cracking down on homeless people so they can’t have encampments or stay on sidewalks. At the same time usually the shelters are full. So those who are unable to get into a shelter, where are they supposed to go?

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u/Partnumber 8d ago

Away

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u/Ban-Circumcision-Now 8d ago

Yep, America’s plan for addressing the homeless is just “move along”

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u/VolitionReceptacle 8d ago edited 8d ago

"Why don't we just take the homeless... and push them somewhere else?!"

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u/mkt853 8d ago

What a groundbreaking idea! I'm sure that's never been tried before.

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u/Proud-Cartoonist-431 8d ago

It's been tried by the USSR. You just bulid a small town of commieblocks 100ish km away from the city with basic amenities and everything, and transport them there, giving each a small residence. Alcoholics can't afford railroad tickets because vodka is cheaper. That's all.

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u/ConfusionsFirstSong 8d ago

But see that’s called housing first, and the current administration believes everyone should have to be sober and in treatment before they get the benefits of housing. Otherwise, they may not use their boot straps and might depend on government handouts.

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u/Irishish Hey, Paramedics! 8d ago edited 7d ago

I know that, speaking as an alcoholic, utter destitution would totally have shamed me into changing my life, and definitely not driven me to say "fuck it, I don't want to care anymore" and just scrounge enough for food and gutter vodka. After all, when you're addicted to something and you are convinced nothing can make you feel as good as that thing, like your life will be meaningless without that thing, it's super easy to just go "well I gotta give this thing up to sleep in a crowded dorm where people might steal my stuff."

EDIT: Sigh. /s.

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u/Stunning_Scheme_6418 7d ago

Right? I stayed in a shelter in Denver once where they stole my thyroid meds. Lol don't even get you high. After that I had my friend sleep the next Matt down and we put all our stuff between our Matt's while we slept. They also made u go to the front to get a dole of TP so no one got too much. A real dignified month.

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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 8d ago

/s?

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u/Irishish Hey, Paramedics! 8d ago

Yes, of course, I just hate that /s symbol!

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u/pinksocks867 8d ago

I don't think it's about how they will react.So much as it is about i will be able to go into the seven eleven without being accosted by four different drug addicts asking me for money.

Home non addicts matter too.

We should get to enjoy parks. I should get to enjoy the shower in the gym at my apartment complex without running into people who have snuck in to use it

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u/Author_Noelle_A 8d ago

I live in a city with Housing First complexes, and others that requires people with addiction issues being treatment. Don’t have to be sober, just in treatment. Treatment’s offered, but you don’t have to and can keep shooting up in private. There are no requirements at all for the Housing First, and it’s gone VERY badly, unless your idea of success is not having to see homeless people and giving them a private place to go OD and not be discovered until three days later. OD in public, and 911 gets called. Worse is the crime rate. One of the complexes, I think Alta Vista, has about 7,000 police calls come in per year. Yes, 7,000. Yes, that’s a ridiculuos number per day, and it’s like, how? The crime is so bad that some people have moved back to the streets to be safer.

The ones requiring being in treatment have been credited with helping people get their lives back together and stable. No crime issues. It’s been great.

The HF really is just a place to get them somewhere we can’t see them. No one wanting to get sober is going to get sober. When a reporter went there to do an article, she was in a woman’s apartment talking interviewing her when someone busted in the door looking for a hiding place because there was a shooting.

HF sounds like a great concept, but the reality is that people so hell-bent on using are personally better off on the streets where 911 can be called. I guess it’s better for society ‘cause one less junkie, right?

And no, decriminalizing didn’t work. It made everything so much worse, more needles in parks, ambulances being so busy that at least one person who had a heart attack is known to have died because it took over half an hour for an ambulance to be available because of how many OD calls. Deciminalization was reversed, and ODs have gone down. I’m on the other side of the river from that, so it’s local. Portland and Vancouver may as well be views as a scientific study.

Having seen how both go, I favor the mandatory-treatment one. Requiring complete sobriety first is extremely unreasonable, but letting it be a free-for-all endangers people, some who really are trying to get their lives together, but can’t because they aren’t safe.

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u/ConfusionsFirstSong 8d ago

Ive worked in housing and with people with severe addiction and mental health challenges. In Housing First, getting people housed is only the beginning. After this comprehensive services are offered including mental health and substance use services to insure wellbeing and longevity of the placement.

You seem to overlook that for people who refuse treatment, this approach categorically denies them housing. Which is completely fucked up. Putting someone in housing is not pointless. It is, in fact, quite literally lifesaving.

Maybe if you live in so cal where it never gets cold, then the elements aren’t as life threatening, excepting those heat waves that can melt trash cans to the pavement. Well where I live in Appalachia it regularly gets well below freezing in winter, and we have major snowstorms. People die from the mere fact of being unsheltered. And being unsheltered makes sobriety infinitely more difficult. They take uppers at night to stay awake to avoid being victimized. They drink and take opioids and stimulants to escape the utter misery of homelessness. Their lives are often hell on earth. You’d probably drink or use drugs too if you were unhoused. Most of us probably would.

And despite your city’s apparently awful time rolling out HF, the evidence still points strongly in favor of its use. It is actually MUCH cheaper and results in people being housed (surprise!) much more consistently than programs predicated upon treatment first do.

And besides the evidence and life saving reasons, people just straight up deserve to have some basic level of dignity. Even if they aren’t interested in going to rehab first.

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u/Cocosito 5d ago

Where is this? I live in AZ and have tried to help a family member and those comprehensive services are incredibly difficult to find and organize even with an address, a phone, insurance, transportation and money.

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u/-spicychilli- 7d ago

I can see the benefit in having both though. If I was homeless and wanting to get better having the option to be in a Housing First situation that required treatment sounds immensely preferable. That way you can focus on your recovery in an environment where everyone else has similar goals. The environment will be safer and likely will make it easier to get back on your feet.

If people are not interested in treatment then give them a different complex.

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u/Legal-Sprinkles8862 8d ago

Hi! Currently sober & homeless here & I honestly had no idea that this was all it took to get housing. From what I was told I needed to have a mental disability (I do) & live in my car for 6 months. So I am. But I live in fear of someone stealing my home since I drive a Hyundai. 😆 They've already made two very costly attempts & I don't wanna find out if the 3rd time does the trick.

I am also working full-time but can't get benefits from my job due to my mental disability forcing me down to part time hours in the aftermath of a mental health crisis (I am in therapy as well). So even though I am now back to working full time but still need the government handout of state health insurance.

It feels really weird to know that my earning potential is more than enough to cover rent & still not be allowed to rent because previously I was to poor & sick to pay rent. 😅

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u/Awkward-Skin8915 8d ago

You can afford rent but aren't allowed to rent? What about people looking for roommates/sub letting? That seems normal.

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u/Elegant-Ad-9221 8d ago

I have been in your situation and it’s really frustrating

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u/-rogerwilcofoxtrot- 8d ago

Housing First doesn't necessarily require sobriety or to be clean. Source: I work in this field. It varies by funding source, jurisdiction, etc.

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u/AttitudeOutrageous75 8d ago

As a recovered alcoholic/addict I can tell you this is a very difficult problem. That's why it still exists. Giving things can enable disease progression and not stop the problem. I've worked with homeless who relapse and abandon their provided apartments to go back to the streets. Addiction is the problem. Homelessness is just a symptom.

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u/bikinibeard 8d ago

Well, its kind of pointless to stick someone who uses fentanyl all day in their own house. They’ll die

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u/ConfusionsFirstSong 8d ago

Appropriate and effective utilization of housing first doesn’t stop with housing. It’s just the first prerequisite piece of helping someone put their life back together. It should be partnered with ACT and other intensive mental health and substance use programs as supporting the person so that they can safely remain in the community. I’ve worked with just such a housing program. Was it easy? Hell no. Did some people struggle? Absolutely. Did some people do really well? Also yes.

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u/stabbingrabbit 7d ago

The people working should get the housing first. Even if it is subsidized.

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u/ConfusionsFirstSong 7d ago

People’s moral worth does not depend on their ability to be productive! This whole take is extremely ableist if not eugenicist, because housing is a basic need and vital to survival By your logic, people who can’t work such as people with schizophrenia and other profoundly disabling mental illness shouldn’t have housing because they don’t work. Because that’s a large portion of the people who are chronically homeless.

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u/mkt853 8d ago

Sounds fancy. In America they will live in a giant cage under a tent in the middle of gator infested tropical swamps that flood frequently.

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u/Just-Performance-666 8d ago

It's also that being unemployed wasn't really an option in the USSR, neither was "choice"

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u/PyroNine9 8d ago

Being unemployed for long isn't really an option in the U.S. either. But at the same time, nobody has to give you a job, much less a job that actually pays enough to live.

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u/JaymoKeepIt100 8d ago

That’s what do not make sense about this new Medicaid/SNAP rule having to work whatever hours a month to get benefits. What if nobody wants to hire you they can’t make them do it

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u/HeavyMain ok 8d ago

this is not an oversight. the intent was always to starve out the "undesireables".

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u/boslifesober 8d ago

Had the problem of nobody hiring me for 2 whole years. Sent thousands of resumes and many interviews. I have a decade of work experience, it doesn't look the best due to constantly moving because of my father or when he'd kick me out and constantly had to keep moving so I never stayed somewhere for that long and developed a criminal record due to my father making false statements to the cops.

But I worked very hard for a decade, learning everything in a restaurant. FOH & BOH been everything from dishwasher to management. Can run an entire kitchen all by myself.

None of that mattered. All they saw was the gap in my resume, the lengths I had stayed at previous jobs, and my legal troubles. it was a wrap. How tf are we supposed to get our shit together if nobody gives us the opportunity.

One day, I want to open a store that hires only people who have struggled in one way or another. They are the ones that respect having a job, know what it means to work hard even for the smallest of things, being grateful for things that are taken for granted every day, understand the consequences of their actions, and so much more. But even that would hardly help the community of hardship.

Shit needs to fucking change.

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u/VBswimmer1946 8d ago

And there is a limit on how much you can make (and it’s not much) before you make too much to be eligible for these benefits.

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u/Diligent_Read8195 8d ago

Thats why they put in “or volunteer”. Not that I agree with any of it.

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u/cbpars 8d ago

The required hours can be fulfilled by any combination of work, education, or community service, with mandatory exemptions from the requirement for a laundry list of reasons. Not sure how someone would get turned down for all opportunities for community service.

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u/Fog_Juice 8d ago

Then to the labor camp they go

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u/espressocycle 8d ago

You can technically satisfy those requirements with documented job searching activities or volunteering but in practice it's just a trap.

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u/Level_Substance4771 8d ago

I know at least a couple years ago it was work or volunteer so many hours a week.

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u/WMBC91 8d ago

Being unemployed for long isn't really an option in the U.S. either.

You are (I suspect deliberately) missing the key point that in the USA, like most countries, you are free not to work but obviously that means you probably have no money.

But hey, if you got rich and want to stop working, or got a massive inheritance, or even your family is happy to provide for you - etc etc... you don't have to work.

In the Soviet Union this wasn't allowed - this was literally a crime and you could be prosecuted if you refused to work until your retirement. You are essentially the property of the state who compells you to work for them.

Yeah, it's a world of difference.

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u/iSc00t 8d ago

Nah, that place is for people who have homes but are brown.

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u/Western-Corner-431 8d ago

Don’t kid yourself, the only thing that matters to the regime is money. Poor whites are going to find out.

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u/VolitionReceptacle 8d ago

Something something we are gon see a rapid flattening of "ethnic" groups into just two: Rich (with abstract power) and Poor (without abstract power).

The same happened to Rome too.

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u/Western-Corner-431 8d ago

We’re already seeing it.

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u/iSc00t 8d ago

Oh yeah, it will happen for sure once they run out of other scapegoats.

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u/Western-Corner-431 8d ago

Meh, it’s already happening. The poor of every persuasion are getting their asses handed to them right now and it’s only going to get worse.

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u/General_Director_495 8d ago

They already are. Don't forget the farmers either.

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u/Picodick 8d ago

This is the truth. The common denominator is poverty. The poor white people the poor brown people and the poor black people are all treat the same where I live. I have noticed in the last thirty years ( I am old) that as my town has more and more intermarriage the racial prejudice has faded and the income distinctions are much more divisive. Our poorest citizens are predominantly white or native in my town, most of the Hispanics people and our few black people have full time employers and in demand as workers.

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u/underboobfunk 8d ago

But somehow cost even more to build than a small town of commieblocks.

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u/Fog_Juice 8d ago

As fucked up as it sounds, I think the occasional flood is part of the design idea. You don't have to pay for their housing if they all drown in their cages.

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u/rubberguru 8d ago

Most of them had homes and jobs

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u/Proud-Cartoonist-431 8d ago

Socialism, well, is for people. Soviet Union is zero tolerance to drugs (wanna drugs - get alcohol, alcohol is cheap). Russia is the opposite to America in terms of "white flight", city centres are the nicest places. Not nice places are remote.n

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u/lionmurderingacloud 8d ago

The Soviets actually discouraged drinking as unsocialist until WWII, when it was needed as cheap coping fuel for the soldiery. Then vodka became 'patriotic' and quintessentially Russian again.

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u/usernameforthemasses 8d ago

Alcohol is a drug.

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u/PulsatingBlueEyeball 8d ago

Britain kind of does that...they have things called "wet houses". Poor alcoholics can live there and drink themselves to death, although they can get help if they want it. But theyre really for alcoholics that are pretty much beyond hope, just giving them a home so they dont die in the street.

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u/GrooveStreetSaint 8d ago

Communism sounds so awesome, too bad the god of the universe wants humans to live in a capitalist society, so communism is bad.

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u/Irishish Hey, Paramedics! 8d ago

Communism was so great that they had to put a big wall up to keep people from leaving.

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u/PulsatingBlueEyeball 8d ago

American politicians wouldnt support that, I dont think.

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u/AdWonderful9091 8d ago

If think they are interested to keep the price on housing market high. If they could build something like that for the homeless, everyone else would want.

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u/gridirongeek 8d ago

The homeless are not even a majority of addicts. Check your facts.

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u/newbie527 8d ago

Still sounds better than letting people live and die on the streets.

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u/Pristine-Pen-9885 8d ago

Tank the economy and make people lose their homes, then make it illegal to be homeless. What the hell?!

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

In a nutshell

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u/Pristine-Pen-9885 8d ago

Their plan.

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u/HotBrownFun 8d ago

The law in itd majestic equality has seen fit for it to be illegal to sleep under bridges for both rich and poor

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u/Chairbear1972 8d ago

By design

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u/GPT_2025 reddit 8d ago

It would be nice if-- IF! Workforce offices could function like temp agencies!

hiring on the spot and sending workers to local businesses for trial periods of around 60- 90 days.

Businesses cooperating with Workforce offices can evaluate, train, and decide whether to hire candidates permanently.

This creates a win-win situation: it helps the government reduce unemployment, ensures that Workforce are effectively utilized for the funding $$$ they receive, and provides job seekers with a quick, reliable way to find same-day $ employment when needed.

Additionally, it offers local businesses the opportunity to assess candidates firsthand before making a final hiring decision, leading to better fit and reduced turnover.

(Currently, almost 76% of the hourly workforce is working at state minimum wages or slightly above that minimum.) and Ignore federal minimum wage.

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u/Zealousideal-Help594 8d ago edited 7d ago

I think the problem is that many of the homeless folks have drug or mental health issues and wouldn't be able to function to do the work. Additionally, if they're homeless, they likely have no access to clean clothes and personal hygiene which is an impediment to a work environment.

I am not in the US and not familiar with Workforce as a program or office and am even just assuming that it is a US based thing, so I may be totally wrong here, but my above statement is what I've witnessed locally.

Edit typo

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u/Code-Useful 8d ago

I have to tell you that there are MANY MANY homeless here in the US: single, families, etc, that are NOT drug addicts or have mental health issues, they are just a product of our times and lifestyles and the economy.

Just because the ones you see and remember are the crazies, doesn't mean there aren't 10x more normal people out there that you don't see, like you and me, who have fallen on hard times. Please don't 'other' them because they don't have a home. Some of these people are really good people who have literally tried their best and life kicked them in the teeth. Some of them are on the spectrum and never got the help they needed.

Nearly EVERY lower income family in the US is one major accident, health problem, natural disaster, etc away from homelessness. Without uncorrupted social safety nets that democratic representatives usually are the only ones to fight for, we are headed down the tube and can only rely on each other.. hopefully some new projects like this find success.

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u/Sorry_End3401 8d ago

Thank you. I’m currently employed and homeless. I work as a service writer in the auto center for a billionaire family that has more money than they could ever use up in several lifetimes.

I make $15 an hour. That would have been great, like if it was the 1980s or 1990s. I cannot afford an apartment plus car insurance plus food plus paying healthcare plus utilities. So that’s how nice people become homeless. Through divorce or health crisis, I never thought it would happen to me

There are no safety nets.

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u/JaymoKeepIt100 8d ago

Exactly somebody said before I could

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u/Macleo142114 8d ago

Former homeless here: Not once did I ever encounter someone just down on there luck, Not once all of us were eather addicted or mentally ill. All we did was trade goods and services "free shit" for drugs all the time every time. The social handouts the politicians fight for collectively don't work. I'm sorry but there has to be a better solution.

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u/Maximum-Extent-4821 8d ago

Yeah but think about it. Why would someone who has a family with them, go interact with your homeless community? Not every homeless person is going to want to join the drug addict economy.

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u/Macleo142114 8d ago

Well then where are they going? Section 8 housing? I'm only coming on what I seen with my own eyes. Saying that there's thousands of people out there just down on their luck that are not addicted or homeless and living on the streets is bullshit never saw it at least not where I was.

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u/Vegetable_Permit_537 8d ago

Those people, assuming they are there, are not spending their time around drug bartering homeless people. They are living in their car, showering at the gym or living in at their place of work. You only saw drug addicts because you were wherever the drugs were at and so were they. The non-addicted homeless are staying away from the drug addicted homeless or they would have been in your group.

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u/Abombasnow 8d ago

You used way too many negatives. Are you saying all of them are addicts or not?

Not once did I ever encounter someone just down on there luck

So, they're all addicts, right? As no one is there purely because they are down on their luck?

eather addicted or mentally ill.

So they're all addicts or mentally ill?

All we did was trade goods and services "free shit" for drugs all the time every time.

So... 100% all addicts, right?

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u/EmmCee325 8d ago

In our local unsheltered homeless population, the percentage with severe mental health and substance abuse challenges is around 30%. Housing costs, especially in HCOL areas, have far outpaced income growth, especially for people with fixed incomes. In my county, the fastest growing homeless population is seniors. Those with substance abuse or mental health problems are the most visible, often use the most resources (hospital, police, etc), and cause the most headaches for housed people in the community (and often other unhoused people too). There are lots of homeless people that have jobs, that are doing their best to get back on their feet, that are just trying to fly under the radar, do their best not to cause problems. Those are not the ones people notice, so they assume most of the homeless population are like the ones they see.

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u/ApYIkhH 8d ago

We need to bring back something like the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Any able-bodied person can sign up, do some work, be fed three meals a day, be housed, receive free medical care, and receive fair pay and a pension.

This costs money, of course, but the projects are for necessary infrastructure (bridges, roads, telephone poles, etc), so the money was going to be spent anyway.

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u/Extension-College783 8d ago

California used to have something like that. Not for the homeless specifically. I was in staffing/recruiting at the time and we worked with them occasionally.

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u/Macleo142114 8d ago

We already have that, it's called "Temp Agency" & "Agency Staffing", throw a rock around here (SoCal) and you'll hit one. You half to want to work. This is coming from someone formally addicted and homeless.

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u/RaisedByBooksNTV 8d ago

Congrats to you for both wanting to break your addiction and being able to do so.!!!!

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u/RedditNewbe65 8d ago

They followed the late Sam Kineson's advice and moved to where the food is. You won't see them in the farmland, you see it where the food, jobs, shelters are located.

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u/VolitionReceptacle 8d ago

Sam Kineson's advice unfortunately is still too relevant nowadays.

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u/Queasy-Ad-2916 8d ago

And drugs

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u/Maximum-Extent-4821 8d ago

That's what I wish they would do at a minimum. They built a really nice walkway all across the Jordan River in SLC. You don't want to enjoy the result of what our taxes paid for because it's packed with homeless and drug dealers. Same shit with public parks, they are disgusting and instead of doing something about it, they let them stay and simply weld the public bathrooms shut that were originally for the general public in the first place.

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u/woodenroxk 8d ago

The real solution is to feed the homeless to the hungry but we’re not ready for that discussion yet

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u/Henroide 8d ago

Ship them to Hawaii, they can’t swim back

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u/AvailableStrain5100 8d ago

That’s what Indy did when it hosted the Super Bowl. It gave each homeless person will to leave a train ticket to California and $100.

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u/Guidance-Still 8d ago

Nobody wants shelters in their neighborhood

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u/GnarlyNarwhalNoms 8d ago

In my neck of the woods, there's a NIMBY campaign to try and stop a project that will turn a rundown old motel into transitional housing. They justify this by saying that it's half a mile from a school, but this is a small town - everywhere is at most half a mile from a school. It's not in the middle of a residential neighorhood, either - it's located by a freeway offramp next to a bunch of tire shops. If that's not an acceptable place to these people for a shelter, then where should it go?

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u/Guidance-Still 8d ago

Oh I get it nobody with the money has the answer either

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u/Equivalent-Bus-3575 8d ago

I had a homeless ask for some money. No big deal. I gave him like 7$.  No joke, the next day I saw him again. And he was super cool. His name was Seth. We talked for a bit, he didn’t speak all that well, nevertheless he told me his story. Tough. Lots of bummers. I felt pity and shame. All that. So I told him to meet me tomorrow and I would put together a backpack for him.  He showed up. Toilet paper, socks, food, hygiene stuff. Sweater and a pancho.  And 100$. He was so grateful. We hugged. And I felt great. 

2 weeks later I saw him drunk as fuck and he didn’t have anything I gave him. 

Cool guy. Totally didn’t want to be homeless. 

GTFO. 

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u/paradox037 8d ago

"You don't have to go home because you don't have one, but you can't stay here."

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u/burf 8d ago

Most places, honestly. You have some people who want to eliminate homelessness, but I think most people in most places at their core just don't want to deal with homelessness at all. I've been seeing this as homelessness and open drug use have gotten worse where I live; when it wasn't as big an issue, most people were at least nominally on board with trying to help the homeless. Now I'm seeing a much more virulent "us vs them" mentality because most visibly homeless people have mental health problems or drug addiction, and it makes others uncomfortable.

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u/Nevvermind183 8d ago

Right, tens of billions are spent a year to make signs that say move along

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u/dr_strange-love 8d ago

That's how the first Rambo movie started. 

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u/ExcitingMoose13 8d ago

But I thought to take away from rambo was supposed to be rara America, the way the sequels did 

Not a Dark look at how the American government uses and throws away veterans and rather pour resources into controlling the homeless instead of actually providing for them

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u/Overcast451 8d ago edited 8d ago

That's the whole dialog at the end of the first movie when Col Troutman confronts Rambo at the police station while the sheriff is shot up at his mercy; delves into the concept of him being used, tossed to the side, and left to flounder. No guidance or assistance for him in spite of his sacrifice.

"You can't just turn it off!"

Also, in the movie, the Sheriff has a Silver Star and Purple Heart on his desk, seemingly to indicate he was a veteran, too.

My takeaway from the first movie was two government machines going after each other. Adding in the colonel who just became a thoughtless part of the machine, until his eyes give away his sudden realization in the end.

One damaged by a war and the other emboldened by a war. Subtlety addressing the mental scars left with vastly different results.

The message in the first movie was moving and eye-opening. The others were just shoot fests.

I have seen the first one numerous times, it's much deeper than it appears on the surface. PTSD might have been a medical thing at the time, but most people didn't have a concept or name for it, that I knew of. I was young, though.

The others I have seen once or twice. They were basically action shooters with the "rara" feel.

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u/graham_king 8d ago

Also, in the movie, the Sheriff has a Silver Star and Purple Heart on his desk, seemingly to indicate he was a veteran, too

Of the Korean war, it's explicit in the book. He resents the Vietnam veterans overshadowing his own service, which partly explains his instant dislike of Rambo.

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u/JJohnston015 8d ago

Rambo also mocked the Sheriff's showboating his medals. When he saw them, he said, "Oh, gave 'em hell in Korea, did you?"

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u/Bill__NHI 8d ago

He resents the Vietnam veterans overshadowing his own service, which partly explains his instant dislike of Rambo.

Just as a large portion of people hated on returning Vietnam vets, my father being one of them who was spit on and called baby killer when he returned home. Mind you he was only a combat medic, and only fired blindly into the jungle when under attack—hardly a baby killer.

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u/showyerbewbs 8d ago

PTSD might have been a medical thing at the time, but most people didn't have a concept or name for it, that I knew of. I was young, though

From WWI and WWII, it was called "Shell shock" because a lot of the soldiers were intimately close to big guns on ships and tanks.

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u/Dhaeron 8d ago

For a good part of WW1 it was called cowardice and people were sentenced for it. The British army executed a couple hundred soldiers for it in WW1 and they didn't get (posthumously) pardoned until the mid-2000s.

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u/FrankWillardIT 8d ago

Also the Italian, French and Russian armies murdered a lot of their own with this victim-blaming accusation.., it was pretty common back then...

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u/solidstatepr8 8d ago

WWI in particular because those guys lived for weeks and months in a trench being pounded by artillery 24/7. Not only the constant terror and paranoia of one of those shells finding its mark, but just the constant concussive force giving them all conditions like CTE eventually.

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u/MrLanesLament 8d ago

At that time, I think PTSD was still called “shell shock” and it was a career killer. If you mentioned it to anyone other than your buddies of similar rank, you’d be mental-healthed out.

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u/CurvyJohnsonMilk 8d ago

Theres one or two deaths in the first one. The second one Rambo kills about 200 faceless Asians. The third one he kills about 300 faceless russians, while defending the afghani freedom fights (i.e. the taliban)

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u/marbanasin 8d ago

They weren't the Taliban at that time, and to be fair there were many different militant factions, from different ethnic groups and regions.

But, yes. We funneled a shit load of weapons into that country to bleed the Russians and then just let it turn into a failed state so a Taliban like group could take over after. 0 shits given after Russia pulled out. And Rambo 3 is perfect at showing that sentiment in the West at the time.

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u/Brothless_Ramen 8d ago

The end of Charlie Wilson's War when he can't get any funding for the post-Soviet recovery is rough

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u/marbanasin 8d ago

We just fucked up the end game.

I love that film.

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u/Brothless_Ramen 6d ago

Put that shit on our country's headstone

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u/asst3rblasster 8d ago

one death and that's the idiot that fell out of a helicopter because he didn't strap himself in.

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u/bomber991 8d ago

I mean the first one isn’t even called Rambo, it’s just called First Blood. This Vietnam war vet walks through a town and the sheriff doesn’t want him there, but he won’t leave so the sheriff arrests him. Rambo breaks out of jail and then starts defending himself as the police chase him and it just escalates from there.

The second film is Rambo winning the Vietnam war for us by saving some POWs. And the third film is Rambo helping our jihadi friends in Afghanistan beat the Russians. The third film he was going into Burma or something, I pirated it and fell asleep. The fourth film I think he fights the Mexican drug cartels.

So any way, first film is great. Second is great propaganda, though I think the Chuck Norris “Missing in Action” was even more over the top. Third was meh, fourth and fifth entertain you while you’re watching but you don’t really want to watch it again.

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u/Direct-Attention-712 8d ago

agree. the book was much different, darker and a different ending.

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u/cat_prophecy 8d ago

It's nuts how different the sequels are compared to the first movie. Having only seen Rambo 2 and 3 I assumed that the first one was more of the same.

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u/marbanasin 8d ago

The first is really good. Absolutely worth a watch.

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u/HereWeFuckingGooo 8d ago

Spoiler for the book but Rambo kills himself in the end and he was supposed to do the same in the movie. They even filmed the suicide scene, but they reshot the ending. Also, and somewhat ironically, Rambo is more violent in the book and it was Stallone that wanted him to be more of a pacifist in the movie... and then the sequels happened.

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u/inprocess13 8d ago

A lot of the homeless have been veterans your military and government lied to and left to die after they came back alive. 

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u/gsfgf 8d ago

Born in the USA!

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u/National-Plastic8691 8d ago

he wasn’t part of the homeless, he was a traveller and considered a vagrant. slightly different weird laws there

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u/Objective_Bar_5420 8d ago

That's been customary in small towns for ages. Keep moving.

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u/Broomstick73 8d ago

The first Rambo movie was so wildly different than the others. It had a real message and plot.

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u/knightress_oxhide 8d ago

They drew first bloooood.

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u/potatochip_pooper 8d ago

Exactly. Most People don't care where they go. 

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u/wickedhare 8d ago

Until they show up

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u/voyagertoo 8d ago

doing crime in areas of the city that they weren't before

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u/HOOPER_FULL_THROTTLE 7d ago

Yep. I’m one of them.

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u/Substantial-Pin-3833 8d ago

Well to be fair its hard to care where a stranger goes when that stranger doesn't even care where they go.

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u/brettcb 8d ago

Alternatively, have they tried not being homeless?

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u/proudbutnotarrogant 8d ago

"It's not my problem that you have no money for food. You should have thought of that before becoming peasants."

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u/JPBillingsgate 8d ago

The chronically homeless, which is the homeless population that are problematic for cities, are not homeless because they have no money for food. It is mental illness, substance abuse, or a combination of both.

The second, larger, homeless population is much, much less of a problem and these are people who are much more able to seek and receive help. We should never stop being generous with these people as governments or as individuals.

For the first group, not only would it be hugely expensive to try and treat these people en masse, we would also have to be able to involuntarily commit many of them, which is something that is not legal in most cases now.

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u/proudbutnotarrogant 8d ago

This was a quote from a kid's movie. It's not meant to be taken seriously. However, I do agree with you. Unfortunately, the obvious fix is, in fact, to involuntarily commit certain people, which is a rabbit hole no one wants the credit for having us go down.

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u/JPBillingsgate 8d ago

It's more than political will, which I think the GOP might have. But there are two major roadblocks that would keep them from trying anyway. One, you have to have someplace to commit them to, and we have closed so much of our former infrastructure for this very thing and I doubt the GOP has the desire to fund it.

But the second is the courts. There is a reason why involuntary committals are tough to do, even sometimes even for those that pose a pretty obvious danger to themselves and others (a bar that few homeless people meet).

All that really leaves us is for one party to placate these people (to their political detriment as it happens) and for the other party to make their lives so challenging that, it is to be hoped, that they will just go away somewhere where few people have to look at them. This is not very compassionate, obviously, but probably not very effective either.

I used to date the director of homeless services for a major east coast city. She used to tell me stories about how many of their homeless were basically given one-way bus tickets there from other smaller cities in the region.

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u/bikinibeard 8d ago

In the end, we would save money with mandatory treatment. Think about how much we already spend on police, ERs, ICUs and jails. And then there’s the non-profits. While some do good work, many are just fly by nights with a good PR person or grant writer. San Francisco spent a billion dollars and most if it went to over 800 NGOs. Most of these NGOs don’t know the other NGOs exist, they don’t work together but in a blind parallel (if they work at all; there’s a lit of grift). SF estimated to spend between $200-400,000 a year PER homeless person. Not much to show for it.

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u/HOOPER_FULL_THROTTLE 7d ago

Totally agree with this take.

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u/AndWinterCame 8d ago

Fascinating breakdown, couldn't mention anywhere in it that you don't end up homeless by doing drugs or having psychosis go untreated, you actually become homeless by being unable to afford a home, that is by being priced out of the housing market. The problems you are attributing to the first group either start or dramatically worsen after months and years of being treated like less than human. It is a progressive, worsening circumstance, but saying that large swaths of the population are inherently homeless is wild.

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u/TonysCatchersMit 8d ago

You’re right give someone with untreated psychosis and addiction a home and they’re actually a true pleasure to live next door to.

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u/AndWinterCame 8d ago

Okay, well everyone here is acting like it's preferable to allow for government to permanently imprison these people (and any of us who succumb to medical debt while losing a job) than to even consider the validity of a system in which medical care and housing are universally guaranteed at the cost of offending billionaires.

Truly, what I am asking in this conversation is for people to consider what might one day befall people they know if not themself, and in doing so to ascribe the same humanity they would expect to the people already in that situation.

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u/TonysCatchersMit 8d ago edited 7d ago

There’s a man in my neighborhood in NYC that is not only mentally ill and an addict, but deaf and mute.

His favorite past time is getting loaded and assaulting, sometimes sexually, women in the neighborhood. Occasionally he’ll fight men but his preferred target is overwhelmingly women.

He’s been arrested and jailed, sure. Dozens of times. But he’s also been sent to alternatives to incarceration like drug treatment programs and mental health facilities all over the country. All at no cost to him, of course. He gets out, coping mechanisms and a pocket full of meds in hand, and quickly takes up his hobby again.

Surely, if this poor disabled man had a home he would take his med and stop smoking crack, drinking and groping and molly wallopping women?

Except, he does have a home. A government subsidized apartment with his father that the landlord can’t get him out of.

And now I’m sure you’re thinking; liar. Making hypothetical straw men up for internet points. But, alas, it isn’t so. Despite tax payer funded treatment he remained a violent menace.

While yes most of us are one medical emergency away from homelessness, maybe consider the possibility that dude with their dick in their hand shouting obscenities on the street corner might be there simply because he’s a fucking antisocial asshole.

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u/JPBillingsgate 8d ago

It's not just being forced out of the housing market. It often comes from mental illness and/or drug addiction causing unemployment, dissolution of families, estrangement of loved ones, and even evictions for behavior.

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u/AndWinterCame 8d ago

You exhibit what appears a strong desire to place yourself firmly and irrevocably in another category of person than the unhoused, all I ask is that you acknowledge that if only for an instant.

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u/JPBillingsgate 7d ago

You exhibit what appears to be a strong belief that our chronic homelessness problem is something that can readily solved, or even substantially ameliorated with just a little more compassion and a little more money. Yet, we have spent many, many billions of dollars on this issue with no real results at all.

The city of Los Angeles' annual budget for homelessness is almost a billion all by itself. How are things going there? Have they gotten better? It's been years and they have tried everything they can think of, have they not?

I was not and am not defending what Trump is doing in DC. I was merely pointing out that one, chronic homelessness and economic homelessness are two very different things and that two, chronic homelessness is an incredibly difficult, perhaps impossible, problem to solve.

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u/HughHimbo33 8d ago

Rich people with dedicated families can't stay sober half the time. We expect sobriety from somebody whose name nobody even knows? The people who hand wave "just give them treatment" are mind baffling to me.

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u/SurviveStyleFivePlus 8d ago

But what about me and my family?

Hm. Don't know, don't care.

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u/Dangerous-Bit-8308 8d ago

Yeah. No money for bread?? Come on. Have they even TRIED making cake?

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u/elves_haters_223 8d ago

Why can't they just a buy a house?

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u/caramonwarrior 8d ago

From what I've heard, some of them thrive on it...

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/tzimplertimes 8d ago

$40k is 100% of my annual income, and I’m well paid by the standards in my industry

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u/bearded_dragon_34 8d ago

“What, you can’t get it as a gift from your parents?” That’s legitimately what my well-off coworker asked me when I was talking about the down payment for my home back in 2020.

I was like, “My parents get money from me, not the other way around.”

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u/elves_haters_223 8d ago

In certain cultures, parents pay for son's house on marriage. 

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u/brettcb 8d ago

But have you tried just making more money

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u/Crankenberry 8d ago

Sounds like Mom's been reading the Redbook again.

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u/Fodraz 8d ago

A lot of the homeless are Boomers too

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u/Nika_113 7d ago

And that’s terrible. No one should be without a home.

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u/Silver_Recognition_6 8d ago

You're making over 70k and living with your Mommy??

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u/Bright_Topic_3668 8d ago

Personally, I just decided to buy a house. Problem solved.

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u/2muchmojo 8d ago

As someone who was homeless, this is the stupidest comment possible. 

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u/brettcb 8d ago

During that time it seems you missed the lesson on sarcasm

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u/2muchmojo 8d ago

Whew. Good. 

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u/brettcb 8d ago

Tone can be tough to get online. Where I live I'd be dead inside a day in the winter if I was in that situation. No idea how they do it. Glad for you that it sounds like a past tense situation

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u/ManyAreMyNames 8d ago

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

“They are. [...] Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

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u/JazzlikeProject6274 7d ago

I suspect that is the actual plan.

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u/ecrw 8d ago

Maybe we can even get specialized vans to pick them up and move them up to a nice farm in ̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶O̶s̶t̶l̶a̶n̶d̶ the country, with lots of space for activities!

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u/Spiritual-Currency39 8d ago

“Greyhound therapy”.

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u/BlixxOrchid 8d ago

Away is the polite way of saying nowhere with some fresh air.

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u/ColdFusion27 8d ago

Death, because their trauma is their fault apparently.

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u/Adventurous_Place804 8d ago

All the good "christians" just want them out of sight. Far, far away.

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u/Ur_Killingme_smalls 8d ago edited 8d ago

Even otherwise progressive people seem to just have this loathing for homeless people. I can point to several times in my life where if I didn’t have resources and a support network I could have wound up homeless. If people really thought about it I’d bet a good 20-30% of people would find the same to be true.

Edit: and everybody has a friend or family member who could’ve wound up homeless

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u/1127_and_Im_tired 8d ago

Why are Christians always the only group mentioned? I don't disagree that many so-called Christians act anything but Christian like, but that's the same for all religions. Check out Lakewood, NJ where the Jewish community cut down all the trees so the homeless people wouldn't hang out in the shade. People of all kinds suck.

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u/unitedshoes 8d ago

Because it's only Christians demanding that America become (or return to being, or remain) a "Christian nation."

If there were a bunch of Muslims or Jewish people or Taoists demanding that the US become a Muslim, Jewish, or Taoist nation, we'd look to those religions and see if they were massively hypocritical about it as well. Nobody's religion really matters to me until they start demanding everyone in the country follow its tenets, which, in the US, is uniquely a Christian problem.

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u/ForBisonItWasTuesday 8d ago

Well, if you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of an architected christofascist takeover that's been 40+ years in the making

The supreme court is mostly christian fundamentalists/white nationalists resulting in the overturning of Roe v Wade and now other civil rights cases are being targeted, southern states are trying to push legislation requiring the ten commandments to be posted in every classroom, the current president hides behind the christian god as a convenient excuse when it suits him like when he wants to violently detain anybody that isn't white, etc

At this point, to point elsewhere and go "but what about the jews/muslims/whatever in this one specific local community" makes you look insane

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u/RedditJumpedTheShart 8d ago

They help the homeless more than any other group lol.

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u/Exotic_Donkey4929 8d ago

out of sight, out of mind

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u/nicannkay 8d ago

To “prison” aka labor camps aka slavery is alive and well in Amerika

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u/GPT_2025 reddit 8d ago

In every difficult situation, you can find something positive. For example, the bad and horrible USSR was quite challenging, but after 1980, they introduced opportunities for anyone (including homeless) to join collective farming for making food for army, schools, food banks... with guaranteed personal accommodations - such as a bedroom, condo, or house - especially for married couples. They also provided minimum wages, discounted cafeterias, and buffets for workers, ensuring no one went hungry. Free daycare was available for workers, along with free public transportation from homes to work sites or fields, designed to help teenagers, homeless, unemployed, volunteers, transition smoothly from childhood ( unemployed communism ) to adulthood (full responsibilities) . Tis collective workforce in the USSR constructed most of the new dams and power plants, built new highways, and supplied at least 25% of free food for food banks, the military, and school free lunches. The collective farms economy was self-sustaining, helping to educate, inspire hope, and secure a future for millions of former homeless, ex-convicts, and teenagers. These jobs were available nationwide with the flexibility to join or leave at any time. Homelessness, unemployment was eradicated to Zero and the system contributed to marriage rates and a baby boom. Married couples on these farms were guaranteed ownership of a condo or private house, along with free childcare, food support, and discounted furniture and clothing through cooperative stores and more.

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u/BohemianRedhead 8d ago

I am highly suspicious of this pollyanna description, and of the zero unemployment claim. People who are homeless because they are so seriously mentally ill that they can’t hold down a job and/or are terrified of closed indoor spaces or loud noises aren’t going to be able to function as farm workers either.

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u/MockSacrafice 8d ago

Yup, no more freeloading!

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u/polerix 8d ago

In the old days, a hobo was more than a wanderer. He was a pilgrim of the rails, a philosopher in overalls, a singer with a bindle of songs. Boxcar Willie’s ballads painted every freight line as a story, every engineer a friend, every brakeman a partner in the great adventure of movement.

They shared a code scratched into fences and rail yards. A cross meant a kind widow with stew, a swirl warned of a sheriff, two lines marked safe camp. Recipes like mulligan stew and hobo hash passed from fire to fire. Food was scrounged and shared, not stolen. They lived on camaraderie, dignity, and song.

That world is gone. Not because the trains stopped or the hunger for freedom died, but because the street’s chemistry changed. Crack in the ’80s and fentanyl in the 2010s shattered the old code. Where once hobos carried recipes and symbols, today many carry addictions that break community.

Crack brought violence and suspicion into what had been a rough fraternity. Fentanyl is worse: a few grains can end a life in an alley before any song is sung. The language of stew pots and safe camps has no defense against powders that erase trust and time.

The hobo jungle was once a culture outside society. Today’s camps, torn apart by cheap poisons, are something else entirely. The romance is gone, replaced by a public-health crisis.

Best we can offer is "Hobo with a shotgun"

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u/Turds4Cheese 8d ago

Yeah, You heard Trump, “home grown terrorist.”

The republican strategy is to remove all homeless, LGBT, black/brown and non-rich immigrants. Box them up, and launch them somewhere else.

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u/MTVnext2005 8d ago

The cruelty is the point

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u/s0ulbrother 8d ago

I don’t know why kids keep jumping them with skateboards thougg

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u/Bogmanbob 8d ago

Not in my backyard is the American way.

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u/FaithfulSkeptic 8d ago

“No, Mr. Bum, I expect you to die!”

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u/MrLanesLament 8d ago

Yeah.

Where are they supposed to go? They aren’t.

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u/littleMAS 8d ago

I think that is Bibi's plan for Palestinians, too.

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u/Electronic-Ice-7606 8d ago

That's how Chicago does it.

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u/Annual-Method-2557 8d ago

If only we had Hoovervilles…

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u/boslifesober 8d ago

Away to jail or prison, you mean right?

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u/DJS302 8d ago

So similar with the expression of “out of sight out of mind” or “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps”? 🤔

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u/treesofthemind 8d ago

Make more affordable housing… like that will ever happen. This is a global problem

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u/danger_muffin29 8d ago

They can move, or they can die. The powers in charge really don't care if they have anywhere to go. Or if they have any means to get there. They just don't want them to be visible or in the city at all.

It's like children and the abortion issue. Once the kid is born, they don't care if you have enough food, healthcare, etc. The kid was born, their goal was accomplished.

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u/Plane_Ad473 8d ago

Nah. The homeless are exactly where they want them to be. Within your line of sight is intentional

Its to remind you to stay in line. Not make a fuss at work or socially because look what might happen to you if you do? Wouldn't want that to happen, citizen!

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u/RamblingSimian 8d ago

He originally said he'd send them to

large parcels of inexpensive land, bring in doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug rehab specialists, and create tent cities

https://shelterforce.org/2025/02/14/trump-wants-to-force-homeless-people-into-tent-cities-can-he/

I guess the term "tent city" sounds better than "concentration camp", and I wouldn't be surprised if the specialists/doctors etc. get forgotten.

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