Social Science Homeless

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FlyingBurittoBro

FlyingBurittoBro

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Mar 21, 2011
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The homeless. If you spend much time in any major city you get to know their faces a little bit. To be perfectly honest I normally look the other way. I don't like to think of myself as someone lacking compassion or empathy but I read stories about people better than myself offering them a feed or throwing a few dollars their way. Maybe I just don't know how to approach them in a way that isn't condescending. I've spent the last week or two thinking a lot about what it must be like. How do they get there? Do they have a family? Is it mental illness / drugs mostly or does the 'down on luck' homeless thing happen in Australia too? Thoughts? Stories?
 
I volunteer at a place that gives meals out every day and night to those who need it. All different stories there man. We get lots of kids who've been kicked out of home and have nowhere else to go. Lots of young boys or girls matched up with people 5 years their older. We get single parents with their kids who come in for a feed as well. Had a guy come in with his son after he'd gained custody post divorce. They came in to get dinner with us so that they could save enough money to buy new clothes and move in to a better place.

There's shitloads who are druggies. It's s**t to be around them as well, they use our place to deal a lot. Most of the time it's a fairly well dressed guy considering, but he comes in because he knows that these people are all desperate. We have an old lady in a wheelchair that people in Perth would have seen around the city/Subiaco begging, who we had to ban because of drugs. All sorts man.

So down on their luck definitely happens, but the majority I've spoken to it's been drugs.

And then there's the Aboriginal people that move down from up north as well. That's a whole shitstorm of issues and it's bloody hard to watch. Even harder when one of them passes, the benders are crazy. I try and just talk to them, I feel there's not much more I can do than that.

As for giving meals to them when I see them in the street, I do it sometimes (ie every couple of months). Can't really afford to do it all the time but if I'm not in a hurry I might have a chat with them, just generally asking how their day is. They're not all people that you need to tippy toe around.
 
watched a bit of an ep from a doco about a group of rich people ( or '' normal '' ) in Australia that volunteer to live on the street for 10 nights. Been out for a while, and what I saw it's pretty cool and raw stuff.


Will watch the series in full. About 4-5 episodes I believe.

it's called filthy rich and homeless.
 
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I knew of a guy whos mum would set up a lounge chair with some blankets on the front veranda in Camberwell and the same guy would come and sleep there for years
 
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