As a rule, homeless people fall into three or four broad categories. The three most common, “vagrants, transients, and addicts” are pejorative terms based on the notion that “these people” have brought their troubles on themselves. A fourth category suggests homeless people are “victims” of cruel society that has abandoned its most vulnerable members. All these ways of looking at homelessness contain grains of truth, but none really does much […]
Modesto Homelessness
Homeless Facing Winter Crisis
Most of us have welcomed our rainy December and recent temperatures below freezing. The rain means a chance to begin replenishing lakes and reservoirs and the cold weather means snow in the mountains, a harbinger of much-needed spring runoff. But for the homeless, the wet and cold are nothing less than life-threatening. Last week’s heavy downpour caused the creek to rise in Beard Brook Park, soaking many homeless people’s belongings […]
Faces of the Homeless: Matt
Several weeks ago, when Matt Payne showed up at Beard Brook Park with a black eye and a face full of cuts and bruises, word got around that he’d been beaten by the police. Even though few knew why, everyone knew he’d been in jail and only recently gotten out. Matt had been known to use methamphetamine, and most people probably assumed he’d been busted for something associated with drugs. […]
Homelessness—the Numbers Game
Take a country—any country—and destroy its manufacturing base by sending jobs overseas. Make sure no alternative job base develops. In the same country, see that wages, including the minimum wage, remain static for almost forty years; further reduce jobs through automation, computerized information systems, outsourcing, and downsizing. Simultaneous to job and wage reduction, in that same nation raise housing costs. Raise the costs of education exponentially. Make sure energy costs, […]