Homeless. Why not live in a warm city?

[exmediahack]

Now reaching the obligatory news stories about the homeless and surviving the winter.

A bus ticket from anywhere it’s freezing to San Diego or Miami can’t be more than $100. That’s two days of good begging at a traffic light.

If you’re going to be homeless, why not in a warm climate? The overhead is the damn same.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

Not_Sure_If_Serious.jpg

 

[britwrit]

According to one chart I found through Google, San Diego city and county are the fourth most homelessly populated places in America. LA is the second.

So, you might argue that some people have already had this idea. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to much of a pattern here. New York and Seattle are also in the top four.

Infographic: The U.S. Cities With The Most Homeless People

 

[Moderator1]

I was walking to the train a short time ago and saw someone trying to sleep on a grate in the city. Really shook me up because I'm basically helpless to do anything about it. A couple of years ago, also during a cold snap, I was walking to Port Authority and saw a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk with no shoes. He told me his shoes had been stolen. I walked another couple of blocks to a Foot Locker, told the manager what I wanted and he gave me a decent pair of Nikes for 50 percent off. I took them back and the guy started crying. Said it was his birthday and it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him. Wasn't a line he was using because I'd already done something for him. I felt awful that I couldn't do more.

In short, I don't think it is as easy as saying, "**** this, I gotta go where it's warm."

 

[Guy_Incognito]

I was walking to the train a short time ago and saw someone trying to sleep on a grate in the city. Really shook me up because I'm basically helpless to do anything about it. A couple of years ago, also during a cold snap, I was walking to Port Authority and saw a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk with no shoes. He told me his shoes had been stolen. I walked another couple of blocks to a Foot Locker, told the manager what I wanted and he gave me a decent pair of Nikes for 50 percent off. I took them back and the guy started crying. Said it was his birthday and it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him. Wasn't a line he was using because I'd already done something for him. I felt awful that I couldn't do more.

In short, I don't think it is as easy as saying, "**** this, I gotta go where it's warm."

Did you ask him his size ahead of time or just guess?

 

[Moderator1]

No, I asked him. My guess was he was close to my size, I was going to go home and grab some of my shoes and bring them back. But he was a size smaller so I went to Foot Locker.

I talked to him for a bit, offered to go get him some food but someone had bought him some a bit earlier.

 

[ChrisLong]

It's not that they choose a warm city. They just wander around until they run out of land and are at the beach. There's nowhere else to go.

 

[cjericho]

Don't visit NYC as much as I used to, but one buddy used to say something similar to the op. We would wonder how
people survived. Many would go to a subway station, but some would sleep on the sidewalk in brutal cold temperatures.

 

[Huggy]

My cousin's husband is a minister in Orange County and he has done some work with the homeless in San Diego. I told him homelessness here in Toronto is an industry and as tough as sleeping rough would be in San Diego or Miami or anywhere warm, it is brutal here in Toronto in the winter. When I would work nights last winter I would leave the office at 1:15, 2:15 a.m. to walk to the bus terminal up the street and pass people freezing on the street and many others huddled up under a bridge and when we get cold-weather alerts like we had last week you wonder what happens to them. I would pass one older guy who would get his sleeping bag out, use his backpack for a pillow and appear to be fast asleep despite the racket of cars, buses, trucks and trains passing by. I see him sometimes during the day in the train station in line to get coffee at McDonald's.

 

[justgladtobehere]

In Boston there are outreach programs run on the coldest of nights. People go around in vans offering the homeless rides to shelters or anyplace else warm. Every time I hear a radio report on these programs, the reporter always mentions that people refuse the help. Some people don't want to go to shelters even in the most extreme circumstances. Mental health/addiction is awful.

 

[Huggy]

In Boston there are outreach programs run on the coldest of nights. People go around in vans offering the homeless rides to shelters or anyplace else warm. Every time I hear a radio report on these programs, the reporter always mentions that people refuse the help. Some people don't want to go to shelters even in the most extreme circumstances. Mental health/addiction is awful.

Same thing here in Toronto. Walking to the bus on the way home on bitterly cold nights I would often see cops talking to those bundled up on the sidewalk, not rousting them but trying to see if they can help.

 

[wicked]

There was a two-week stretch here early last year where the high didn’t get over 30 (-1C for our Canadian friends). Those nights were brutally cold and I can only imagine the hell it was for those people who chose to stay outside.

The past couple years people (tourists/the heartless) have been upset that the homeless now spend all day on the Common. They used to panhandle downtown, but now that it’s been revived not so much. How dare these people be in a spot where everyone can see them.

 

[JC]

Shelters have rules. You have to be sober and in and out by certain times.

 

[Azrael]

Glad to see Moddy did the shoe thing. I applaud him.

Having done the same a couple times, I finally found a (slightly) better solution.

We almost always carry a backpack full of protein bars and Mylar blankets and socks with us when we go out. We do toothpaste and toothbrushes, now, too. We added feminine hygiene products to the bag a couple years ago when we started seeing more women on the street.

Anyway, to that bag, I've added a couple pairs of adjustable shower sandals. They're like $5 a pair if you buy 'em in bulk, and they fit anyone. With a few pair of socks, they can tide someone over until they get some shoes at the mission house, or a city shelter. Or, depending on the shoes I'm wearing, I can give them mine and make it home in the sandals.

The space blankets and the socks are big movers in the winter, of course. As has been said, lots of these folks won't go inside no matter what.

 

[Driftwood]

Nashville has a bunch of sidewalk grates that blow warm air. I don't know what for. This time of year, you always see homeless people huddled and sleeping on them.

 

[swingline]

When I was in college, my city had a can and bottle deposit law, so there were always a lot of homeless folks digging through the trash around campus to collect those cans and bottles. The city repealed that law after a few years, and today the homeless population isn't as noticeable.

What we do have is a seemingly coordinated group of panhandlers who position themselves at intersection traffic lights. White, black, men, women, some with dogs, some with coolers in hot weather. I'd love to know how much they make per shift and who is profiting from their efforts. I have given a few times, but I'm conflicted because I don't know how needy these folks really are.

 

[Monday Morning Sportswriter]

For about 10 years I have had to pick something up in East Hartford, Conn., in late fall, and every year, a man would be panhandling at Route 5 north and I-291. After a few years I realized it was the same guy. And sure enough, every year, he was at that spot, and he was scoring well. Saw the car in front of me hand him a $20 once.

This year, he was gone.

 

[Moderator1]

Maybe he went where it was warm

 

[X-Hack]

Read the thread title and expected to see a Sam Kinison reference. Folks are slipping here.

 

[WriteThinking]

When I was in college, my city had a can and bottle deposit law, so there were always a lot of homeless folks digging through the trash around campus to collect those cans and bottles. The city repealed that law after a few years, and today the homeless population isn't as noticeable.

What we do have is a seemingly coordinated group of panhandlers who position themselves at intersection traffic lights. White, black, men, women, some with dogs, some with coolers in hot weather. I'd love to know how much they make per shift and who is profiting from their efforts. I have given a few times, but I'm conflicted because I don't know how needy these folks really are.

This is how I feel, oh, every single day, when I drive past them at, literally, all of the openings/intersections into and out of our Walmart parking lot. I never give money -- I refuse to do it when I don't know what they'll use it for -- but have given food, and fast-food gift certificates. I think what they really want is money, though.