Fun fact: “Get off your high horse” as an expression means: Stop showing off how much better you think you are.”
The origins of of this come from the fact that horses take ALOT of drugs to get high. Before mass inter-continental transit, drugs tended to cost way more. So someone who would give drugs to a horse had lots of money, but to give the horse enough to make it high... that took some real cash. So anyone riding a hgh horse was assumed to think they were better than everyone else. Poseurs with less money would just try to get their horses drunk. Anyone who’s seen a drunk horse knows they will swear they are cool to drive, even when wasted. So usually they’d end up hitching a wagon to the horse, and it would predictably crash and the owners would fall off. Hence the saying: “fell off the wagon.” Also, this is all bull crap, don’t believe what I just wrote.
I was intrigued until you got to the part about drugs, and then I spent the rest of the post emulating the "not sure if" meme from futurama.
After googling it, I've learned you were half correct-- apparently it has to do with people who were high ranking/rich in society spending their money on horses that were generally much larger/taller than the average person's horse. "So anyone riding a high horse was assumed to think they were better than everyone else."
@guest_ That story was not nearly as long as it needs to be.
Also, are so many people so naive as to think there aren't (at least) 2 kinds of homeless: The ones trying to get their lives together off of drugs and other things that'll bar them from shelters, and the woefully addicted ones?
They're trying to keep the latter away from certain areas, where they're essentially breaking the law.
Or is it that you're trying to look like saints without actually donating any of your time or resources to help anyone?
The average homeless duration in the US is about 1 year, not counting so called “hidden homeless” like chronic couch surfers. Long term homelessness tends (within the lower 48,) to be largely those with untreated mental illness, and those who choose to be homeless. A coworkers brother was the latter. He pitied the non homeless and saw us as slaves to material things, and parts of a system that traded freedom for comfort. To each their own I suppose. Drugs and alchohol tend to be prevalent in the homeless not as a cause (although possibly a contributing factor,) but as a way to deal with boredom and to cope. What starts as recreational use becomes a habit. I believe a society should be judged off the treatment and prevalence of those who have it “worst” or are considered “at the bottom,” when determining its humanitarian merit.
Ah, America’s wonderful love affair with its homeless. ‘We don’t want to have to look at you on our city streets, but we also don’t want to pay for the mental health, substance abuse, and streets-to-sheets programs to actually help you not be homeless.’ Portland paid for one way tickets to other cities for their homeless (as long as they could prove they had a family member there) as recently as 2016. New York used to do it too 9-10 years ago. I’d love to joke about ‘they should invent a relative in Honolulu’ but, yeah, this is a real problem for any city dwellers who have to step over people to go out the front door every day.
I don't know. Like yeah there should probably be a place for the homeless but I mean that's how streets stay clean. You just cant have homeless people everywhere because that can lead to trash being everywhere. Then there's a majority of people who complain about the government not helping but they themselves can't do anything or don't want to help at all.
I just think people complain a lot and they themselves never look into why or how they can help. And it's not just the government, business have more of a say on what they want around their property.
If you do go into the places of town that don't do this, you will realise how run down they look.
It’s a double edged sword, but one side is sharper than the other. Having homeless people can lead to hazardous conditions from safety to health for all, including the homeless. However these measures spend money (keep in mind a freeway sign is easily up to $75k per sign, and even “small” projects can be tens of thousands in installation and upkeep) that could help fix the problem. These measures don’t curb or alleviate homelessness, they merely reloacate it, push them to other less visible areas while keeping all the danger and hazard. The goal isn’t safety it is to move the homeless to where people don’t have to look at them, face them. The solution to the problem is known, but it’s politically inconvenient. We live with it until we can all start thinking in a better way, living for humanity instead or the benefit of ourselves.
There's an area of Vancouver that I visited once where the streets were literally lined with homeless people (Vancouver is one of the warmer cities in Canada so it tends to get more), and almost every single one of them had needles scattered on the ground around them. One street you couldn't have gone down because there were 15 or so people exchanging drugs, with another 3 passed out at their feet.
I don't really know what my point is with this, since I have no real solution. I feel bad for the homeless. And some of them genuinely can't seem to find a recourse. Most of the cities I've lived in I've had up close encounters with homeless. But most of them, when approached, don't want help. They want money.
Someone I used to know has an entire network of people who work in shifts pretending to be homeless and panhandling for drug money.
I think the deterrents are meant to focus more on keeping things like this from setting up in common, public areas.
That's not to say that it's a *good* solution, or that all homeless people are addicts. Or that addicts don't deserve help. My experience with addicts (and I've known a few of them) has always been you can't truly help them before they're ready to be helped, or until they're legally denied any ability to properly feed their addiction
I've also had some experience with the mentally ill, and some of them can pose legitimate threats to people in close quarters.
once again, I'm not saying this is a good solution. Or even a solution at all. Or that every homeless person is an addict, trying to scam you, mentally ill, or undeserving of help. But I also understand to a degree why this is sometimes considered necessary. It's such a complicated issue, and if someone can think of a better way, and implement it, I'd really love to hear it, because the whole thing is depressing as hell
Everyone else in society: “I’m going to work hard, contribute to the common good and enjoy my life as long as I don’t infringe on others rights to do the same”
Homeless: “I’m going to lay around in a pile of my own shit and leave syringes in your child’s playground, I’m going to shake you down for money on your way to work, on a night out, on a nice dinner date with your wife; and that’s just the direct interaction, I’m also going to cost your city tens of thousands every year while contributing nothing because abuse and addiction and mental problems.”
In the US homelessness is a crime itself, but homeless aren’t regularly arrested for it, or many petty crimes for that reason. They don’t have the same things “to lose” as other members of society and gain food, shelter, medical care, and other benefit from being put in jail. It would seem more humane and more effective to use that money to provide those things without need to commit a serious crime or self harm, but I’m no politician I suppose, so what do I know?
It does. There aren’t enough, and they aren’t ideal. Shelters generally have rules. Few are cooed (a problem if one has a homeless love,) and if you have a shopping cart or other items, you generally can’t bring them so tpur hard earned possessions can be left vulnerable. Theft is also a big issue in most shelters. Then are the rules, which for its downside, homelessness comes with a certain amount of freedom. When you book into a shelter, there are hours which you can’t leave or enter if you do. There are also policies about drugs an alchohol that can alienate or exclude many, and then the fact that those with certain mental health issues won’t be allowed in if displaying symptoms. So the US has shelters, but there aren’t enough and they aren’t perfect.
I dont understand why people treat the homeless like they have the plague. We should work together to figure out why they're homeless and find a solution
What the fuck are these! I live in a major US city and the ONLY one I have seen are the skateboard ones where you can't skate on concrete. And only in some places. This is like something out of The Giver or the Hunger Games. What the actual fuck
I’ve seen the trash cans, half benches, and divided benches all over CA, NY, and in parts of CT. The stones and spikes I’ve seen mostly in CA. there are a few states I haven’t been to in awhile, or mostly to more rural areas and haven’t seen any. The empty cop cars I see everywhere, but more on freeways during road work than anywhere else.
"Everything in our cities should state 'Fuck the homeless'." Also every politician
The origins of of this come from the fact that horses take ALOT of drugs to get high. Before mass inter-continental transit, drugs tended to cost way more. So someone who would give drugs to a horse had lots of money, but to give the horse enough to make it high... that took some real cash. So anyone riding a hgh horse was assumed to think they were better than everyone else. Poseurs with less money would just try to get their horses drunk. Anyone who’s seen a drunk horse knows they will swear they are cool to drive, even when wasted. So usually they’d end up hitching a wagon to the horse, and it would predictably crash and the owners would fall off. Hence the saying: “fell off the wagon.” Also, this is all bull crap, don’t believe what I just wrote.
After googling it, I've learned you were half correct-- apparently it has to do with people who were high ranking/rich in society spending their money on horses that were generally much larger/taller than the average person's horse. "So anyone riding a high horse was assumed to think they were better than everyone else."
Also, are so many people so naive as to think there aren't (at least) 2 kinds of homeless: The ones trying to get their lives together off of drugs and other things that'll bar them from shelters, and the woefully addicted ones?
They're trying to keep the latter away from certain areas, where they're essentially breaking the law.
Or is it that you're trying to look like saints without actually donating any of your time or resources to help anyone?
I just think people complain a lot and they themselves never look into why or how they can help. And it's not just the government, business have more of a say on what they want around their property.
If you do go into the places of town that don't do this, you will realise how run down they look.
I don't really know what my point is with this, since I have no real solution. I feel bad for the homeless. And some of them genuinely can't seem to find a recourse. Most of the cities I've lived in I've had up close encounters with homeless. But most of them, when approached, don't want help. They want money.
Someone I used to know has an entire network of people who work in shifts pretending to be homeless and panhandling for drug money.
I think the deterrents are meant to focus more on keeping things like this from setting up in common, public areas.
I've also had some experience with the mentally ill, and some of them can pose legitimate threats to people in close quarters.
once again, I'm not saying this is a good solution. Or even a solution at all. Or that every homeless person is an addict, trying to scam you, mentally ill, or undeserving of help. But I also understand to a degree why this is sometimes considered necessary. It's such a complicated issue, and if someone can think of a better way, and implement it, I'd really love to hear it, because the whole thing is depressing as hell
Homeless: “I’m going to lay around in a pile of my own shit and leave syringes in your child’s playground, I’m going to shake you down for money on your way to work, on a night out, on a nice dinner date with your wife; and that’s just the direct interaction, I’m also going to cost your city tens of thousands every year while contributing nothing because abuse and addiction and mental problems.”