The homeless problem

My three responses to a note complaining about the homeless problem.  It is interesting to note that the first response got a formal complaint lodged against me with the organization and also three people secretly thanking me for posting it by another communication method:

1.

We should kill the homeless. Lets build big camps and force them to live there. We can kill them all in poison gas showers and burn the bodies in big brick ovens. We could even force them to do slave labor to clean the streets and pick up garbage first. THEN we will have a nice city to live in.

2.

Yes it was a sarcastic philosophical comment and I'm sorry to get involved. 1. According to my understanding of international law, forced deportation, or forced removal is a form of genocide. 2. It is my belief that most of the homeless are unable to help themselves and will never be able to enter the main stream economic market place. 3. My estimate is as much as 20% of the entire adult labor force of the United States (men and women aged 18 - 65) cannot support themselves in any way whatsoever under any conditions in this economy. They will never learn to find a suitable job. This is not a condemnation of those people by any means and is more of a condemnation of our economic system. I am sure that most would prefer to work if they were physically and mentally capable. 4, Presently 35% of the adult population of the United States of America is on some form of public assistance. This has increased from the 18% level it was at in 1990. 5. The present disparity of income in the United States is greater than any other nation on Earth and greater than any other time in history. Regardless of what I may think, or joke about, the entire system is unstable and the homeless people camped at the bottom of your street are just the smallest of symptoms. 6. Where do you propose we send the homeless people if we forcibly displace them? There is no where to send them, except another homeless camp at the dirty end of some other housing division. 7. There are no homeless in Russia or China. Do a search on google or the internet and post a single picture here in this forum that you find of homeless camps anything like the ones in Los Angeles. There is a clause in the Russian constitution that guarantees every single citizen a place to live. You cannot buy a home in Russia unless the seller can prove that he has a place to live. The only photos I can find from Russia are of street urchins playing in an alley and an old soldier sleeping on a storm grate in the winter. Go ahead. Post a photo of the homeless camps in Russia. I'll pay $5 to the first photo posted on this site. 8. Common decency and philosophical reserve forbid me from commenting any further.

3.

With so many dash cam videos coming out of Russia featuring questionable driving practices and architectural failures it is unlikely that the existence of homeless camps is being censored by the Russian Government. Not even our own USA Government has THAT ability now days. It is more likely that homeless camps do not exist in Russia. Go ahead do an internet search and research homelessness in Russia. Maybe you would want to read a few articles in addition to just looking for the pictures? Either way, we do know that there are presently 77,000 homeless people in Los Angeles alone. What is USA America doing about it?

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer