• enkers@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    I know it’s a joke, but this really rubs me the wrong way, as it plays off the idea that homeless people are homeless because they’re deviants somehow, not just unlucky individuals who fell through the cracks.

    Fact is that giving homeless people a sizeable cash injection and a place to live often has very good outcomes in them being able to turn their lives around.

    Good work by the author on punching down.

    • earphone843@sh.itjust.works
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      24 hours ago

      Actually, both are true. There’s not just one type of homeless person, which is a large part of why it’s such a complex issue to address.

      There are a lot of homeless who are severely mentally ill, addicted to drugs, or both (self medication). These people are a significant portion of the homeless (~1/3 mentally ill, ~1/3 alcohol, ~1/4 drugs).

      There are also a lot of homeless people who had some bad luck and need help getting back on their feet.

      There’s no one size fits all fix here, but the idea of giving someone a stack of cash and expecting it to be used responsibly is absurd. There need to be guardrails in place.

      I’m not disparaging the people who can’t spend a stack of cash responsibly either. They need help in the form of social services, not money.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Relationships are a basic necessity for most people, and you have to start by meeting people.

    • pravebey@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      it plays off the idea that homeless people are homeless because they’re deviants somehow,

      The only problem here is your interpretation of the comic.

      Instead of looking at how it humanizes homeless people and shows that they are
      just like everyone else you decided to interpret the guy going clubbing and being
      interested in the opposite sex as the artist depicting “deviants”. WTF?

      Fact is that giving homeless people a sizeable cash injection and a place to live often has very good outcomes in them being able to turn their lives around.

      Not always - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt–Igoe

    • kadup@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Glad I’m not the only.

      Sure it’s just a joke, but it does feed into this distorted rhetoric that giving money to homeless people will just lead to the money being misused rather than survival, which is absurd.