Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:This is a huge, huge problem as any homeless advocate can tell you.
Also - most job applications require a phone number, which is usually how you find out you’d get a job. No job, no home, no money = no phone. Used to be you could just hang out near a pay phone, but that’s not an option any more.
Also - when you are homeless, you can quickly become undocumented. Your social security card, birth certificate, drivers license can easily be lost or stolen. Then what? You need those documents to get a home.
What about suits for interviews? How do you keep them clean?
There are LOTS of barriers to getting a job when you’re homeless, beyond people’s assumptions like “work ethic” and “substance abuse.” These are really complex issues.
And when I volunteered at a homeless shelter, the biggest thing that united the people there - no family support. Either they have no family or their family is in worse shape than they are.
So many excuses
Anonymous wrote:I don't get why DC is such a magnet for the homeless. I suspect red states and red counties round up a lot of their own homeless and dump them on DC as some kind of "statement" the way Abbot does with migrants. But it's stupid, because everything costs so much more in DC - real estate costs, labor costs, etc.
Perhaps a better plan would be for DC to buy land and build facilities in a much affordable community like Charlotte or Hickory NC, or Huntsville or any number of other places, and move them there to care for, and they could do it for a third of the cost of trying to care for the homeless in DC. And, it would make it a lot easier to transition them out to independent living there as well.
We've already heard that many of the homeless don't have family here in DC - and many of them aren't originally from DC. What's to keep them here?
Anonymous wrote:This is a huge, huge problem as any homeless advocate can tell you.
Also - most job applications require a phone number, which is usually how you find out you’d get a job. No job, no home, no money = no phone. Used to be you could just hang out near a pay phone, but that’s not an option any more.
Also - when you are homeless, you can quickly become undocumented. Your social security card, birth certificate, drivers license can easily be lost or stolen. Then what? You need those documents to get a home.
What about suits for interviews? How do you keep them clean?
There are LOTS of barriers to getting a job when you’re homeless, beyond people’s assumptions like “work ethic” and “substance abuse.” These are really complex issues.
And when I volunteered at a homeless shelter, the biggest thing that united the people there - no family support. Either they have no family or their family is in worse shape than they are.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I thought some counties give free cell phones to welfare recipients. At least in MD.
How do you expect homeless people to reliably charge a phone?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I thought some counties give free cell phones to welfare recipients. At least in MD.
Or they just pay for the phone with their begging proceeds. Some have nice androids and burn through the data binge watching Breaking Bad on Neflix.
how would you know this??
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:They can use an address at the shelter.
No, they can’t. They are not residents at a shelter, those are all single-night stays.
Yes they can.
“Social Service Proof of Residency Form”. A written record certifying an individual as a homeless resident of the District and authorizing the DMV to use the provider’s address or contact address as the individual’s address of record on the credential.”
https://dhs.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dhs/service_content/attachments/Proof%20of%20Residency_GUIDANCE.pdf
You people act like you’re the first ones who ever thought of this problem.
That’s if shelters agree to provide the service. Many/most don’t.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:They can use an address at the shelter.
No, they can’t. They are not residents at a shelter, those are all single-night stays.
Yes they can.
“Social Service Proof of Residency Form”. A written record certifying an individual as a homeless resident of the District and authorizing the DMV to use the provider’s address or contact address as the individual’s address of record on the credential.”
https://dhs.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dhs/service_content/attachments/Proof%20of%20Residency_GUIDANCE.pdf
You people act like you’re the first ones who ever thought of this problem.
Anonymous wrote:This is a huge, huge problem as any homeless advocate can tell you.
Also - most job applications require a phone number, which is usually how you find out you’d get a job. No job, no home, no money = no phone. Used to be you could just hang out near a pay phone, but that’s not an option any more.
Also - when you are homeless, you can quickly become undocumented. Your social security card, birth certificate, drivers license can easily be lost or stolen. Then what? You need those documents to get a home.
What about suits for interviews? How do you keep them clean?
There are LOTS of barriers to getting a job when you’re homeless, beyond people’s assumptions like “work ethic” and “substance abuse.” These are really complex issues.
And when I volunteered at a homeless shelter, the biggest thing that united the people there - no family support. Either they have no family or their family is in worse shape than they are.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:They can use an address at the shelter.
No, they can’t. They are not residents at a shelter, those are all single-night stays.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:They can use an address at the shelter.
No, they can’t. They are not residents at a shelter, those are all single-night stays.