I don't have the answers
I have been doing a personal investigation of the homeless for a year. When I started I had a dream that I could make a difference.
However, making a difference in the world of the homeless is not as easy as I naively thought.
I started by dressing like a homeless person and begging on street corners. I quickly learned I could make I made a few bucks but begging for money is not easy (at least in my case) and it is dangerous. I didn’t last long and really didn’t learn anything about the homeless or the homeless problem.
I decided that interviewing the homeless was a better avenue to solving their and society’s problems. I have no idea why I thought the interview idea was a good one. I guess it is simply that I am not only naïve, I am stupid.
I have attempted to interview homeless people for a year with few results. I have found that as long as the questions are about solving the problems of their world, their ideas flow like a flash flood. Most of them have some kind of solution and most of the solutions are based on additional help of some sort. However, if the questions were personal (name, age, where do you come from or the reason you are homeless) they immediately became suspicious and clammed up.
Most told me they would work if jobs were available and I truly think they were telling me the truth. However, I have personally hired a few at my company and found that the few I hired didn’t really know how to work, didn't care how good their work was, expected salaries or wages way higher than I would pay my own employees or they were scam artists
The bottom line is that the few times I have tried to help have, in one way or another, ended up in small disappointments for me.
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next - who and what really helps....if anything?...
