Homeless youths out on the street wonder: 'Why is my life like this?'

The Des Moines Register ^ | 07/13/2003 | BILL REITER, Register Staff Writer

[newgeezer]

RODNEY WHITE/Protector: Matt Witt, a 19-year-old with a penchant for violence, rolls a cigarette with butts from bus kiosk ashtrays. He is always ready to come to the defense of his homeless friends. "We're a family," he says.

This girl, this woman of 20 years, had wanted better things. With a shining smile and hazel eyes filled with determination, she was not supposed to end up like this. Her child was not supposed to be born on the streets. Her life was not supposed to disintegrate in warehouses, abandoned buildings and shelter after shelter.

[jodorowsky]

I think I know the shelter you mean ;) Yes, they are very loud about their all-day dope smoking, drinking, bottle smashing, popcan hackeysack, out-of-tune guitar, shouting that horrible "Today, is gonna be the day, that I feel the way I do, about you now" song.

There are perfectly good gold mines in the Yukon that these people could be assigned to.

Earlier today I was toying with the idea of calling those selfless Good Samaritan Salvation Army workers from a payphone and trying to put in an order for some weed. "Oh, I thought you were a crackhouse!"

All in all, it's a clear lesson in how charity corrupts everyone involved.

I will never give another cent to the Salvation Army!

[nopardons]

We can't put 15 year old children in the miliatry and tdhe Dem shut down most of the mental institution decades ago.

Unfortunately, a lot of homeless kids /teens are runaways. Some come from horrible families...others come from good, stable homes.

[jodorowsky]

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

[undeniable logic]

I find this to be a very interesting conversation... Although, I fortunately have not been in this type of situation, let me share a story.

About two years ago, I was walking down the streets of Chicago at about 3:00 am. I had just finished a project (internet consulting) and was too excited to go to bed. I was walking alone and kind of wanted to talk to someone and I don't know why, but I started talking to this homeless guy. Immediately, I couldn't believe how educated he was - he read the newspapers every day. We talked for about an hour, then sat down at McDonalds where I bought him a few burgers and fries.

I asked him how this happened to him and he really broke down and told me about the whole thing from beginning to ending. He had been laid off and screwed up not looking hard enough for a job. His home was foreclosed and his wife left him and took his two kids. He showed me the pictures that he carried around in his bible.

Anyway, we ending up talking for a few hours and I offered him some help. I gave him enough money to rent a cheap hotel room, buy some decent clothes, and shave. He promised he was going to look for a job starting the next day, since he would be very presentable. I gave him my phone number.

The next day, he called and was extremely excited - he wanted to show me how cleaned up he looked and how well rested he was sleeping inside on a bed (it was winter and raining/snowing outside.) By Monday (two days later), he landed a job at a nightclub sweeping up after it closed. He gave them my phone number as his contact number and called me every day to check any messages.

Two weeks later he got a second job at a McDonalds (actually the one that I bought him his food.) He called every couple of weeks and talked - he was extremely grateful for my help.

About six months later, we met for lunch and he took out $100 and wanted to pay me back for the money I had given him to help him get started. I thanked him and told him that I would prefer that he give the money to someone like himself who would use it to start a new life.

This was a really touching experience for me. I believe without a doubt that our present circumstance and future situations are a result of our actions. Actions have consequences; but I hate to think that a stupid mistake (like this guy made) would keep a person in misery for the rest of his life.

In the future, when times are going well for me financially again (I have been laid off and am in school now) I would like to try to help others as I have this man. I really believe that this is what conservatism is about. I don't believe in gov't programs in any way, shape, or form, but I do think that we need to personally give people a helping hand, if they are willing to accept it.

[okie01]

We who merely had it tough salute those who had to fight their way upstream from the very bottom of the barrel.

Character counts. Some got it. Some don't.

You got it.

[nopardons]

There are prisons and a lot of " street people " belong in them. Workhouses and orphanages ceased to exist more than 100 years ago for the first and many decades ago for the later. Even with prisons and workhouses, street people existed in Dickens' time. Dickens', BTW , was a screaming liberal.

Workhouses and orphanages were NOT government sponsered; though, by the time Charlie wrote about them a few of the officials were. They were CHURCH sponsered and church run.And each parish ( Anglican/CofE )had one and charged the reisdents, of the parish, a tithe/tax. THis is an interesting topic, which few understand; even if they can quote from " A CHRISTMAS CAROL ".

[okie01]

"George W. Bush is a rich boy who has known and hung out with other rich boys all his life. He has no clue and never will what mainstream America is all about."

You "misunderestimate" the man. After Yale, Harvard and the ANG, GWB went back to Midland and formed his company as an independent oilman. He did what most independents do -- worked his own leases, ran his own rigs and got down in the mud, running pipe during acidizing operations.

GWB probably has more experience dealing with everyday people than any President since Truman.

[timestax]

I once gave some extra big pizza slices I had over bought, and couldn't eat, to a homeless young man on the boardwalk of Mission Beach, SD. He said thanks and wolfed them down. Then later on, I wondered if I had just given an under cover cop a meal. I hope that I didn't give a cop a free meal. I then decided to buy gift certificates from McDonalds (Jack-In-The-Box didn't sell certicates). So , I handed them out to homeless, that hang around StarBucks at Garnet and Mission Blvd. and, you guessed it...some of the homeless men didn't want them...they wanted cash, prolly for drugs, or wine. I don't know..I don't know anything! Ha!

[Cacique]

GWB probably has more experience dealing with everyday people than any President since Truman.

I have no doubt that he has probably more experience in interacting with normal people. However, it is simply not the same. The rich are different, take my word for it. In particular if they come from a family that is secure in their ordinate wealth. yes they can go and experiment in the "real" world. But they are secure in the knowledge that if things go wrong they can always go back into the cocoon that is their family.

I have been around wealthy people most of my life. They have a different culture and sociology than the rest of us. An incident comes to mind when I was accompanying a friend of mine whom I had gone to school with (married into the Dupont family) on a visit to Harlem. He was commenting to me how he was familiar with what black people and working class people go through in general because he visited often. My comment to him was (we'll call him Henry) "Henry, you're just a tourist, you haven't got a clue."

Henry you see, will never have to worry how he'll pay his bills. Where his next paycheck is coming from, or whether he will still have a job that won't be downsized or outsourced. That is a set of worries that GW has never had to contend with either.

[nopardons]

That's reverse snobism.

Many wealthy people know what it's to lose jobs and some make certain that they raise their kids to know what it's like to be " joe everage " too. How ? They make them get jobs and pay some of their own way.

[Cacique]

I don't think of it in terms of snobbery. Just reality. Yes many wealthy do raise their children responsibly in that sense. However, the reality is that they never truly are faced with the prospect of finding their backs against the wall. when a wealthy person "loses" his job, he is still wealthy. Bankruptcy is another matter, that is where you really find the character of a man. However, he still has better contacts than most of us and can recoup as a result of that faster than most of us would. It is sometimes who you know, as much as it is what you know.

[nopardons]

Who one knows is part of almost EVERYONE's life. It isn't just the upper class and upper middle class who " network " and know people.

Money helps, but it doesn't totally remove one from life. In the same vein, poverty doesn't have to keep anyone " down ".

[dsutah]

I don't know about the screaming liberal part; maybe he was. However, I do know he could've been in this situation himself, but was very lucky. His dad went to debtors' prison, and his mother went to live with him. He stayed out and got a job when he was a very young child. He had to work to help his parents.

But he was lucky in the sense that he had an uncle who worked in a blacking factory, where they made stuff to put on shoes, (I think that's what it was). His uncle looked out for him, and kept him from dangerous and unsavory situations. Soon his folks got out.

He grew up and of course, became an author. But the youthful experience of his family living in bitter conditions, and him having to work when he shouldn't have had to, taught him about people around him. Many of his characters were drawn from people he worked and lived among. Many of them weren't very pretty! But he put them in his stories too!

[headsonpikes]

"Let them answer..."

Yeah, right.

The welfare state grabs parents and children in its obscene embrace from an early age in America.

The schools are as important as the Social Welfare agencies themselves in reducing the population to so much 'human resources' - meat.

Their unfortunate captives are brainwashed into believing that the State is like a caring mother and father. I'll bet you're real pleased with all this social progress.

[biblewonk]

This and a thousand articles like it around the country are right on queue to help set the mood against conservatives as election time gets closer. Next we will have a few gay bashing articles and some right corporate heads screwing their people.

[biblewonk]

I hate to sound pessemistic(so) but the guy you found was very special. Most people would have just drank the money you gave them. How wonderful for that man though! My dad had a job while on leave of absence helping people get back on their feet. He did this for about 2 years then went back to his blue collar job.

It drove him nuts to see so many people squander opportunity after opportunity. Very very few people took what was offered and ran but that very few that did were sure the high spot of the job. One guy burst into my dads office almost tearful as he showed dad is first paycheck.

Most people had to be called to get them out of bed and get them to go to work which they did poorly. Some opted to go back to jail rather than take the jobs that Dad got for them.

[Xenalyte]

Mensa will accept many standardized tests, including the SAT. Your score must be in the 98th percentile of those who took the test at the same time you did, which makes for a rather sliding scale.

They'll also accept any number of intelligence tests, which is how my parents got me in when I was eight or nine.

[Stick a Fork in Me - I am Done]

Bump

[timestax]

ping

[Bonaparte]

"GWB probably has more experience dealing with everyday people than any President since Truman."

Ronald Reagan spent years criss-crossing the country, meeting and talking with GE employees. Like them, he was a son of the heartland. That's why he understood the average Joe as well as any president ever has.