[Whitecrab]

If I may be politically incorrect for a moment...


Isn't this the perfect thing to do, if you're down on your luck or living on the streets or something? I've read a webpage or two, and it sounds like it would be the perfect solution if you could scrape the busfair to go and then you were accepted. You join the community, and then you get a job, food, lodging, healthcare, communal facilities, you can build job skills and contacts, etc. etc. Seems a lot better than sleeping on the street to me. Why couldn't you try it?

[Jack]

Could it be that the homeless are, in many instances, so dysfunctional that no sane ecovillage or community would accept them?

[Guest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Whitecrab', ' ')you get a job,

[pilferage]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Anonymous', 'J')ob implys work. Many of "the poor" have a sloth issue.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'C')ould it be that the homeless are, in many instances, so dysfunctional that no sane ecovillage or community would accept them?

[PenultimateManStanding]

Is a snake eater anything like a bone smoker?

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

Homeless people tend to have a higher incidence of mental health issues. They also have personal hygiene issues. Face it, if you were in a communal living arrangement would you take in a token homeless person or two?

why would you? do they have anything to contribute? the perception would more likely be that they would steal everything and run off. There are a couple of places where such an arrangment has been started, it has been run very successfully too, but what yuppy would do that?

[Chocky]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'w')hy would you? do they have anything to contribute?

[Liamj]

Me thinks Whitecrab has a very sketchy idea of what an ecovillage is, and hasn't bothered to find out. Have you ever visited one or lived in one, or an Intentional Community (similar but not at all the same)?

Buying into an existing ecovillage is not cheap, and starting one is neither cheap nor fast: if you don't have at least a 5 figure budget and >3years up your sleeve, you're not going to make it.

Fitting out/building a home that reduces your impact (to meet ecovillage standards) is also rarely free & never simple. Given land costs, employment is also often an issue (cos ecovil. pushed out of cities).

Then theres getting along with dozen/s of ppl (yr fellow ecovillage inhabs) who prob hold strong views on xyz and are used to advocating them. You might be right, but if you can't articulate that clearly & nicely, you'll 'lose'.

Given already mentioned coincidence of mental health probs & poverty ('Care in the Community' they called it in the UK, when govt evicted 1000s of institutionalised ppl onto the streets), & as spectacularly demonstrated with war veterans in the USA (large # of whom are fuc*ed up & homeless), do you think those ppl could handle negotiating their lives with strangers? No, but obviously not all poor have mental health probs.

Does Whitecrab think ecovillages descend from heaven or something? No-o-o-o, they are created with much blood sweat & tears, usually over the objections of property-value-fearing locals, land developers and churches (who fear the gollums their imaginations create). Most don't make it.

BUT, for those that do make it, the rewards of such a style of living will blow you away. I happened upon intentional community life, and will never EVER go back to the impoverished social & moral life of the nuclear family in the burbs.

Oh, and incidentally, its middle class i-deserve-it-all ppl who are much more trouble than any genuine homeless folk (including the illiterate refugee from Iran we hid for 6 months). Wish I could find HIM again, he'd be perfect for our lifeboat.

[JamieinScotland]

Dysfunctional, sloth, mental health issues, personal hygiene issues, thieves, can't function & no skills.........All used to described the homeless. You should be ashamed of yourselves!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4162683.stm

[Guest]

The homeless are there for a variety of reasons so generalising probably misses the point that some may have the potential for rehabilitating. Intentional communities, on the other hand, are few and far between (in New Zealand anyway).

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', ' ') By the way, Jack, what's up with the Snake Eater and what's so wise about losing your integrity? Care to cast a few pearls to the swine?

[HomeSpring]

Just think of the homeless already being conservationist.

Their consumption of energy is very low, even by third world standards. They do not consume much food, and some of it is would have just gone to landfills anyway. They don't spend a bunch of money on clothes or housing or heating or cooling. They add fertilizer to parks.

What more do you want? I think that you just want to dump them out of town, out of sight.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JamieinScotland', 'D')ysfunctional, sloth, mental health issues, personal hygiene issues, thieves, can't function & no skills.........All used to described the homeless. You should be ashamed of yourselves!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4162683.stm

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

Why should I be ashamed of myself? talk about blowing things out of proportion. your article was from washington dc. I live elesewhere. the problems that make them homeless there aren't guaranteed to be the same here. wake up (smacks jamie with large silver looking fish)

we have a lot of services here but still have "shanty towns". which are basically squatters that set up tarp communities. I know because I volunteer with them. its often catagorized as a mental health issue because the DSMV IV has so grossly expanded (our diagnostic manual).

but social skills are probably the biggest factor. after you've been out of the street long enough the paranoia et al. that sets in can certainly be classed as a mental health issue. becuase they have no benchmark for normal behaviour its like becoming institutionalized without the institution.

I know what I am talking about, with the debt ratio faced by the masses most everyone is maybe three months from being homeless because of their debt load. welcome to the next generation.

[Liamj]

Whitecrabs question has a germ of truth in it really, in that many of the poor already live in ecovillages - built using recycled, locally plentiful materials, with more food grown locally (cos can't afford other), more multi-enterprise/small/mixed businesses.. (sorry, i don't buy this "the poor are lazy" generalising).

And thats where we all are headed, when our energy subsidy wanes.

Maybe reframe thread as a question, How can the current or soon-to-be poor build ecovillages?

[Phil]

Austin's most beloved homeless person: Leslie Cochran




More Pics...


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ecoming one of Austin's most controversial and visible landmarks has allowed Leslie to manage life on the streets despite not having a steady paycheck. In her four years in Austin, she said she has befriended many local businessmen, politicians and celebrities, including Lance Armstrong and Mayor Kirk Watson.

"Kirk knows I'm a respectable member of the community," she said, adjusting the lapels of her rain-soaked leopard-print jacket. "I was in the Lance Armstrong parade and Watson stopped his car to salute me."

In her zebra-stripped hat, orange skirt and unlikely goatee, many people believe Leslie is putting on a show. Leslie, however, takes her politics seriously. After her failed mayoral bid against Watson last year in which she garnered nearly 8 percent of the vote, she has gathered considerable media attention even internationally.

"When I went to vote [in the presidential election], I went in right behind George W. Bush," she says with pride. "He had all the cameras trained on him, but when he left, they all focused on me. Kuwaiti TV gave me an interview and dubbed my voice into Arabic."

[Jack]

The article and pictures certainly add credence to my suggestion that the homeless were dysfunctional.

If anything, I was way too kind.

[Whitecrab]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Liamj', 'M')e thinks Whitecrab has a very sketchy idea of what an ecovillage is, and hasn't bothered to find out. Have you ever visited one or lived in one, or an Intentional Community (similar but not at all the same)?

Buying into an existing ecovillage is not cheap, and starting one is neither cheap nor fast: if you don't have at least a 5 figure budget and >3years up your sleeve, you're not going to make it.

[frankthetank]

744,000 Homeless people in this country...
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Calif., N.Y. lead nation California was the state with most homeless people in 2005, about 170,000, followed by New York, Florida, Texas and Georgia, according to the report. Nevada had the highest share of its population homeless, about 0.68 percent. It was followed by Rhode Island, Colorado, California and Hawaii.

“The driver in homelessness is the affordable housing crisis,” Roman said. “If we don’t do something to address the crisis in affordable housing we are not going to solve homelessness.” She said many of the chronically homeless have mental health and substance abuse problems. Others, she said, simply cannot afford housing.