Quote:
Originally Posted by sperbonzo
Actually, in the US, if you have children, you are given instant access to a space in a homeless shelter, with no waiting. The only way that you can be denied access is if you are using drugs or booze. As long as you are clean and sober, you have shelter if you have kids. When you see stories of people with kids living in cars, it is because the parents chose to keep on using, and eventually CPS will step in and take the kids so that at least they have shelter.
Just FYI  . |
I never said that is not the case in US, I never speak about things I don't know, and when I do, I always make clear I THINK it might be that way. I can also be wrong on things I think I know, of course, but in general, I try to be very precise on what I say and how I say it. I just answered Jarmusch who asked "in what civilized country is is different" so maybe you should address your answer to him.
Anyway, I wasn't speaking about homeless shelters either, I'm talking about real homes or hotel rooms (they're HORRIBLE, not saying they are cool or anything. I have seen 6 members families in a hotel room with 2 beds or 8/10 people in a 2 rooms apartment).
Homeless shelters are terribly sordid and exists only in big cities here, smaller cities usually handle this type of things with churches (as in "oh, look how good I am, I'll let those poor people sleep at the door--- OUTSIDE").
But the whole point is evictions aren't common, and when there's any, it's in the news. And they never, ever, EVER are left in the street, a truck comes to pick up the evicted people's belongings so they're safe until they decide where to go and social assistants help the families. At least, that's how it works in my country. And yes, it's a system that sometimes is abused, but the truth is people is safer and owners are paid. Period.
A very different issue is "occupied homes/lands". They usually end with violence and even deaths and it's used by scrupulousness politicians as a way to cause turmoil: they usually send very poor people, mainly immigrants from Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay to take abandoned houses or lands claiming for our Constitutional guarantee of the "right to a home" and when police tries to take them out they start to battle. We have one or two of those per year and it usually ends like this: at least 1 death and government re-locating people to "cut the scandal".