Number of Homeless in America Has Grown

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By SHARON COHEN, AP National Writer

The family sleeps in a single room, its walls bare and windowless, its cracked concrete floor crowded with plastic storage bins and three mattresses: one for dad, one for mom and daughter, one for the three young sons. Fluorescent lights will flicker on at 6 a.m., to start their new day. This room in an old red-brick factory-turned-shelter in Chicago is home for the Torres family.

They consider themselves lucky to be here. They have a warm place to stay. They have three meals a day. And they have each other. The family is among an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people who, on any given night in America, lack a real home.

Homelessness exploded as a politically potent issue during the Reagan era of the 1980s, and according to some estimates, the number of those without a permanent place to live has doubled in the last 20 years. But some experts say more people now fall into that category only because billions of dollars have been spent to build shelters.

Americans are troubled by this issue: An Associated Press poll taken Feb. 11-13 found 53 percent consider homelessness a very serious problem, while 36 percent say it's somewhat serious. Some 56 percent see the long-term homeless as victims of circumstances beyond their control, according to the survey. It was conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs among 1,001 adults and had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Who are the homeless? Where do they live? How did they come to this?

For a snapshot, AP reporters and photographers spent 24 hours earlier this month meeting with people who live on the streets and in shelters, following them to their jobs, watching them in court and talking with those who try to help them.

Here are their stories:

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AFTER MIDNIGHT: PORTLAND, MAINE.

Scotty Partridge is restless and pacing outside a blue tent pitched in the muddy soil among the barren spruce trees on the outskirts of Portland.

"Hobo Jungle" has been his home for nearly a year. The months have taken their toll: Partridge's clothes are dirty and frayed. The skin of his windburned cheeks hangs loosely, like someone who has lost weight too quickly.

On this 35-degree night, most of Portland's homeless are two miles away in the Oxford Street Shelter, sleeping on rows of mats four inches apart.

But Partridge prefers a tent he has furnished with plywood, a radio, a battery-operated television and a discarded propane heater. He has a cell phone, too ÔÇö paid for by panhandling and collecting aluminum cans.

Partridge, 36, swigs a can of Milwaukee's Best and reminisces about the days when he had a good job at a printing company in Chicago, a nice apartment, a woman he was going to marry.

But when the relationship soured in the early 1990s, he returned home to Maine and moved in with a friend who was using heroin. Partridge soon became hooked, too.

On methadone for five years, Partridge survives day to day.

"I can't get up and go to work out of a tent," he says. "I need a stable environment to get up and shave, shower, and clean, feel normal and go. When you're in a tent, every day is so hard. ... Your priorities are so whacked out. ... You think about, OK, how am I going to eat today and how are my boots going to unthaw because they're frozen solid? ...

"I go and crawl into my tent and then it's another day," he says. "... Being homeless is a full-time job."

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ALMOST DAWN: NEW YORK CITY.

John Mitchell rises for work with a siren blaring inside a homeless shelter in Harlem ÔÇö a signal for the nearly 200 residents to line up for twice-a-week drug tests.

A 47-year-old former crack addict, Mitchell says he was in and out of prison and homeless for more than 20 years, robbing people for drug money and digging through trash cans for food.

"I was that type of guy that, guess what, you didn't want to see on the streets," Mitchell says. "I came to the conclusion this time around I learned what that word surrender means."

Seven months ago, the father of two teens became sober and entered the city's "Ready Willing & Able" program that provides shelter (10 men to a room), hot meals and a job cleaning the streets that pays up to $7 an hour.

Mitchell's infectious laugh and ready quips make him the unofficial leader of the crew working the West Side this morning. He sweeps the streets and dumps garbage cans, the steady rain dripping off his nose.

His mind is on the future ÔÇö he's studying at night to be a nurse's aide.

"I gotta keep saying, this is not going to last forever, there's a bigger picture," he says. "It's like riding a bike ... right now I'm using training wheels. Before I know it, I'll be popping a wheelie."

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8:30 A.M.: CHICAGO.

A 10-degree wind chill whips through the North Side streets of Chicago as 6-year-old Angelina Torres, in her pink wool hat, and her twin, Angel, in his Spiderman gloves, make their way to kindergarten.

Their mom, Eileen Rivera, leads the way on the seven-block walk. Her two older sons, Omar, 9, and JJ, 10, have already left for another school ÔÇö a bus picked them up at 8 a.m. at the Sylvia Center, the shelter where the family has lived for eight months.

Her arms folded against the cold, Rivera walks briskly, noting her twins have stayed in shelters about half their lives. "They just blend right in." She pauses, then adds: "It's sad."

Her husband, Jesus Torres, recently found work operating a forklift, earning $7 an hour. The husky, outgoing father has been a handyman, pizza delivery man, ice cream cart driver, cashier and drug store clerk ÔÇö sometimes working in exchange for welfare checks.

The Torreses are on waiting lists for public and subsidized housing.

Rivera tells her children this is just a steppingstone. "Guys," she says, "we have to do this just a little longer. We have to go through this to get to the shining star."

Rivera knows exactly what that will be: "Your own toilet. Your own tissues. Your own bath. Your own window. Things that are yours. Just yours."

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9 A.M.: MIAMI.

Retha Ann Cain shuffles her shackled feet into a sixth-floor Miami courtroom.

The 19-year-old was homeless before she was jailed for prostitution. And when her latest 180-day sentence is up in March, she will be again.

Cain has been on and off the streets, in and out of foster care since she was 14. She says she was molested as a child by two male relatives. She ran away from Akron, Ohio, at 17 with a boyfriend and moved to sunny Miami.

The two live in a tent. Her world-weary face belies her youth ÔÇö except when she allows herself a smile.

Cain was already serving time for prostitution when she appeared before Circuit Judge Mary Jo Francis to face two counts of obstructing traffic to pick up tricks. She has agreed to plead guilty in exchange for credit for time served.

Francis orders Cain to take part in an AIDS (news - web sites) education course ÔÇö Cain says she is HIV (news - web sites)-negative ÔÇö and tells her she'd be eligible for a county residential treatment program that includes housing and job training.

Cain isn't interested. She enrolled in the program once and backed out.

The judge offers her some free bus tokens.

"Thank you, thank you," Cain says.

"OK, Miss Cain," the judge replies with a smile. "Good luck."

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LUNCH TIME: CINCINNATI.

Brent Chasteen slings a backpack over his shoulder and heads out on the streets.

An outreach worker, the 42-year-old Chasteen was hired by a business group called Downtown Cincinnati Inc. after the city enacted panhandling laws that require licenses for anyone who verbally begs.

Chasteen, dressed in cargo pants and hooded sweatshirt, works his way through downtown, handing out discount food cards to the needy, offering help to a woman bundled up and sitting in Fountain Square amid tote bags stuffed with clothes.

He later heads west to a desolate place near the railroad tracks where a shopping cart is filled with cans and bottles and covered with ragged green carpet.

"Hey, Wolf!" Chasteen calls into the winter air.

A purple sleeping bag tucked in a cardboard box moves. A man with a dark beard emerges.

Wolf has been homeless for 10 years.

"Trying to do what other people do ÔÇö it's a losing battle," he says, sipping a can of beer. "I sit and look at everybody out there and I go, 'Nah, I'm OK where I'm at.' "

Chasteen makes no judgments.

"I know that we may seem to be in separate worlds on the surface," he says, "but many of them share the same kinds of problems that affect me and everybody else."

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3 P.M.: WEST VIRGINIA.

A light snow falls in the mining town of Monongah, W.Va., as nurse's aide Harleigh Marsh does a final check on his patients at St. Barbara's Memorial Nursing Home. Finding a plastic baby doll atop a medical cart, he returns it to the waiting arms of a patient named Dora.

He leaves and by 3:15 p.m. arrives at Scott Place, a hillside shelter for the homeless in nearby Fairmont.

Marsh, a 48-year-old former sailor, is one of nearly 250,000 veterans who are homeless on any given night in America.

He lives in a dimly lit 14-by-14 room. A Zane Grey western and toiletries sit on his dresser top. He lost most of his family photos in his travels.

After leaving the military in 1979, Marsh tried college, but wanderlust returned. He worked as a drywall hanger and painter, renting rooms by the week, living from a suitcase.

In Milwaukee, he met a woman and fell in love. They had a son. Marsh was heartbroken when she found someone else ÔÇö and almost overnight, he was homeless.

He ended up in Scott Place last year, struggling with depression. "But with the psychological help of the VA ... and a lot of time to think, I just worked it out," he says.

Marsh loves his job but after $300 monthly child support payments, he's left with just $140 a week ÔÇö not even enough to travel to Milwaukee to see his 13-year-old boy, William Ray.

They talk, but haven't seen each other since August 2003. "It tears both of us apart," he says.

This fall, Marsh plans to apply to nursing programs at two local universities. If accepted, he'll work full time.

For now, he has a room, a pine bed, a comforter and a sense of peace.

"I have a place to go in the morning."

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MID-AFTERNOON: CHICAGO.

With the school day over, Eileen Rivera's four kids are home; the boys watch cartoons, Angela plays with Barbie dolls.

Rivera, 38, slips off her long-haired dark wig ÔÇö a stress-related illness has left her bald ÔÇö and sits on a bed in the vault-like room.

"Sometimes," she says, "I feel like saying to someone, 'Give my kids a home. Just a taste of it. For a bit.' "

After the apartment building they lived in burned down in 1998, they lost their home; Rivera's husband, who was a handyman there, also lost his job. They moved to his mother's home in Puerto Rico but eventually returned to Chicago.

Now, Rivera knows the written rules to shelter life ÔÇö and the unwritten ones.

"My kids already know we've got to make friends ÔÇö we can't make enemies," she says.

Though they have little space, the Torreses proudly save every 'student of the month' certificate, every blue ribbon their kids win.

Jesus Torres, 43, also keeps a letter he wrote to social service officials. "I want permanent and stable housing for me and my family," it says. "I want to ... take responsibility as the head of the household. I want to be a productive member of society."

Torres is saving money ÔÇö the shelter requires residents to set aside 75 percent of their earnings. He pays $43 monthly to store his family's belongings until they find a home.

He's an optimist. His wife tries to be.

"Sometimes I feel like it's not going to come and I'm just fooling myself," she says. "My kids will see me sad and say, 'You said we were going to get a home.' ... They make me feel like there is hope."

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SUNDOWN: HOLLYWOOD.

Nicole Hudson has a roof over her head ÔÇö for now.

Sitting in Covenant House, a shelter for homeless and runaway teens, she ticks off the places she has lived in her 20 years: eight foster homes, two group homes, two shelters, one transitional apartment. She's also stayed with her mother three times and her grandparents twice.

This is Hudson's fourth stint at Covenant House ÔÇö she has been kicked out three times for breaking the rules.

She's been on the streets three times in the past year, living on-and-off with 25 other teens in a narrow alley off Hollywood Boulevard.

"It's just horrible," she says in a husky voice with a hint of a Southern drawl. "We don't even like to walk past older people on the street and see them still sleeping all wrapped up in stinky blankets, dirty mattresses, their hair not combed."

"What happened to the blue skies, you know, and the sun-shining days when you were little? It's like the world just crashes when you get older and your mind comes to reality."

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LATE EVENING: LAS VEGAS.

A few blocks from downtown Las Vegas' casinos, Clarence Woods is on his way to buy a pack of cigarettes.

A week ago, he lived on the streets. But work as a day laborer has allowed him to move into a $370-a-month hotel. He doesn't know how long his luck will hold.

The 53-year-old Woods is a father of five but says he's too embarrassed to tell his children where he's living. He says he ended up homeless because he was irresponsible.

"It's like hell," he says, his cranberry stocking hat pulled snug over his ears in the desert chill. Woods says there aren't places to help homeless people like him.

He once did well in Las Vegas and owned his own upholstery shop, he says. But he went bankrupt and ended up without a home.

He calls himself a recreational drug user, drinker and gambler.

"It's a real trap," he says, the neon signs flashing behind him, "but it's what Las Vegas is all about."

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9 P.M.: SEATTLE (MIDNIGHT EST).

The lights are about to go out on another day at Seattle University where about 100 people live in a homeless camp on asphalt tennis courts.

"Tent City" is both a haven and a political statement ÔÇö the homeless shouldn't be hidden. Volunteers cook meals and students and faculty organize legal and health clinics for residents.

Among them are Russell Mace and Angela Cope. He says he once made a handsome living running his own catering and house-painting business in Texas, where he fell in love with Cope. But she returned to Seattle to try to reconcile with her two kids and their father.

Mace, 45, says he turned to the bottle for a time. Then he and Cope, 49, reunited. They lived in cheap hotels until their money ran out. Now a tent is home.

In recent months, Mace has lobbied city council members and state lawmakers on homeless issues. "I have a sense of pride, a sense of dignity, a sense of community here ÔÇö and a sense of purpose," he says.

But he hopes his homeless days are numbered. He's trying to resurrect a Web site he had for handmade eye patches; he wears a silver-plated patch over his left eye, which he lost in a hunting accident years ago.

After the camp goes dark, Cope shaves her partner, next to the only bulb still aglow at the front desk.

"We gonna get any coffee or are we going to bed?" Mace asks.

"Go to bed," she replies.

They walk into the darkness, his arm around her back.

On the other coast of America, midnight has just passed and another day for the homeless has just begun.

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[Guest]

And do I care?

Nope, not one itsy bitsy bit....

I have come so close to becoming homeless that it is insane, but it has NEVER happened. WHY?

Because I pulled my butt up and out, and went and made money somehow to keep myself and my family going.

If I can do it, then anybody can do it, and if they have a drug problem, how is that my fault, and why should it concern me? That was a BAD choice that they made, I am NOT responsible for it, and I refuse to feel guilty about the fact that they live in the street.

[Cc]

Spoken as a true Jaguarian.

Well,maybe some people are not as quite as astute or hard working as yourself.Maybe they need some extra help.

Your philosophy of 'If I can do it anyone can' really doesn't apply to everyone.

If we could somehow deal everyone the exact same hand of cards when they were born,then it would be far easier to place blame later in life.

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cc:

Spoken as a true Jaguarian.

Well,maybe some people are not as quite as astute or hard working as yourself.Maybe they need some extra help.

Your philosophy of 'If I can do it anyone can' really doesn't apply to everyone.

If we could somehow deal everyone the exact same hand of cards when they were born,then it would be far easier to place blame later in life.

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Spoken as a true socialist....

People that have made bad choices, hey, I feel bad for them, but, I NOR my government, are responsible for them.

That is what family and local municipalities are for.

The federal government should have NOTHING to so with it, PERIOD.....

If a local government, or a county government, or even the state government feel that they should somehow deal with a homeless problem, that is their right under the 10th amendment, but the federal government has NO RIGHT to interfere, nor do ANYTHING about a "homeless" problem.

Again, it is NOT my responsibility to take care of someone who has made bad choices, UNLESS they are part of my family or a friend...PERIOD....

The federal government has NO right to reach into my wallet at the barrel of a gun and pull money out to take care of someone that I couldn't care less about.

[Cc]

Well...I guess I am.

If everyone's wealth was 'strictly' a result of their hard work and nothing else,and if everyone had an even playing field to begin with,I would agree with you a hundred and twenty percent.

But that is not the case,and it will never be.

And we havent factored in things like natural disasters and accidents.

Why should the Federal Government be involved?

Simple:because they have the power and resources to make a difference.

And I guess that is part of the price in being a citizen.

[Soback]

Federal government doesn't have the resources. I do. And when you talk about the government helping someone, you are also talking about the government taking money away from me. Money that I've worked for, earned and have every natural right to keep. Things just don't appear out of thin air.

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cc:

Well...I guess I am.

If everyone's wealth was 'strictly' a result of their hard work and nothing else,and if everyone had an even playing field to begin with,I would agree with you a hundred and twenty percent.

But that is not the case,and it will never be.

And we havent factored in things like natural disasters and accidents.

Why should the Federal Government be involved?

Simple:because they have the power and resources to make a difference.

And I guess that is part of the price in being a citizen.

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THe federal government has NO resources of it's own, it has MY money, it does not create anything.

THe price you pay to be a citizen is to learn the constitution and what it says, which you obviously don't.

It is YOUR responsibility as a citizen to understand that document, and the limits that it puts on the Federal Government.

Just because the Federal government says it can do thing, does NOT mean that it actually can, or SHOULD do a thing.

Time for you to do some studying CC....

[Kevin Trotter]

Do we have to rehash this one again? Nothing anyone says will convince heartless self scentered people that not everyone wins the crapshoot of birth that affords them the advantages that have NOTHING to do with how hard you work or discliplined you are. There argument is everyman for himself and that is a view I can never agree with. I have dedicated my life to helping people who cant help themselves.. They just need a hand up, not the handout akk these conservossay it is.

They have no problem spending billions to do in Iraq what they NEVER want done in Iowa. They view themselves as superior to the downtrodden and sleep wel at night convincing themselves that we all play on a level playing field and they are special cause they "work hard" NEWSFLASH..there are folks in this country who work hard at two jobs and still cant make it, while corporate *******s run companies in the ground and pad thier fall with the cushions of millions.

Dont waste your time Cc, they will never change.

Be prepared for a long post on "Constitutionalism" and quotes from very smart sounding Right wing writers without an ounce of heart.There will also be some inferences that if you disagree with them your a communist or stupid or both, and the country is going to hell in a handbasket,,you know chicken little stuff. Ignore it and do what you can to help someone who needs it.

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by Race Bannon IV:

Do we have to rehash this one again? Nothing anyone says will convince heartless self scentered people that not everyone wins the crapshoot of birth that affords them the advantages that have NOTHING to do with how hard you work or discliplined you are. There argument is everyman for himself and that is a view I can never agree with. I have dedicated my life to helping people who cant help themselves.. They just need a hand up, not the handout akk these conservossay it is.

They have no problem spending billions to do in Iraq what they NEVER want done in Iowa. They view themselves as superior to the downtrodden and sleep wel at night convincing themselves that we all play on a level playing field and they are special cause they "work hard" NEWSFLASH..there are folks in this country who work hard at two jobs and still cant make it, while corporate *******s run companies in the ground and pad thier fall with the cushions of millions.

Dont waste your time Cc, they will never change.

Be prepared for a long post on "Constitutionalism" and quotes from very smart sounding Right wing writers without an ounce of heart.There will also be some inferences that if you disagree with them your a communist or stupid or both, and the country is going to hell in a handbasket,,you know chicken little stuff. Ignore it and do what you can to help someone who needs it.

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Race, I think what you do is great, I have no problems helping the downtrodden, but NOT at the point of a gun.

Private organizations are wonderful things, and that is what I believe they are for. Government CANNOT and does NOT help the downtrodden, they make it worse.

There is only one thing the government is good at, and that is the military, everything else is crap.

Healthcare costs have continued to go up, why? Because the government got involved. THe health care system in this country was fine, but then the government got involved and went to hell in a handbasket.

Welfare? Don't even get me started on that, there are more black illegitamate children now, then there were before welfare, it has destroyed the black family unit. The very people that it was "supposed" to "help" destroyed them instead.

The school system? Hah, give me a break.....

I barely made 20K last year, that's below poverty level, but I have been able to feed my kids well, have a nice roof over their head, have highspeed internet, homeschool etc. Why is it that I can survive on 20K a year with 3 kids, yet it is considered poverty? hmmm? I wonder why that is.

I am NOT rich, not by a longshot, but I work my ass off to bring in what I have, and still am able to afford extras, like high speed internet, my games, movies and pizza every friday night etc.

20K Race, that's it, that is ALL I made last year, yet I do just fine WITHOUT the government.

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by Race Bannon IV:

Do we have to rehash this one again? Nothing anyone says will convince heartless self scentered people that not everyone wins the crapshoot of birth that affords them the advantages that have NOTHING to do with how hard you work or discliplined you are. There argument is everyman for himself and that is a view I can never agree with. I have dedicated my life to helping people who cant help themselves.. They just need a hand up, not the handout akk these conservossay it is.

They have no problem spending billions to do in Iraq what they NEVER want done in Iowa. They view themselves as superior to the downtrodden and sleep wel at night convincing themselves that we all play on a level playing field and they are special cause they "work hard" NEWSFLASH..there are folks in this country who work hard at two jobs and still cant make it, while corporate *******s run companies in the ground and pad thier fall with the cushions of millions.

Dont waste your time Cc, they will never change.

Be prepared for a long post on "Constitutionalism" and quotes from very smart sounding Right wing writers without an ounce of heart.There will also be some inferences that if you disagree with them your a communist or stupid or both, and the country is going to hell in a handbasket,,you know chicken little stuff. Ignore it and do what you can to help someone who needs it.

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Race, I think what you do is great, I have no problems helping the downtrodden, but NOT at the point of a gun.

Private organizations are wonderful things, and that is what I believe they are for. Government CANNOT and does NOT help the downtrodden, they make it worse.

There is only one thing the government is good at, and that is the military, everything else is crap.

Healthcare costs have continued to go up, why? Because the government got involved. THe health care system in this country was fine, but then the government got involved and went to hell in a handbasket.

Welfare? Don't even get me started on that, there are more black illegitamate children now, then there were before welfare, it has destroyed the black family unit. The very people that it was "supposed" to "help" destroyed them instead.

The school system? Hah, give me a break.....

I barely made 20K last year, that's below poverty level, but I have been able to feed my kids well, have a nice roof over their head, have highspeed internet, homeschool etc. Why is it that I can survive on 20K a year with 3 kids, yet it is considered poverty? hmmm? I wonder why that is.

I am NOT rich, not by a longshot, but I work my ass off to bring in what I have, and still am able to afford extras, like high speed internet, my games, movies and pizza every friday night etc.

20K Race, that's it, that is ALL I made last year, yet I do just fine WITHOUT the government.

[Guest DocHoliday]

20K is considered poverty level? Well, I don't know what kind of prices you have there, but in my book that isn't poverty level at all, especially if your wife earns money too. 7-10K seems more like the limit.

Anyway, I am known to have leftist views on this, but to a certain extent I agree with Jag and other who hold his kind of view. You ARE responsible for your life, and you DO make decisions that will create more or less favourable results. And if you get in trouble you need to get out. Usually, we have familiy and friends to help us in such cases, but some people don't. Maybe it's their fault, maybe not.

Of course, simply put, those who get in trouble and can't get out, may simply die (out). But, if you (the society) puts some effort into them (sometimes it's a matter of giving a person merely a right kick in the butt) this person might again become a productive member of the society, which is good for everyone. Of course, if you're dealing with alcoholics, addicts, manic depressives.. there is a lot more work and it may seem useless a lot sooner.

As for Federal vs. State financing, I have can't say anything about that, as I don't know the system at all, but I'd say, welfare should be governed by Feds (so that it is standardized in all States), and executed by States (because they are in direct contact with the problem).

I wonder why there aren't (more) private organizations (doing some kind of service or products) who would actually HIRE homeless and otherwise troubled people, to give them a proper chance to start again? I assume because the belief is they'd spend it on bullshit, but still... so do we and it's our damn right I mean back here we don't have such organizations, coz they aren't necessary, but I imagine the US must. What else would a "private welfare" organization do?

Cheers,

Doc