And the cities who could actually do something about it, chose to rather install artesian fountains , than try and find housing for the homeless.

Its pretty pathetic how lightly this subject is being taken by those in power to change anything.

that could be rehabbed by the homeless and turned into efficiency units with locking doors, a real dream for a lot of working homeless folks.

Yes, I said working. Most of them do work, they just don't earn enough to get off the street.

This is wrong, as is letting old motels just sit there and attract vermin and vandals.

the whole time without ever looking for another job. Around that time he was really starting to go right-wing-nut on everyone around him. He was a total Teabagger. I asked him if he found it hypocritical that he collected the welfare benefit of unemployment for so long without ever looking for work. He was a welder and there has been a welder shortage in America for the past several years, even in the bad economy, there was and still is a welder shortage. He'd never give me an answer. When I asked him why he hated the Democratic Party so bad he'd answer that he hated welfare recipients. I couldn't take his shit anymore and ended that friendship. He became a very toxic person and has lost all of his friends, according to some other friends that still know him.

Point is, if he wanted to work, he could have easily found a job. But he got extremely addicted to WOW and gained close to 100 pounds. I'm not joking about that.

RW'ers are very hypocritical people. Their mentality is always..
"Do as I say, not as I do."

Just thought I'd share that..

K&R

Maybe some of those stories from Republican congressmen about people just collecting welfare checks were true. They just never mentioned the takers were white, conservatives

One refuses to take any welfare or food stamps so just leeches off suckers..... like me. The other is a hard-core libertarian homeless guy who spends his day in the library studying the Wall St Journal and then stealing it. He knows all about Libertarian philosophy but refuses to clean up enough to find work.

....dream of becoming rich so they'll never have to work again.

It has nothing to do with homeless people or the working/nonworking poor.

I think the comparison is malign - not helpful.
The problem presented by your ex-friend is not the same.

I had this very argument with a conservative asshat here when I was still new to the place. You might have copied our exchange to write this piece, and of course, it ended the same way.

The "There are services available for them" argument upsets me the most as it shows just how completely disinterested and uncaring they really are.

They can go to a homeless shelter. Like there are thousands of bed just unfilled awaiting their arrival.
They could get job training (like it's free and there are thousands of centers waiting for their application)
If they wanted to work they could find a job! (It's not like when my grandfather was 16 in the 1920's and most jobs were physical labor. Most require specialized skills)

I could go on by mentioning those with mental and physical issues and so on.

But bumper sticker slogans are much easier to spew than facts

One that pays for the less fortunate, and gives them equal services.

The very idea of a single-payer system is anathema to a certain breed of "right-winger". I put 'right-winger' in quotes because even in this thread there are "leftists" who show that they don't have a fucking clue.

The most important thing they don't have a fucking clue about is the kind of services needed to serve the destitute, because they don't even understand who the destitute are. Or, more likely, because some middle-class value judgement (they're all like my acquaintance, the irresponsible doper) is more important to them than an actual study of the facts.

liberals that are liberals of the 19th century type. They only want those "below" them to be treated a little more humanely to salve their own guilt, but adhere to the fantasy that they are actually better than those others. Then there are those that genuinely would like to see those "below" get some help, so long as it neither costs nor inconveniences them.

That's why I prefer and use the term egalitarian, I feel it is more specific, and would yield far better results. Of course I'm one of those pony wanting purists that think people are more important than money and games.

to just about any situation in life, not just homelessness.

There are plenty of unfortunate human conditions that people right here at DU mock on a daily basis.

It seems to be one of the things many Conservatives and "Liberals" share. The ability...the need, perhaps...to mock others who don't follow the script.