ASSholebomber22Have you done any homeless outreach? I was pretty involved with a 501(3)(c) that helped young adults ageing out of the foster system. I can tell you that there are an incredible amount of resources, at least in CO, that allow you food, shelter, and services to get id/social security. I can also tell you that those services are not in the business of enabling habitual criminals and addicts, and as such they are avoided because again, in many, many ways homelessness in the US is a choice.
Look at denver Craigslist and search price low to high for housing. Many places going for less than 1k, and most if not all low skill employment (fast food) will hire same day and pay daily or weekly at $16+/hr. But why do that? Good honest work is hard, you can always shoplift handbags and jordans or steal catalytic converters on your own time.
Also fuck taking a train or multiple to go skiing lmao imagine not having a cooler full of bl smoothies and a grill in the whip on cue for grillin thrillin and chillin
In University I volunteered with the municipal homeless advocacy group, and did a whole videojournalism project the local transients and homeless in town. This was over a decade ago, but I don't think homeless have really changed that much. I've spoken with these people. Met a lot of good folks. Met a lot of weirdos. Met a lot of good weirdos. Met some antisocial jerks. Met addicts and people with some pretty severe issues. Its a broad spectrum. You're absolutely right that some homeless people absolutely choose to live their life this way, whether it's out of not knowing anything better, because they refused to receive the mental healthcare they definitely needed, or just straight up not wanting to be any part of it from an antisocial idealistic standpoint or otherwise...
But I also met a LOT if not a majority of people who were really just hopeless and felt like the whole system let them down.They didn't feel like there was any other way because anything that they had tried had failed and they were either too scared, or too prideful, or too discouraged to put themselves in a - to them - more vulnerable position than they already were in. Sometimes it's even just because the community they have with other homeless people is the only family or sense of community they've ever had in their whole life anyway. The sheer amount of recidivism amongst homeless is massive, and even sometimes people who make it out, and get back on their feet, get spun back into it as soon as one thing goes wrong. Theyre traumatized just that badly.
These people have little confidence that anything is going to actually get anything better, or that the system will ever work out for them because it never has worked out for them, and when housing is as expensive as it is, and when they need to have a car and a phone and a computer and stable internet and everything else to be able to join common society, it only makes it all the harder for these types of people to bounce back. To them, it's not something they've ever even known. Sometimes they even justify their position by saying they don't want to be a normie etc.
This isnt something where homeless people are all just lazy or get a thrill of looting the local footlocker - no doubt there are some kleptos and sociopaths out there who can self justify any bad deed - but sometimes they're just so traumatized that they resort to being homeless as almost a comfort zone - it's what they know, and they don't want to make a change because they think theyre going to fuck it all up and end up right back here again.
All that said... just because some homeless are assholes or steal shit does not mean they deserve to be homeless. They might decide to be, but they don't deserve to be.
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As for taking the train to ski/not having a cooler full of things and a grill - well, I mean you can still drive to go skiing here. In fact, it's the best and sometimes only way to get to some of the more off the best spots. I have no problem with driving to go skiing. I just don't want to rely on it for my everyday commute. Sure, if you have a car in a place like Tokyo, you might have to pay 80-100$ for a monthly parking spot in if your place doesn't have parking available. My medium-term plan is to just buy a place in the mountains to compliment this spot and have a little kei car there ready to go (spots in the countryside always have parking)
But I gotta say, for the weekend warrior who just wants to go up on a Saturday by themselves for a daytrip and come back home, it's an awesome alternative and it frees up the roads for folks like you (and myself for that matter) who sometimes want to bring the cooler and the grill for the apres. It's a win-win, man. Some people want to just throw their skis on the train and dick around on their phone for 2 hours and not have to worry about driving in the snow or interstate traffic, and some people want to have a sick little snow whip and a trailer for the sleds etc.
In Japan, In Europe, you can have both. It's fuckin sweet. I guess Denver has the winter park train, but it's super limited by comparison (like what.. 2 per day?). Imagine if there was a high speed train going 80-100mph that's faster than a car to get there with at least 5 or 6 departs in the morning and 5 or 6 in the afternoon/evening, so people could stay and apres. Imagine if they did that going up i70 as well with stops in Silverthorne, Breck, Vail, Aspen, etc. Tourists could just fly in and take the train all the way to the airport and avoid all the nonsense. Would be an absolute gamechanger and make driving i70 a breeze by comparison to now.
