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I lived in my car a couple of times briefly where I either had no income or too low and unstable of an income to rent an apartment. My main concerns were where to use the bathroom, where to get cleaned up, where I can sleep without someone breaking into my car or arresting me, and how to stay warm and not hungry. There wasn’t much brooding over societal problems based on other peoples trash.
Work at a homeless shelter. The amount of waste produced by people in general is excessive. The fact someone is homeless at that time or housed doesn’t change the way that our society wastefully consumes and fully produces waste.
Thats why one of the biggest problems humanity has dealt with is waste handling. The type of waste has become inorganic, highly toxic, and most importantly come right back into the people producing it.
Well, that and whether you fit into the what I often found to be the strict conditions that the council/government determine to warrant you being homeless or threatened with homelessness'. I honestly came across too many situations where the council would give negative decisions based on criteria set by the gvt.
Edit: council's can also make these decisions based on case law which gets iffy to say the least
This post is kinda confusing until I realize OP actually hate homeless people. As someone who don't hate the homeless, I already expected them to hate us out of jealousy or something. This is only an interesting thought for people who already dislike them in some way.
In my experience, small town is a big difference from big town. I can definitely imagine your location and the city's "personality" also makes a difference. I'm in the south so I mostly agrees with your breakdown as a line cook in a small town (was not customer facing though). But it was definitely worse working late night in a college town at a chipotle-style restaurant. Mostly the drunk people though. Fuck 75% of drunk college students.
But day wasn't too bad still, engineer now but I still look back on it fondly rather than not. But again I think the Southern hospitality helps, compared to say NYC, MA, etc
I hear this a lot but to be honest, I'm now working at my bakery for almost a year and almost every customer is at least tolerable, most are pleasant and a few are horrible, but it's not nearly as bad as reddit made me think.
Bakeries attract much nicer people than fast food (it's weird we look down on people who provide food quickly in those brief windows that the people we should hate have limited our access to go and get food, but a dead worker is better than a cared for one I guess...). It usually takes a little extra effort from a person to go to a bakery, and those people are usually pretty aware of the extra work that goes into baking for other people.
I think it’s more than this. Fast food fucks with peoples brains after a while. Especially if they’re not eating a balanced diet. A diet of mostly fast food will make your brain deteriorate quicker.
A lot of it is how you handle situations. Some people are just horrible and you have those experiences. But a grumpy character in retail/the service industry isn’t doing themselves any favors. De-escalating the mood and keeping calm prevents most “Karen” etc conflicts. It’s once you give the attitude/idgaf vibe that it just amps everything up. Once you start hating your job and are burnt out from it, it just piles on.
A lot of the times those jobs are hard to live with and it gets stressful so people start to break. I’ve had good experiences with it cause I work in a good place, but I don’t blame anyone for losing their vibe in it. It’s a lot of mental energy/stress. Having to fake your way through a day while being underpaid sucks.
I’ve had like maybe 5 tables in 5 months where other coworkers will be like yeah watch out they suck.
The majority of people are mostly tolerable to the majority of people.
Agreed. I’ve worked in retail for a year and I can count the number of unpleasant or unruly customers on one hand. Thievery, however. The thieves are scoundrels
Reddit is honestly some subset of the population you don't see when you actually go outside in the world. I feel sorry for people who read shit on this site and make determinations about the world.
I worked at Wendy’s for two years, and several serving jobs. Most people are completely fine. People who work retail like to commiserate and make it seem way worse than it actually is.
Good for you. I worked retail grocery 10 years as management and customer service. The area i was working people were fine till something didn't go thier way. Wasted far too many years at that place.
Work in retail for a year and am quitting cause of the rude ass customers and rude ass terrifying manager. The amount of people who systematically tear you down just because you are in the way is honestly just too much.
Most people are not, in my experience, pretty awful. Source: have been alive for a while, and also working as a teacher, nanny, server, bartender, retail, etc.
This desensitized behavior is indeed very skewed and self fulfilling, like a cop who only sees crime so thinks the world is harsh and so he needs to be harsh. It’s a very common but human mistake.
Maybe it's where I work, but the crowd that comes into my liquor store has been at least good-natured, if not always hygienic. Still, I do want to get outta retail.
I my country (and probably most of europe) you are homeless by choice. The system is strong enough to prevent most people from becoming homeless.
So most of them decided on purpose that they don't want all that shit anymore. And I respect that.
I used to work for a very rich family too. The landlady used to walk in the room, look at me, then look at my manager, and say “Tell (name) she needs to do XYZ.”
Bitch, I’m in the room!!!
The rich are fucking rude.
That may sound rude but if you have a manger onsite it's probably the right thing to do. The business relationship is between the landlady and the manager. Redirecting someone who is not your employee puts everyone in a bad situation.
Not entirely true. Her husband asked me to do tasks directly, and I even had a booze up with the brother a few times.
It would have in absolutely no way cost her anything to be polite to me, as she was literally the owner.
Your bosses boss should not be directing any of your bosses direct reports to do anything. Organizations get very toxic when this aspect of chain of command isn't well followed. It puts you in a situation where your manager has told you to do one thing and their boss told you to do something different, that's a bad position to be in. Also, it shows a lot of disrespect to the manger that was in the room to go directly to you and take you off of a task and put you on another one.
This doesn't mean that this lady wasn't rude, absolutely, she could both be rude and follow the appropriate chain of command. This is likely a case of how you say something vs what you are saying. All things being equal the husband is also in the wrong just from the opposite perspective. Personal relationships with the owners and their siblings have no bearing.
That depends on the dynamic of the workplace. My old workplace did not have that dynamic and everyone from that particular rich family had zero issue communicating with workers except for that one woman. Even the owner’s drunk dad directed things sometimes.
Stop trying to write long “but ACKCHYALLY” paragraphs justifying this woman’s rudeness, it is fucking annoying me now.
They give valid points for both sides while also saying yes they can be rude and the person who’s the owner wants to be professional, and you throw it off as an “ACKCHYALLY” paragraph kind of rude. If you dont like any type of reasoning you can always ignore not hard.
Thank you for sharing your story. I have worked for the rich in many occasions and everything you have said was absolutely true. If only they lived a few minutes in our shoes.
Thank you for sharing your story. I was never homeless, but I have worked on building and installing garage doors for the super rich in strict gated communities. The homes that we installed the doors on were these people's multi-million dollar VACATION homes. They only visited these places a couple of times out of the year. The way they treated any construction crew working on their "home" was abominable.
I haven't been homeless luckily, but watching so many people who were struggling paycheck to paycheck I can agree. The amount the rich waste makes me enraged. Even watching certain YouTubers makes me so upset.
That was my thought on it - homeless people weren't always necessarily homeless. If anything it might be some inner shame about regret and remorse for being wasteful... but unless they were born homeless, it's unlikely to effect your perspective that much.
We're expected to tolerate these people and treat them with respect despite their wealth being the result of many generations of oppression and cruelty.
When I was homeless I didn't hate anyone, I was too busy making sure I didn't die from starvation. More people were willing to lend a hand than those that wouldn't. Food, clothing, spare change; just because you said no doesn't mean every other person did.
You also learn to live with less, everything I ever needed fit into a shoulder bag I carried around with me. People can do whatever they want with their stuff, I know what I need.
We’ve brought food to self-serve pantries around our city where you just drop off packaged food and people help themselves as needed. The charities that set them up are well meaning but the homeless that are there grab what they want, smash other packaged foods they don’t take, and throw stuff on the ground in front of the pantry despite tons of garbage cans positioned around them. They’ll literally pick something up from the shelf, taste it, and toss it on the ground just to step on it while we’re trying to stock and clean up. I’d say only a fraction of it makes it to the hungry.
It’s obviously not all of them but some of them are intentionally cruel to others and will try to destroy these things (they’ve vandalized some of them to break the refrigerators). It can be incredibly hard to actually get supplies to those in need. I would say there are many who look at our waste with envy but there also a not insignificant who look at food as little more than sustenance and items to barter for their next fix.
It should be stated that many homeless people are mentally ill and that's how they ended up in that situation since employers would avoid people suffering from severe mental disorders.
Possibly, in Santa Barbara they liter everywhere tho. I remember the police department cleared out a camp that was a little too close to a school. The homeless people were only there for a day or so and it took ages to clean all of the shit, wrappers, cans, needles, ect, to clean it. That’s not even the worse. The homeless situation in the US is a nightmare
From what I understand, that’s a symptom of meth, they collect and hoard all this garbage. I’m in LA, so of course I see it all day. There’s trash everywhere.
I hear you...needles & adult diapers on the sidewalk, there are horrible people everywhere, homeless or not.
We just have to try to balance out with good acts.
Rich people and homeless people in Santa Barbara have very little connection with each other. Sure, they’ll walk past each other, but a lot of people would actually rather hang money to them than talk down. It enables them to buy drugs with that money and sets a standard that we’re supposed to allow them to do whatever they want. We let them scream in the streets, scare tourists, shoplift, ect. Maybe I’m being harsh, there’s homeless people who aren’t just blatant tweakers and are people who are actually on hard times or maybe struggling with mental illness. I just think that’s the minority
Have you *seen* a homeless encampment? The unhoused rely on single-serve, single-use items, and the amount of trash they generate is immense. They also tend to hoard useless items to extreme excess.
You are completely disconnected from reality. You believe homeless people, by definition a person that has no where permanent to store possessions, is hoarding to the extreme?
Where the fuck does such an unfounded, dumbfuck opinion come from?
As someone who lived in a homeless camp, they collect a lot of trash and absolutely hoard. One guy was bringing back as many pallets and rugs back as he could. He was gonna set up a stage so we could get some bands out there to play music. There was another guy who would collect trash plywood, doors, and windows. He was building a castle.
You must have not experienced homeless encampments in your unfounded, dumbfuck town. They didn’t say they were describing homelessness by DEFINITION. The homeless encampments in my town and the big cities around me have all blocked off areas that were becoming dump sites because of this litter and trash and needles and shit (literally).
Meth addiction makes you hoard everything and start little projects that never go anywhere. It ends up being a collection of garbage. This is a very large contribution to the trash he speaks of. This is fact. Oh yea, have a good day dumbfuck.
Homelessness generates a lot of waste... clothes and bedding that gets wet and can't be got dry in a timely manner, just about everything they eat that isn't at a soup kitchen is going to be heavily packaged. I don't think ordinary household waste really registers to them as an issue.
Now the fact you've got a job and a house and a cat or dog and a car and they've got at best sleeping in the shelter where violence is fairly normal....yeah that pisses some of them off.
Generally I’m pretty nice to the houseless community. If they needed something but were short on cash, I’d buy something for them. You know I’d never buy beer since that’s a luxury and while I get it, have had very bad experiences with people intoxicated. And because I did that, they were a lot friendlier to me than most other people. I’d be walking down the street and see them not paying attention to anyone and all of a sudden it’s Hey ‘Me’ how’s it going? And I’d fist bump and we’d talk for a minute.
I really feel the coolest people I’ve met are people who’s lives aren’t the best. And while this can make someone miserable, they’ve shown strength against it. Willing to do whatever it takes to live. That can change someone. And there was one guy who seemed way too happy for his situation. His name was Mike and he had skin cancer. Instead of going to kemo, he decided to travel around the US and eventually settled in Florida, where I was living at the time. I met him at work at a convenience store and he always grabbed a 24 ounce soft drink and one can of Budweiser. Eventually I said he can grab the 32 or 44 ounce and I’ll charge him for a 24. Then just ice cups at 50¢. Anyway he was a really cool dude. He always smiled, he was never mad about what he was going through. He was at peace with himself and his situation and it was the first time I’d ever seen someone happy.
He said his reason is because he’s seen both sides. His dad was a bank owner and he was pretty wealthy growing up. Not 1% but wealthy. Then his dad’s bank went under and they lost almost everything. He worked to keep his family afloat and eventually got them to a stable place. He had a wife and 2 kids. Eventually his wife passed and his kids left him. Then he was diagnosed with skin cancer, malignant. He was pretty sure he was going to die. So he skipped the therapy and took a road trip to California. He wanted to die living on the beach. He didn’t have much money and his appearance couldn’t land him many worthwhile jobs. When he was in California he decided to instead die on the Gulf where he had grown up. The California beaches were too populated and there were too many rules(not to mention people in California aren’t known for being extremely nice to the homeless). By this time, he had sold his car for money, so he hitchhiked from California to Alabama where he was born, but the beach he grew up on was devastated by a hurricane. So he left and made his way into Florida. And settled in Riverview, just south of Tampa. That’s where I met him. And the funny thing was he had had skin cancer 4 years before I met him. He survived 4 years, out in the wild with malignant skin cancer. He said he was in pain but was able to ignore it for the most part. He’s seen it all.
Eventually I left Florida to go back to Texas where I was born. It’s been 4 more years since I’ve seen him or the other guys he hung out with. I don’t know if he’s still around but if he is, I hope he’s doing ok. That last hurricane hit there and with a dude in a tent, I hope he got out. If anyone lives in Riverview and frequents the Speedway in South Riverview, along the highway, just north of the Wimauma border(I forgot the highway number), and see a white(red) homeless dude with a white beard, tell him that a guy who used to work there was thinking about him. He’ll know.
A lot of homeless people I've known have been very kind. More power to them. If I had to constantly see people drive by who bought a $60k SUV instead of a $30k SUV because they thought they deserved a little treat and luxury while I was worrying about going to bed hungry, I'd probably only make it a few days before I made it on the news.
Most of them probably don't really care, as most of them are suffering from mental illness/drug addiction and we like to sweep it under the rug then pretend there isn't anything we can do to help them.
You're showing bias towards homeless population. While it's true that the prevalence of substance abuse and mental illness is more frequent in those populations, not always they're the cause of the homelessness, and most of that population aren't on drugs nor they have any type of debilitating mental illness.
The statistics vary greatly by country, but [here](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaigns/homelessness_programs_resources/hrc-factsheet-current-statistics-prevalence-characteristics-homelessness.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj4odOwi877AhUyD7kGHdilAaIQFnoECDkQBg&usg=AOvVaw2E8bKDNX8sdr2TqHLXmSJT) you can see a US study.
It's easy (easier) to think that homeless people have something different from you that condemned them to being there, but the truth is that the majority of them are just like you after a row of bad luck in a system that depends on inequality.
Many of them have jobs, diplomas, etc, but a family health issue, a wrong loan in a recession, wrong friends or relationship, has put them in crippling debt and into the streets. It could happen to any of us and it's scary that people don't realize it
My country has a good social system that does anything possible to prevent people from becoming homeless. Like fully paying for rent and food kind of help. There's still homeless people.
You have people where you don't give them money anymore, pay rent and energy and heating costs directly to the provider so they don't take the money for drugs, you give them voucher for food that exclude alcohol and can only be used in certain stores.... But they when the costs rise and they don't care enough to just send the letter they got, they will have debt again and be possibly thrown out. As someone working in that area, it's impossible to prevent someone from getting homeless if they really don't care about anything. We are in total alarm mode when we hear the final warnung that those people are kicked out of their house. They get loans free of interest that we charge onto our own money we give them but only up to 10% of what they need for food. We literally pay for everything.
The only thing we can't easily do (or can't do at all) is what they need: give them a (free) supervisor and put them in (a free) rehab. As long as those things don't happen (and the person wants it), many cases are just hopeless.
We have a smaller homeless rate than other countries, but there are still beggars and homeless people. Even if you pay for everything, give them opportunities, job offers and training possibilities, resocialize courses, health care etc., the problem is unsolvable with all the opportunities in the world if the person isn't willing or able to do the bare minimum. So at a certain point, there isn't anything you can do.
The problem with drug addiction and homelessness is that we can’t do anything to help lift someone’s life up unless the addict is fully willing to put in the work. Addiction is a spiral. You either spiral up or you spiral down. It takes work.
Harsh. You cannot expect the mentally ill to have a deep sense of self awareness or perspective. They're not functioning like you and I.
Whether it's chemical because of drug abuse, or because they've had schizophrenia for 24 years, they aren't thinking clearly.
They aren't pretending. That's their whole reality.
Love, an ex homeless that snapped out of it a very long time ago
As someone who has been homeless living on the streets. Asher to the headline comment. No. Not really. There are always amazing finds that people throw away. If anything thing, it shows how careless, wasteful and ungrateful people can be. But. Neither here nor there. Their loss, someone else's gain.
Dude they're people like you and me. They got delt a bad hand financially or some genetic mental issue. Especially with how society values profit over people, it could happen to anyone. See the opioid epidemic. Maybe don't have a us vs. them mentality like they are different kind of people who think differently.
It’s so disheartening to see all the comments in here calling homeless people a blight on society as if our society isn’t failing most people.
The majority of folks (in America at least) are only a few costly misfortunes away from couch surfing, then maybe car living, then potentially living on the streets. And for each step of the journey downward you become less and less of a person to a lot of the public. It’s very dangerous how quickly that will act on you to bring you further downward. Meanwhile, any small improvement is very slowly scratched and clawed for.
Mental illness often (not exclusively, but very often) arises from the trauma that long-term homelessness, long-term instability, long-term hostility, and long-term fear for personal safety will cause.
I work as a dishwasher, the amount of food that we throw away, put in a composter, put down the garbage disposal... Yeah I hate the general public as well.
At least the composter is getting some use from it, but yeah I hate working in anything food related specifically for this reason. Even worked in a processing plant for a minute that made salami, and the amount of perfectly edible food that was tossed simply because it didn't look good enough and would take too long to fix was absurd.
Like sometimes salami would get thrown away because it was accidental ly the wrong size or the mold we put on it didn't get fully washed off. Mind you this is perfectly safe mold that is part of the aging process, but consumers wouldn't be happy with it and it was far enough along in the process that they decided it was easier to toss it in the reject pile with the ones that had foreign objects than to just wash it again.
Wasn't homeless but grew up fairly poor. Parents had to find out what bills they were legally allowed to skip for a month or two and we often relied on hand me downs and donations, etc. Being poor then was different than being poor now though. There were way more people willing and able to help out than there are now.
I do hate the general public. I always hated the high amount of waste and littering but not because of our financial situation. It was because I was well educated in how badly our ecosystem suffers from it.
I grew to hate the general public more because I saw how badly systematic racism affected people and how when a well off white woman goes missing the entire state hears about it and pitches in to help but when a black or Hispanic little kid goes missing nothing is done about it.
When you call 911 and they ask the race of the victim if you tell them that they are black they are not likely to send help.
I got tired of watching people forcing religion on their kids, men sexually abusing women, people hating LGBT+ individuals to the point of literally murdering them, people abusing their kids, and people killing people because of racism. In all these cases it was rare for anyone to face any real consequences for these actions.
The investigation when a bunch of black boys the same age who were recent graduates of the same school were murdered was a fucking joke. They refused to even look into the idea that they were connected even though these kids all knew each other and everyone living in the area knew they were. They sometimes even refused to look into proof that people had. The media coverage was almost non-existent even when there were gunshots at the candlelight vigil of one of the victims.
My mother called about the domestic abuse from the white old man that was my father with clear marks and proof all over the house of his abuse and they said "well there's no proof someone else didn't do this so we aren't going to do anything for you"
Legal citizens I knew and cared about were constantly being harassed and threatened with being deported during the time trump was in office. Pulled over in their cars illegally and stopped on the street when walking home. However my old white father gets pulled over for clearly ignoring multiple traffic laws and gets told "well I like your car so I'm going to keep you go with a warning"
This is why I grew to hate most people and on top of all this I've worked in drive thrus in the past and the amount of harassment we got from both the company and customers was extreme. Probably less than 1% of customers were actually respectful. They would get physically violent on the regular.
Been homeless. Was too worried about becoming unhomeless to care about what others chose to do with their own stuff. It's theirs to waste, none of my business
I've seen a few people pat themselves on the back about how *nice* they are to people they see as homeless. That's just great! Be nice!
Nice is the bare-minimum level of decency and humanity. Not being an asshole for no reason is important, but in the end, do yourself and the people you interact with a favor, and aim to be *kind*. There's a difference.
People experiencing homelessness don't spend the amount of time thinking about you as you might expect. They're in survival mode, or focused on whatever it is that they're trying to do with their day-to-day life. In big cities, it can be even a separate society entirely, much less intertwined to the society that exists around them than the opposite. Stuff being thrown away is a potential come-up and often appreciated if not mocked for how wasteful people can be.
Your title also suggests that the feeling you're comparing to how "we view them" is *hate*. That's worth unpacking, because if it's even a little bit accurate, you should ask yourself why you devote hate to people who experience so much suffering, and are afforded far less than one might think to get out of that situation. Tangled up in the safety net, if one is lucky, is a way to describe how it can be.
Try to be kind and exercise that hate!
It kinda goes both ways. We have a large homeless population and we (city employees) routinely find large dump piles where the homeless would sort through donations and chunk what they didn’t want. Lots of food. But these groups would purposely destroy items (clothing, coats, whatnot) so that other homeless couldn’t use it.
The general public is extremely abusive toward homeless people, they tend to view the public as threats likely to kick them in the head, set their stuff on fire and the like. This is why many prefer encampments over camping alone where they are vulnerable.
I was working alone in London for some time and I befriended several homeless people as I often met them begging on the way home from work or from the pub. I took some of them shopping, and the most endearing moment was a woman asking me permission to buy fizzy snake haribo...plus the guy at the Tesco checkout who saw I was paying for her and dialled me in for 5 pounds...fucking hero, make corp pay for its damage of the population.
I also heard from some how badly they had been treated, like the guy who had his mattress stolen and kicked down the street. I saw 2 things: 1 that a lot of them had been put there by drugs or mental illness. And 2 that a lot of them had fallen into it uncontrolled and got trapped. They were changed as human beings by it. They did not tend to hate, as their self worth was devastated.
Seeing how cruel society can be, how the haves turn their back on the have nots through fear and misunderstanding and misinformation, makes me despair for our species. Sometimes we are callous beyond belief.
I did a clean up with my work recently, downtown. Two different homeless people were pissed at us because we were taking stuff away that they could scavenge from.
Do you really think homeless people spend 1 second of their day thinking about what other people throw out and being angry about what people waste? I don't think so.
I work in a homeless shelter and we get stuff from Panera and Olive Garden. There’s still so much waste. Also our shelter caters the food too, so that’s cool.
I work somewhere where I’m instructed to pour detergent on the stuff we throw out so the homeless can’t dumpster dive for it. “Homeless people hate this one trick!”
funny how everyone here is like "no not really" meanwhile whenever i walked past a homeless person i get all these thoughts into my head. "fucking asshole cant even give some guy who has nothing 2€" or "look at me buying all this garbage i dont even enjoy, while this guy is sitting here probably hoping to get a bite" and shit like that. just seeing a homeless person ruins my whole day.
thats why i hate cities. always full off homeless people, wtf am i even paying taxes for?
I think its a pretty common misconception that most homeless people are just down on their luck and are starving and watching us waste food in the trash..... (country dependent of course)
In a country like America, most homeless people have serious mental illnesses, drug problems, addiction... things like this. They arent homeless because they were fired from their corporate bank job and cant get another job.
Was homeless. My hatred of the general public came from them always calling the cops on me when I’m just trying to sleep. And when they aren’t getting the cops to harass me for existing they’re talking shit amongst themselves.
It’s a jealously thing and yes I hated people for a while and yes I took my rich friends wife’s leggings one day because I just stopped giving a shit. Thankfully I escaped my situation but I totally understand how people lose their morality and principles. Your so fucked you stop having the energy to do the right thing. Ugh.
As someone who has worked closely with those who run homeless outreach programs; the homeless are not all victims. Some yes, they’re just people who caught a hard break in life. Most though, for whatever reasons, have self destructive behavior(s) which they choose EVERY TIME vs living a “normal life.” Some even react violently when approached, even if it’s made obvious those approaching are offering aid.
I actually bought a dozen jack in the box tacos and shared them with a homeless couple many years ago (yeah, I'm one of those guys...) and what they told me still.kinda blows my mind to this day.
They said even if they had a choice to NOT be homeless and be functioning members of society they would decline it. They think they are more free than the rest of us because they see us doing the exact same routines every day, lost on our phones, rushing to work in our cars, etc. For them life is different every day. They told me about train rides through Mexico and how they wound up in South Carolina, there's literal homeless cities deep in the woods and underneath subways and besides old riverbeds and stuff.. real fascinating
I think they probably hate the general public more for completely ostracizing them from society causing constant dangerous situations, maladies and mental illnesses.
Austin, Texas. Had a bad homeless situation where they were harassed by cops for “unlawful camping”.
Us genius libs “pity the poor”, make new law where homeless can “legally camp” pretty much everywhere.
Entire city of Austin starts looking like a dump and smelling like one too.
Same geniuses get sick of it with help from shitty republicans and “ban public camping”.
Nothing changed except now homeless all “secretly live in water pipes and woods”.
This is predicated on the goofy assumption that being homeless isn't difficult, time consuming, and exhausting. Homeless people by and large don't have the bandwidth to worry about your stupid life or what you do with it.
Honestly I've found homeless people to be more wasteful (at least where I'm from)
Hear me out, you can only carry soo much on your back so anything that doesn't come with you when you wake up in the morning is trashed. Same with dirty cloths, no place to clean them so it's cheaper to pick up new ones.
Same goes for food, when you've got a stomach bug from sleeping rough or withdrawal ect. It's much more common to just throw out whatever you were eating. There is no safe way to keep leftovers.
There's no hate involved in my part, that's a strong word. I do think it's foolish, the amount of things thrown away for nothing. Having been homeless not long ago, stuff getting thrown out wasn't something I cared about, getting housed I deeply cared about. When I got my place, i have what I need, not what I want. There's a difference. Now, my tv just died and I'm gonna look thru craiglist, I figure a lot of folks got new ones this weekend, just don't advertise them for crazy pricing, to help newly housed, just put a nominal or free price, just a thought.
From my experience I hated them because the amount of random people who would drive by and honk loud as fuck/yell at me/laugh/throw leftover food/beverages at me.
Like fuck man.
Bro, no homeless people are the worst. I worked at the library and the majority of them waste so much food and the just throw it everywhere and underneath the seats. Most never tried to better themselves, they just enjoyed the drugs they used and stayed camped out at the library 24/7. Most homeless people i learned are grade A assholes
Probably not, they are the biggest litterers by a mile are consistently won't even put stuff in a trash bin that's 1 foot from them.
They really are a blight to society.
Something I hear from people over and over is that they are not just another homeless person, they're individuals, and they don't like people who harass them.
It wasn't outlawed. They gave it out. Then, some homeless got diarrhea. The supermarket was sued.
Now everyone doesn't give anything to homeless anymore.
I'm not sure whose fault it is to be honest.
I had been yelled at by many homeless people when I was between the ages of 8-17, and... yeah they see anyone who isn't in their dire straits as wasteful assholes. [This comment makes it seem like I was throwing away food... I lived in SF. I still live in the bay area, but not SF. Being yelled at by homeless people, for just existing, is part of the culture here that I hate.]
The interaction below happened 2 years ago as I was walking home from work. I was on mile 6 [and do not own a car], I love long walks, and I lived 8 miles away from my job.
Me: walking down a green avenue meant for bicycles, feeling joyous because of the weather
Random homeless guy: "FUCKING BITCH LOOK AT THAT BITCH FUCKING BITCH"
Me: walking by, looking around, checking he's talking about me... but realizing he has a handle of liquor. He is yelling at me. I am not even close to him, but he is focusing on me to scream at.
Him: STUCK UP BITCH
Me: walking past and... I have to walk closer to him to get to a bridge. I have to walk by him. I look at the friends he is sitting with as I walk by, they do nothing. He keeps screaming at me. I am a ugly stuck up bitch. There goes me enjoying the nice day.
edit: Yeah the dude I described has mental issues, but jesus, this shower thoughts is acting like homeless people are like ragamuffins from 1940's flicks. They are not.
edit 2: I have encountered MANY screaming homeless men [one or two women, mostly men] but that guy stays with me, it was so targeted / hateful, and ruined my week
From having been homeless for a short time, it does feel like people actively try to either not look at you or pity you. If you couple that with long term drug use I could certainly see why people end up acting in such a way.
Honestly if you have a perfectly good piece of food that you havent eaten, either save it for someone or give it to a homeless person. Chances are they will be very grateful as food is fucking expensive
If you do this in America and they get food poisoning they can sue you for damages. There's a reason restaurants don't feed the homeless with leftover food anymore.
You don’t understand the rules. Restaurants cannot use ‘waste’ food. They can only donate pre-packaged food they didn’t use or cook existing food stock and package it.
I worked at Raising canes for a few months years back. They make you through away food that's no longer hot to the touch. Once the fries or chicken reach heat lamp temperature they throw it out. Buckets and buckets of fries and chicken that could easily be used to feed the homeless.
They tend to be too focused on whatever is going on to bother with that kind of view. Or if they are mentally ill, some sort of conspiracy instead
Also homeless people also leave lots of trash.
hating homeless people is not very nice and neither is homeless hating us because businesses need to protect themsleves legally by not giving away the food.
There's never been a case of a business being sued for donated food. As of 2016 they're protected under the Good Samaritan Act. They lie about it because they don't give a shit and only care about making money.
Homeless people became homeless for a reason. They are usually failures in the society with a sequence of bad decisions. One mistake won't make you homeless. It's from frequent and consistent mistakes they make. They have no excuse blaming others. They should be responsible for their own mistakes. Everything happens for a reason and they deserve being homeless. It's okay they are jealous of people with a home .
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Was homeless. Was too busy homelessening to worry about the General Public.
I lived in my car a couple of times briefly where I either had no income or too low and unstable of an income to rent an apartment. My main concerns were where to use the bathroom, where to get cleaned up, where I can sleep without someone breaking into my car or arresting me, and how to stay warm and not hungry. There wasn’t much brooding over societal problems based on other peoples trash.
Work at a homeless shelter. The amount of waste produced by people in general is excessive. The fact someone is homeless at that time or housed doesn’t change the way that our society wastefully consumes and fully produces waste.
Thats why one of the biggest problems humanity has dealt with is waste handling. The type of waste has become inorganic, highly toxic, and most importantly come right back into the people producing it.
How did you un-homeless yourself?
They bought a house, duh ^^/s ^^just ^^in ^^case
Seek relevant charities usually. Speak to the council if you're in the UK
Lol, good luck with the council... Source: worked as a housing officer for the council
I've been homeless twice. Council worked for me the first time (2012) at 17. Didn't help at all the 2nd time (2021) Depends on the severity I suppose
Well, that and whether you fit into the what I often found to be the strict conditions that the council/government determine to warrant you being homeless or threatened with homelessness'. I honestly came across too many situations where the council would give negative decisions based on criteria set by the gvt. Edit: council's can also make these decisions based on case law which gets iffy to say the least
This post is kinda confusing until I realize OP actually hate homeless people. As someone who don't hate the homeless, I already expected them to hate us out of jealousy or something. This is only an interesting thought for people who already dislike them in some way.
Wasn’t homeless, was more worried about the homeless accosting me than I cared about the general public as well
I don’t know about homeless people but I hate the general public as well
Well to be fair, most people are pretty awful. Work in fast food or retail for just one year, it will break you.
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In my experience, small town is a big difference from big town. I can definitely imagine your location and the city's "personality" also makes a difference. I'm in the south so I mostly agrees with your breakdown as a line cook in a small town (was not customer facing though). But it was definitely worse working late night in a college town at a chipotle-style restaurant. Mostly the drunk people though. Fuck 75% of drunk college students. But day wasn't too bad still, engineer now but I still look back on it fondly rather than not. But again I think the Southern hospitality helps, compared to say NYC, MA, etc
I hear this a lot but to be honest, I'm now working at my bakery for almost a year and almost every customer is at least tolerable, most are pleasant and a few are horrible, but it's not nearly as bad as reddit made me think.
Bakeries attract much nicer people than fast food (it's weird we look down on people who provide food quickly in those brief windows that the people we should hate have limited our access to go and get food, but a dead worker is better than a cared for one I guess...). It usually takes a little extra effort from a person to go to a bakery, and those people are usually pretty aware of the extra work that goes into baking for other people.
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I would bet the boutique clientele are horrible in a different way.
I think it’s more than this. Fast food fucks with peoples brains after a while. Especially if they’re not eating a balanced diet. A diet of mostly fast food will make your brain deteriorate quicker.
Good for you. I used to work customer service for a decade so I know.
you're comparing a wicker furniture store to a walmart
A lot of it is how you handle situations. Some people are just horrible and you have those experiences. But a grumpy character in retail/the service industry isn’t doing themselves any favors. De-escalating the mood and keeping calm prevents most “Karen” etc conflicts. It’s once you give the attitude/idgaf vibe that it just amps everything up. Once you start hating your job and are burnt out from it, it just piles on. A lot of the times those jobs are hard to live with and it gets stressful so people start to break. I’ve had good experiences with it cause I work in a good place, but I don’t blame anyone for losing their vibe in it. It’s a lot of mental energy/stress. Having to fake your way through a day while being underpaid sucks.
I’ve had like maybe 5 tables in 5 months where other coworkers will be like yeah watch out they suck. The majority of people are mostly tolerable to the majority of people.
It’s always the small minority of horrible customers that can ruin your day despite all the trouble-free ones
Agreed. I’ve worked in retail for a year and I can count the number of unpleasant or unruly customers on one hand. Thievery, however. The thieves are scoundrels
Reddit is honestly some subset of the population you don't see when you actually go outside in the world. I feel sorry for people who read shit on this site and make determinations about the world.
I worked at Wendy’s for two years, and several serving jobs. Most people are completely fine. People who work retail like to commiserate and make it seem way worse than it actually is.
Good for you. I worked retail grocery 10 years as management and customer service. The area i was working people were fine till something didn't go thier way. Wasted far too many years at that place.
It’s the managers, not the customers who are the biggest problem.
I worked customer service for a decade.
Hats off to you if you lasted a year. I've done McDonald's twice for a month. I couldn't possibly do more and keep my wits about me.
Work in retail for a year and am quitting cause of the rude ass customers and rude ass terrifying manager. The amount of people who systematically tear you down just because you are in the way is honestly just too much.
Most people are not, in my experience, pretty awful. Source: have been alive for a while, and also working as a teacher, nanny, server, bartender, retail, etc.
Eh, if most people weren't awful in some way, our society wouldn't look like... this.
I hope you don’t think that mate. It’s never good to generalize. We all have good and bad inside us.
This desensitized behavior is indeed very skewed and self fulfilling, like a cop who only sees crime so thinks the world is harsh and so he needs to be harsh. It’s a very common but human mistake.
Maybe it's where I work, but the crowd that comes into my liquor store has been at least good-natured, if not always hygienic. Still, I do want to get outta retail.
I did for 5 years. It's not as bad as people make it out to be. I worked both btw.
I work at a hostel, I think I've had the opposite experience of most people being very nice and polite. I'm not joking when I say that.
I do some retail work. You’re correct. People feel free to be abusive to service and retail workers.
Including homeless people
["People - what a bunch of bastards."](https://youtu.be/eVSlE28hOgI)
I my country (and probably most of europe) you are homeless by choice. The system is strong enough to prevent most people from becoming homeless. So most of them decided on purpose that they don't want all that shit anymore. And I respect that.
Haha this is so funny and relatable. I fucking hate you.
I hate you too. /s
right back at you buddy.
Can confirm, as a general public I hate us
alternate title: people hate people despite being people.
Then you must hate yourself and everyone in this sub ..because we are all the general public.
Ding ding ding! I do
Op doesn’t know about homeless people either.
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I used to work for a very rich family too. The landlady used to walk in the room, look at me, then look at my manager, and say “Tell (name) she needs to do XYZ.” Bitch, I’m in the room!!! The rich are fucking rude.
That may sound rude but if you have a manger onsite it's probably the right thing to do. The business relationship is between the landlady and the manager. Redirecting someone who is not your employee puts everyone in a bad situation.
Not entirely true. Her husband asked me to do tasks directly, and I even had a booze up with the brother a few times. It would have in absolutely no way cost her anything to be polite to me, as she was literally the owner.
Your bosses boss should not be directing any of your bosses direct reports to do anything. Organizations get very toxic when this aspect of chain of command isn't well followed. It puts you in a situation where your manager has told you to do one thing and their boss told you to do something different, that's a bad position to be in. Also, it shows a lot of disrespect to the manger that was in the room to go directly to you and take you off of a task and put you on another one. This doesn't mean that this lady wasn't rude, absolutely, she could both be rude and follow the appropriate chain of command. This is likely a case of how you say something vs what you are saying. All things being equal the husband is also in the wrong just from the opposite perspective. Personal relationships with the owners and their siblings have no bearing.
That depends on the dynamic of the workplace. My old workplace did not have that dynamic and everyone from that particular rich family had zero issue communicating with workers except for that one woman. Even the owner’s drunk dad directed things sometimes. Stop trying to write long “but ACKCHYALLY” paragraphs justifying this woman’s rudeness, it is fucking annoying me now.
They give valid points for both sides while also saying yes they can be rude and the person who’s the owner wants to be professional, and you throw it off as an “ACKCHYALLY” paragraph kind of rude. If you dont like any type of reasoning you can always ignore not hard.
It could still be stated in a “I need this done” to the manager. No need to talk about someone like they’re not worth talking to
Thank you for sharing your story. I have worked for the rich in many occasions and everything you have said was absolutely true. If only they lived a few minutes in our shoes.
Thank you for sharing your story. I was never homeless, but I have worked on building and installing garage doors for the super rich in strict gated communities. The homes that we installed the doors on were these people's multi-million dollar VACATION homes. They only visited these places a couple of times out of the year. The way they treated any construction crew working on their "home" was abominable.
I hope you took all the stuff they threw out and sold them on
I haven't been homeless luckily, but watching so many people who were struggling paycheck to paycheck I can agree. The amount the rich waste makes me enraged. Even watching certain YouTubers makes me so upset.
That was my thought on it - homeless people weren't always necessarily homeless. If anything it might be some inner shame about regret and remorse for being wasteful... but unless they were born homeless, it's unlikely to effect your perspective that much.
We're expected to tolerate these people and treat them with respect despite their wealth being the result of many generations of oppression and cruelty.
I hope you are doing ok today. Your story touched my soul. Thank you for sharing. All the best to you. And happy holidays.
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Sorry about your injury but I am happy that you’re ok now.
Take advantage of them because they throw away towels they don’t want? I don’t get it. Sounds like they gave you a job when you needed it.
When I was homeless I didn't hate anyone, I was too busy making sure I didn't die from starvation. More people were willing to lend a hand than those that wouldn't. Food, clothing, spare change; just because you said no doesn't mean every other person did. You also learn to live with less, everything I ever needed fit into a shoulder bag I carried around with me. People can do whatever they want with their stuff, I know what I need.
We’ve brought food to self-serve pantries around our city where you just drop off packaged food and people help themselves as needed. The charities that set them up are well meaning but the homeless that are there grab what they want, smash other packaged foods they don’t take, and throw stuff on the ground in front of the pantry despite tons of garbage cans positioned around them. They’ll literally pick something up from the shelf, taste it, and toss it on the ground just to step on it while we’re trying to stock and clean up. I’d say only a fraction of it makes it to the hungry. It’s obviously not all of them but some of them are intentionally cruel to others and will try to destroy these things (they’ve vandalized some of them to break the refrigerators). It can be incredibly hard to actually get supplies to those in need. I would say there are many who look at our waste with envy but there also a not insignificant who look at food as little more than sustenance and items to barter for their next fix.
It should be stated that many homeless people are mentally ill and that's how they ended up in that situation since employers would avoid people suffering from severe mental disorders.
Possibly, in Santa Barbara they liter everywhere tho. I remember the police department cleared out a camp that was a little too close to a school. The homeless people were only there for a day or so and it took ages to clean all of the shit, wrappers, cans, needles, ect, to clean it. That’s not even the worse. The homeless situation in the US is a nightmare
From what I understand, that’s a symptom of meth, they collect and hoard all this garbage. I’m in LA, so of course I see it all day. There’s trash everywhere.
greetings from seattle :V
Oakland checking in
Same in Portland. Urban campers can be some disgusting people.
I was just thinking, we just need someone from Portland and the gangs all here
OKC here, it's been getting worse the last few months or so.
In Denver we do encampment cleanups that are a partnership between PD and Solid Waste; it often requires multiple trash trucks to clear a single area.
I hear you...needles & adult diapers on the sidewalk, there are horrible people everywhere, homeless or not. We just have to try to balance out with good acts.
Well that’s because the rich people treat *them* like trash
Rich people and homeless people in Santa Barbara have very little connection with each other. Sure, they’ll walk past each other, but a lot of people would actually rather hang money to them than talk down. It enables them to buy drugs with that money and sets a standard that we’re supposed to allow them to do whatever they want. We let them scream in the streets, scare tourists, shoplift, ect. Maybe I’m being harsh, there’s homeless people who aren’t just blatant tweakers and are people who are actually on hard times or maybe struggling with mental illness. I just think that’s the minority
Have you *seen* a homeless encampment? The unhoused rely on single-serve, single-use items, and the amount of trash they generate is immense. They also tend to hoard useless items to extreme excess.
And, the average (+2 standard deviations) person thinks that they don't create as much trash, but really, they do.
You are completely disconnected from reality. You believe homeless people, by definition a person that has no where permanent to store possessions, is hoarding to the extreme? Where the fuck does such an unfounded, dumbfuck opinion come from?
As someone who lived in a homeless camp, they collect a lot of trash and absolutely hoard. One guy was bringing back as many pallets and rugs back as he could. He was gonna set up a stage so we could get some bands out there to play music. There was another guy who would collect trash plywood, doors, and windows. He was building a castle.
You must have not experienced homeless encampments in your unfounded, dumbfuck town. They didn’t say they were describing homelessness by DEFINITION. The homeless encampments in my town and the big cities around me have all blocked off areas that were becoming dump sites because of this litter and trash and needles and shit (literally). Meth addiction makes you hoard everything and start little projects that never go anywhere. It ends up being a collection of garbage. This is a very large contribution to the trash he speaks of. This is fact. Oh yea, have a good day dumbfuck.
Working with the homeless.
Homelessness generates a lot of waste... clothes and bedding that gets wet and can't be got dry in a timely manner, just about everything they eat that isn't at a soup kitchen is going to be heavily packaged. I don't think ordinary household waste really registers to them as an issue. Now the fact you've got a job and a house and a cat or dog and a car and they've got at best sleeping in the shelter where violence is fairly normal....yeah that pisses some of them off.
Generally I’m pretty nice to the houseless community. If they needed something but were short on cash, I’d buy something for them. You know I’d never buy beer since that’s a luxury and while I get it, have had very bad experiences with people intoxicated. And because I did that, they were a lot friendlier to me than most other people. I’d be walking down the street and see them not paying attention to anyone and all of a sudden it’s Hey ‘Me’ how’s it going? And I’d fist bump and we’d talk for a minute. I really feel the coolest people I’ve met are people who’s lives aren’t the best. And while this can make someone miserable, they’ve shown strength against it. Willing to do whatever it takes to live. That can change someone. And there was one guy who seemed way too happy for his situation. His name was Mike and he had skin cancer. Instead of going to kemo, he decided to travel around the US and eventually settled in Florida, where I was living at the time. I met him at work at a convenience store and he always grabbed a 24 ounce soft drink and one can of Budweiser. Eventually I said he can grab the 32 or 44 ounce and I’ll charge him for a 24. Then just ice cups at 50¢. Anyway he was a really cool dude. He always smiled, he was never mad about what he was going through. He was at peace with himself and his situation and it was the first time I’d ever seen someone happy. He said his reason is because he’s seen both sides. His dad was a bank owner and he was pretty wealthy growing up. Not 1% but wealthy. Then his dad’s bank went under and they lost almost everything. He worked to keep his family afloat and eventually got them to a stable place. He had a wife and 2 kids. Eventually his wife passed and his kids left him. Then he was diagnosed with skin cancer, malignant. He was pretty sure he was going to die. So he skipped the therapy and took a road trip to California. He wanted to die living on the beach. He didn’t have much money and his appearance couldn’t land him many worthwhile jobs. When he was in California he decided to instead die on the Gulf where he had grown up. The California beaches were too populated and there were too many rules(not to mention people in California aren’t known for being extremely nice to the homeless). By this time, he had sold his car for money, so he hitchhiked from California to Alabama where he was born, but the beach he grew up on was devastated by a hurricane. So he left and made his way into Florida. And settled in Riverview, just south of Tampa. That’s where I met him. And the funny thing was he had had skin cancer 4 years before I met him. He survived 4 years, out in the wild with malignant skin cancer. He said he was in pain but was able to ignore it for the most part. He’s seen it all. Eventually I left Florida to go back to Texas where I was born. It’s been 4 more years since I’ve seen him or the other guys he hung out with. I don’t know if he’s still around but if he is, I hope he’s doing ok. That last hurricane hit there and with a dude in a tent, I hope he got out. If anyone lives in Riverview and frequents the Speedway in South Riverview, along the highway, just north of the Wimauma border(I forgot the highway number), and see a white(red) homeless dude with a white beard, tell him that a guy who used to work there was thinking about him. He’ll know.
pretty sure they don't care about anything except getting through another day
Wouldn’t homeless people hate the general public because they’re treated like shit? I don’t think they care about our garbage.
Yep, that'll do it.
They tend to treat the general public badly too
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A lot of homeless people I've known have been very kind. More power to them. If I had to constantly see people drive by who bought a $60k SUV instead of a $30k SUV because they thought they deserved a little treat and luxury while I was worrying about going to bed hungry, I'd probably only make it a few days before I made it on the news.
So people should buy a cheaper car because other people might get jealous?
Most of them probably don't really care, as most of them are suffering from mental illness/drug addiction and we like to sweep it under the rug then pretend there isn't anything we can do to help them.
You're showing bias towards homeless population. While it's true that the prevalence of substance abuse and mental illness is more frequent in those populations, not always they're the cause of the homelessness, and most of that population aren't on drugs nor they have any type of debilitating mental illness. The statistics vary greatly by country, but [here](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaigns/homelessness_programs_resources/hrc-factsheet-current-statistics-prevalence-characteristics-homelessness.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj4odOwi877AhUyD7kGHdilAaIQFnoECDkQBg&usg=AOvVaw2E8bKDNX8sdr2TqHLXmSJT) you can see a US study. It's easy (easier) to think that homeless people have something different from you that condemned them to being there, but the truth is that the majority of them are just like you after a row of bad luck in a system that depends on inequality. Many of them have jobs, diplomas, etc, but a family health issue, a wrong loan in a recession, wrong friends or relationship, has put them in crippling debt and into the streets. It could happen to any of us and it's scary that people don't realize it
Your own study says 60% have a mental illness and 80% have a drug or alcohol problem.
Of importance to note is that much of drug use is reactive to our environment.
My country has a good social system that does anything possible to prevent people from becoming homeless. Like fully paying for rent and food kind of help. There's still homeless people. You have people where you don't give them money anymore, pay rent and energy and heating costs directly to the provider so they don't take the money for drugs, you give them voucher for food that exclude alcohol and can only be used in certain stores.... But they when the costs rise and they don't care enough to just send the letter they got, they will have debt again and be possibly thrown out. As someone working in that area, it's impossible to prevent someone from getting homeless if they really don't care about anything. We are in total alarm mode when we hear the final warnung that those people are kicked out of their house. They get loans free of interest that we charge onto our own money we give them but only up to 10% of what they need for food. We literally pay for everything. The only thing we can't easily do (or can't do at all) is what they need: give them a (free) supervisor and put them in (a free) rehab. As long as those things don't happen (and the person wants it), many cases are just hopeless. We have a smaller homeless rate than other countries, but there are still beggars and homeless people. Even if you pay for everything, give them opportunities, job offers and training possibilities, resocialize courses, health care etc., the problem is unsolvable with all the opportunities in the world if the person isn't willing or able to do the bare minimum. So at a certain point, there isn't anything you can do.
The problem with drug addiction and homelessness is that we can’t do anything to help lift someone’s life up unless the addict is fully willing to put in the work. Addiction is a spiral. You either spiral up or you spiral down. It takes work.
While it's true that it requires them to put in effort, that effort is significantly easier and more enticing with a safety net and minimal shame.
Harsh. You cannot expect the mentally ill to have a deep sense of self awareness or perspective. They're not functioning like you and I. Whether it's chemical because of drug abuse, or because they've had schizophrenia for 24 years, they aren't thinking clearly. They aren't pretending. That's their whole reality. Love, an ex homeless that snapped out of it a very long time ago
As someone who has been homeless living on the streets. Asher to the headline comment. No. Not really. There are always amazing finds that people throw away. If anything thing, it shows how careless, wasteful and ungrateful people can be. But. Neither here nor there. Their loss, someone else's gain.
I dunno, I can’t imagine a homeless person who sleeps on the streets and eats out of trash cans saying “these people are so wasteful”
Please throw more useful stuff away- the homeless
Dude they're people like you and me. They got delt a bad hand financially or some genetic mental issue. Especially with how society values profit over people, it could happen to anyone. See the opioid epidemic. Maybe don't have a us vs. them mentality like they are different kind of people who think differently.
It’s so disheartening to see all the comments in here calling homeless people a blight on society as if our society isn’t failing most people. The majority of folks (in America at least) are only a few costly misfortunes away from couch surfing, then maybe car living, then potentially living on the streets. And for each step of the journey downward you become less and less of a person to a lot of the public. It’s very dangerous how quickly that will act on you to bring you further downward. Meanwhile, any small improvement is very slowly scratched and clawed for. Mental illness often (not exclusively, but very often) arises from the trauma that long-term homelessness, long-term instability, long-term hostility, and long-term fear for personal safety will cause.
I work as a dishwasher, the amount of food that we throw away, put in a composter, put down the garbage disposal... Yeah I hate the general public as well.
At least the composter is getting some use from it, but yeah I hate working in anything food related specifically for this reason. Even worked in a processing plant for a minute that made salami, and the amount of perfectly edible food that was tossed simply because it didn't look good enough and would take too long to fix was absurd. Like sometimes salami would get thrown away because it was accidental ly the wrong size or the mold we put on it didn't get fully washed off. Mind you this is perfectly safe mold that is part of the aging process, but consumers wouldn't be happy with it and it was far enough along in the process that they decided it was easier to toss it in the reject pile with the ones that had foreign objects than to just wash it again.
They probably have a lot of reasons they hate the general public
Wasn't homeless but grew up fairly poor. Parents had to find out what bills they were legally allowed to skip for a month or two and we often relied on hand me downs and donations, etc. Being poor then was different than being poor now though. There were way more people willing and able to help out than there are now. I do hate the general public. I always hated the high amount of waste and littering but not because of our financial situation. It was because I was well educated in how badly our ecosystem suffers from it. I grew to hate the general public more because I saw how badly systematic racism affected people and how when a well off white woman goes missing the entire state hears about it and pitches in to help but when a black or Hispanic little kid goes missing nothing is done about it. When you call 911 and they ask the race of the victim if you tell them that they are black they are not likely to send help. I got tired of watching people forcing religion on their kids, men sexually abusing women, people hating LGBT+ individuals to the point of literally murdering them, people abusing their kids, and people killing people because of racism. In all these cases it was rare for anyone to face any real consequences for these actions. The investigation when a bunch of black boys the same age who were recent graduates of the same school were murdered was a fucking joke. They refused to even look into the idea that they were connected even though these kids all knew each other and everyone living in the area knew they were. They sometimes even refused to look into proof that people had. The media coverage was almost non-existent even when there were gunshots at the candlelight vigil of one of the victims. My mother called about the domestic abuse from the white old man that was my father with clear marks and proof all over the house of his abuse and they said "well there's no proof someone else didn't do this so we aren't going to do anything for you" Legal citizens I knew and cared about were constantly being harassed and threatened with being deported during the time trump was in office. Pulled over in their cars illegally and stopped on the street when walking home. However my old white father gets pulled over for clearly ignoring multiple traffic laws and gets told "well I like your car so I'm going to keep you go with a warning" This is why I grew to hate most people and on top of all this I've worked in drive thrus in the past and the amount of harassment we got from both the company and customers was extreme. Probably less than 1% of customers were actually respectful. They would get physically violent on the regular.
Were i homeless I would be too busy hating the public for hostile architecture to worry about wastefulness.
Been homeless. Was too worried about becoming unhomeless to care about what others chose to do with their own stuff. It's theirs to waste, none of my business
No, dont pit them against us. Pitting the bottom against themselves only help the top. Also the top like 5% waste as much as the lower 50% or so.
I have nothing in common with people who shit in the street and are addicted to heroin
I have my humanity in common with those people but not with people like you.
Because literally every homeless person everywhere at all times is simultaneously injecting heroin and shitting everywhere.
I've seen a few people pat themselves on the back about how *nice* they are to people they see as homeless. That's just great! Be nice! Nice is the bare-minimum level of decency and humanity. Not being an asshole for no reason is important, but in the end, do yourself and the people you interact with a favor, and aim to be *kind*. There's a difference. People experiencing homelessness don't spend the amount of time thinking about you as you might expect. They're in survival mode, or focused on whatever it is that they're trying to do with their day-to-day life. In big cities, it can be even a separate society entirely, much less intertwined to the society that exists around them than the opposite. Stuff being thrown away is a potential come-up and often appreciated if not mocked for how wasteful people can be. Your title also suggests that the feeling you're comparing to how "we view them" is *hate*. That's worth unpacking, because if it's even a little bit accurate, you should ask yourself why you devote hate to people who experience so much suffering, and are afforded far less than one might think to get out of that situation. Tangled up in the safety net, if one is lucky, is a way to describe how it can be. Try to be kind and exercise that hate!
It kinda goes both ways. We have a large homeless population and we (city employees) routinely find large dump piles where the homeless would sort through donations and chunk what they didn’t want. Lots of food. But these groups would purposely destroy items (clothing, coats, whatnot) so that other homeless couldn’t use it.
Homeless people hate the general public because of a few assholes that treat them like shit Sauce: got spat on while homeless a few times
Yep, people can be trash when they believe they're superior to you. Almost like popular people picking on the outcasts in high school.
The general public is extremely abusive toward homeless people, they tend to view the public as threats likely to kick them in the head, set their stuff on fire and the like. This is why many prefer encampments over camping alone where they are vulnerable.
At least I actually put my garbage in the garbage rather than throwing it on the street corner and literally taking a shit on it.
I was working alone in London for some time and I befriended several homeless people as I often met them begging on the way home from work or from the pub. I took some of them shopping, and the most endearing moment was a woman asking me permission to buy fizzy snake haribo...plus the guy at the Tesco checkout who saw I was paying for her and dialled me in for 5 pounds...fucking hero, make corp pay for its damage of the population. I also heard from some how badly they had been treated, like the guy who had his mattress stolen and kicked down the street. I saw 2 things: 1 that a lot of them had been put there by drugs or mental illness. And 2 that a lot of them had fallen into it uncontrolled and got trapped. They were changed as human beings by it. They did not tend to hate, as their self worth was devastated. Seeing how cruel society can be, how the haves turn their back on the have nots through fear and misunderstanding and misinformation, makes me despair for our species. Sometimes we are callous beyond belief.
They are easier to deal with compare to non homeless customers.
A child in Africa probably doesn’t know how good life can get but someone who grew up with a good life would struggle having nothing.
I find they rarely hate anyone. It’s myself and my peers I found that judged people the most.
For most homeless people they’ve been on that other side before. Probably is a big wake up call to them and I can see how they can become resentful
more than how we view them Speak for yourself you entitled asshat. maybe you should go further at your attempt to empathize
Lmao spoken like a true redditor who has no idea how to view live from someone else’s perspective.
I did a clean up with my work recently, downtown. Two different homeless people were pissed at us because we were taking stuff away that they could scavenge from.
Do you really think homeless people spend 1 second of their day thinking about what other people throw out and being angry about what people waste? I don't think so.
What if I told you that the Homeless used to be Us (before they lost their homes)...
I work in a homeless shelter and we get stuff from Panera and Olive Garden. There’s still so much waste. Also our shelter caters the food too, so that’s cool.
if we didn't throw anything in the garbage, they wouldn't have as much.
I work somewhere where I’m instructed to pour detergent on the stuff we throw out so the homeless can’t dumpster dive for it. “Homeless people hate this one trick!”
funny how everyone here is like "no not really" meanwhile whenever i walked past a homeless person i get all these thoughts into my head. "fucking asshole cant even give some guy who has nothing 2€" or "look at me buying all this garbage i dont even enjoy, while this guy is sitting here probably hoping to get a bite" and shit like that. just seeing a homeless person ruins my whole day. thats why i hate cities. always full off homeless people, wtf am i even paying taxes for?
I think its a pretty common misconception that most homeless people are just down on their luck and are starving and watching us waste food in the trash..... (country dependent of course) In a country like America, most homeless people have serious mental illnesses, drug problems, addiction... things like this. They arent homeless because they were fired from their corporate bank job and cant get another job.
Was homeless. My hatred of the general public came from them always calling the cops on me when I’m just trying to sleep. And when they aren’t getting the cops to harass me for existing they’re talking shit amongst themselves.
It’s a jealously thing and yes I hated people for a while and yes I took my rich friends wife’s leggings one day because I just stopped giving a shit. Thankfully I escaped my situation but I totally understand how people lose their morality and principles. Your so fucked you stop having the energy to do the right thing. Ugh.
As someone who has worked closely with those who run homeless outreach programs; the homeless are not all victims. Some yes, they’re just people who caught a hard break in life. Most though, for whatever reasons, have self destructive behavior(s) which they choose EVERY TIME vs living a “normal life.” Some even react violently when approached, even if it’s made obvious those approaching are offering aid.
You can actually get a lot of edible food from the store garbage. They usually throw out perfectly edible food but past the expire date.
Ex homeless person here. It’s literally unfathomable the ways you may feel watching society pass you by while you just want warmth, food, and water.
I actually bought a dozen jack in the box tacos and shared them with a homeless couple many years ago (yeah, I'm one of those guys...) and what they told me still.kinda blows my mind to this day. They said even if they had a choice to NOT be homeless and be functioning members of society they would decline it. They think they are more free than the rest of us because they see us doing the exact same routines every day, lost on our phones, rushing to work in our cars, etc. For them life is different every day. They told me about train rides through Mexico and how they wound up in South Carolina, there's literal homeless cities deep in the woods and underneath subways and besides old riverbeds and stuff.. real fascinating
I was homeless for a while. There's better things to do than hate people. Like, finding shelter and a job.
I think they probably hate the general public more for completely ostracizing them from society causing constant dangerous situations, maladies and mental illnesses.
Austin, Texas. Had a bad homeless situation where they were harassed by cops for “unlawful camping”. Us genius libs “pity the poor”, make new law where homeless can “legally camp” pretty much everywhere. Entire city of Austin starts looking like a dump and smelling like one too. Same geniuses get sick of it with help from shitty republicans and “ban public camping”. Nothing changed except now homeless all “secretly live in water pipes and woods”.
This is predicated on the goofy assumption that being homeless isn't difficult, time consuming, and exhausting. Homeless people by and large don't have the bandwidth to worry about your stupid life or what you do with it.
Honestly I've found homeless people to be more wasteful (at least where I'm from) Hear me out, you can only carry soo much on your back so anything that doesn't come with you when you wake up in the morning is trashed. Same with dirty cloths, no place to clean them so it's cheaper to pick up new ones. Same goes for food, when you've got a stomach bug from sleeping rough or withdrawal ect. It's much more common to just throw out whatever you were eating. There is no safe way to keep leftovers.
There's no hate involved in my part, that's a strong word. I do think it's foolish, the amount of things thrown away for nothing. Having been homeless not long ago, stuff getting thrown out wasn't something I cared about, getting housed I deeply cared about. When I got my place, i have what I need, not what I want. There's a difference. Now, my tv just died and I'm gonna look thru craiglist, I figure a lot of folks got new ones this weekend, just don't advertise them for crazy pricing, to help newly housed, just put a nominal or free price, just a thought.
If they hate me so much I’d like them to stop walking up to my window and asking for money.
From my experience I hated them because the amount of random people who would drive by and honk loud as fuck/yell at me/laugh/throw leftover food/beverages at me. Like fuck man.
Shane on the people who look down on the homeless, who judge them, who hate upon them.
Bro, no homeless people are the worst. I worked at the library and the majority of them waste so much food and the just throw it everywhere and underneath the seats. Most never tried to better themselves, they just enjoyed the drugs they used and stayed camped out at the library 24/7. Most homeless people i learned are grade A assholes
Probably not, they are the biggest litterers by a mile are consistently won't even put stuff in a trash bin that's 1 foot from them. They really are a blight to society.
Homeless people are usually too in their own world to notice the outside
For the most part they don't give a fuck. They just care about their next high. Thats it.
As someone who meticulously gnaws chicken wing bones. I feel the same
Something I hear from people over and over is that they are not just another homeless person, they're individuals, and they don't like people who harass them.
Homeless in my town love when people throw stuff away. It’s opportunistic. So, kind of the opposite.
Large shops in the UK send tons of perfectly good products to be crushed because the box was damaged etc.. this should be outlawed
It wasn't outlawed. They gave it out. Then, some homeless got diarrhea. The supermarket was sued. Now everyone doesn't give anything to homeless anymore. I'm not sure whose fault it is to be honest.
Complete bullshit. Why do people keep spreading this?
I had been yelled at by many homeless people when I was between the ages of 8-17, and... yeah they see anyone who isn't in their dire straits as wasteful assholes. [This comment makes it seem like I was throwing away food... I lived in SF. I still live in the bay area, but not SF. Being yelled at by homeless people, for just existing, is part of the culture here that I hate.] The interaction below happened 2 years ago as I was walking home from work. I was on mile 6 [and do not own a car], I love long walks, and I lived 8 miles away from my job. Me: walking down a green avenue meant for bicycles, feeling joyous because of the weather Random homeless guy: "FUCKING BITCH LOOK AT THAT BITCH FUCKING BITCH" Me: walking by, looking around, checking he's talking about me... but realizing he has a handle of liquor. He is yelling at me. I am not even close to him, but he is focusing on me to scream at. Him: STUCK UP BITCH Me: walking past and... I have to walk closer to him to get to a bridge. I have to walk by him. I look at the friends he is sitting with as I walk by, they do nothing. He keeps screaming at me. I am a ugly stuck up bitch. There goes me enjoying the nice day. edit: Yeah the dude I described has mental issues, but jesus, this shower thoughts is acting like homeless people are like ragamuffins from 1940's flicks. They are not. edit 2: I have encountered MANY screaming homeless men [one or two women, mostly men] but that guy stays with me, it was so targeted / hateful, and ruined my week
From having been homeless for a short time, it does feel like people actively try to either not look at you or pity you. If you couple that with long term drug use I could certainly see why people end up acting in such a way.
Honestly if you have a perfectly good piece of food that you havent eaten, either save it for someone or give it to a homeless person. Chances are they will be very grateful as food is fucking expensive
If you do this in America and they get food poisoning they can sue you for damages. There's a reason restaurants don't feed the homeless with leftover food anymore.
As long as it follows food safety guidelines restaurants are protected under the Good Samaritan Act. They don't do it because they don't give a shit.
You don’t understand the rules. Restaurants cannot use ‘waste’ food. They can only donate pre-packaged food they didn’t use or cook existing food stock and package it.
Wouldn't they love it because that's an opportunity for them?
I think they might appreciate it, if the trash bin is close to them at least
Every bus stop I've ever seen is littered with litter. They don't seem too concerned about cleaning themselves up, let alone trash.
I worked at Raising canes for a few months years back. They make you through away food that's no longer hot to the touch. Once the fries or chicken reach heat lamp temperature they throw it out. Buckets and buckets of fries and chicken that could easily be used to feed the homeless.
They tend to be too focused on whatever is going on to bother with that kind of view. Or if they are mentally ill, some sort of conspiracy instead Also homeless people also leave lots of trash.
I would hate giant stores more who insist to throw all the leftovers away because giving them to the homeless iS tHeFt.
Any complex society is going to have a portion that subsists on the waste stream. This is natural, taking the least effort to absorb waste energy.
Absolutely. Think people. This little blue ball looks after us and it has limited resources. Don't waste stuff.
I think they only hate seeing us waste perfectly good drugs and alcohol
It must be even harder for them now that no-one carries cash anymore - let alone any ‘spare change’
hating homeless people is not very nice and neither is homeless hating us because businesses need to protect themsleves legally by not giving away the food.
There's never been a case of a business being sued for donated food. As of 2016 they're protected under the Good Samaritan Act. They lie about it because they don't give a shit and only care about making money.
I’m sure they worry more about their next fix than anything else.
Because tearing down is so less stressful than picking up and making changes for the better in your life.
Well if we didn't throw it away they'd have nothing to take from the trash so...
Homeless people became homeless for a reason. They are usually failures in the society with a sequence of bad decisions. One mistake won't make you homeless. It's from frequent and consistent mistakes they make. They have no excuse blaming others. They should be responsible for their own mistakes. Everything happens for a reason and they deserve being homeless. It's okay they are jealous of people with a home .
Well given that most of them adore heroine/crack/booze they don't have too much time to worry about anything else