h a l f b a k e r yWhy not imagine it in a way that works?
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Ever wonder how the other side lives? Want a life-shaking experience that will guarantee insight and humility? Trade the use of you home for a week foraging in dumpsters and waiting in soup lines for your next meal. Spend your days in smelly clothes, begging handouts and conversing on park benches while
passing the bottle. After an evening of camaraderie, around a fire under a bridge, you may end up sleeping under the stars, in a shelter, underground or in a cell.
Meanwhile some homeless will be getting refreshed and recuperated in your home. After a shower and borrowing some of your clothes, they’ll try out your wheels, your soft bed and maybe even post some ideas on your still logged-on account.
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I take it this explains some of your contributions? |
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I already know how the other side lives. I work, I pay taxes, they get social security. If I run out of money, I do without something; if they run out of money, they get more. |
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I quite like the idea of being homeless for a week, but returning to a house smelling of homeless people wouldn't be great. Have you seen the Simpsons episode where the Cooters steal their house? And the thng is I'm not as clever as Homer so I probably couldn't get my house back. |
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angel: pray tell me where this limitless fount of social security money lies, because living in Britain I have not as yet come across it. I think you may need closer experience of the realities of homelessness, and should sign up for this scheme forthwith. |
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Pottedstu: It's all in a big cardboard box under Gordon Brown's bed, stuffed full of the money that he's sneaked of people who work for a living. He's just not giving it out much, that's all. |
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Glass eyes don't come cheap. <off-topic> Has anyone else noticed that, at the end of each sentence, our Iron Chancellor sucks his bottom lip into his open mouth? *That* is the reason he will never be PM. </off-topic> |
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I'll pass on the home exchange with homeless program, but if you can direct me to the home exchange with billionaires program I'd appreciate it. |
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There are enough fairly decrepit houses that homelessness could be decided for the homeless once and enough. Just give the first homeless person that applies for it the abandoned, ramshackle, or taxed-to-default property that meets the sheriff's sale roles. |
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After a period of time, reasses the property. If the homeless applicants make improvements and clean the place, they stay. If the applicants meet the property tax requirement, the property becomes provisionally theirs. You, as a neighbor, get fined by the city for bitching -- so unless you want to pay the taxes and the cleanup, keep quiet. (note, there has to be a loophole, or affluent cheapskates will never pass their power to a measure that conflicts with their entitled sense of NIMBY) |
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Slashed funding for mental health facilities ensures that many of the homeless people in the city where I live would be unable to uphold their end of the deal or even understand it. |
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An excellent, if extremely watered-down, version of this idea is the Doctors Without Borders "refugee camp" that the organization set up in my city last year. Maybe they do it elsewhere, too. The camp was set up outside of City Hall for a weekend, and groups of visitors were guided through it by an ex-refugee or experienced DWB staffer. My guide was an ethnic Albanian refugee from the former Yugoslavia who now works full-time for DWB. We saw the typical accommodations, water situation, food situation, medical facilities, etc. Two of the most moving aspects of the camp were refugee children's before-and-after drawings of their hometowns (think Rwanda and Chechnya) and a display of landmines. Nothing can replace visiting a real refugee camp, I realize, but I still learned a lot. |
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[pottedstu]: You and I are never going to agree on this matter, and I'm not going to get into an argument about it, but please don't claim that you've never seen anyone who is unemployed but has more money than you. In my eight years as a bus driver, I took countless people to the dole office every week and the same people to the 'working' men's club every night. A guy who worked with me resigned because, having four children, he would be better off on the dole. My sister hasn't worked for over twenty years, and she still goes out socializing most evenings. |
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if you are that upset about the lavish lifestyle about the unemployed and homeless than the solution is simple. |
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quit your job and move into the nearest abandoned tube station. then you too will be able to enjoy socializing with friends in the evening and driving to the dole office in the morning! |
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No thinking person would continue to work and live in a sheltered environment given the dire situation you have just described. |
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[wimp35]: No thanks; some people have principles. |
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::quitting all work and moving into card board box:: |
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::awaiting free fun nights out:: |
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