SlumJack - You made some great points. I agree that we need to get you and everyone else off the streets - or out of dangerous/unhealthy shelter/housing situations - and into safe rentals. Many poor who are not currently homeless are in awful housing - not much above the streets - it seems that we, as a society, need to shift our priorities and realize that everybody matters - not just the rich. We all deserve a safe place to live, nutritious food, clean clothes, access to medical care and something to "do" that we (as individuals) feel adds value to the world. It's not surprising that in our "throw-away" society we dismiss people too - but, it's disappointing and hard to understand/deal with!

At a local church event last Christmas, there was a free "give-away" to the poor in our area. Other than checking in people at the main desk, nobody spoke with any of the "poor". They "herded" people into groups and sent them into a big room to choose 3-4 "gifts" for the holidays. Fifteen minutes into the event, someone rang bells and walked around shouting "It's time to go - others are waiting for their turn. You've got to go now." All of this was at a church. 

While not everyone likes people "praying" with them at events like this, I felt like the "human element" was totally dismissed. It would have made more sense to at least ask each individual if they wanted prayer or information about the church. If someone said "no", then the volunteer could have said "goodbye" or "goodnight" and respected their wishes. But, at least there would have been the appearance of compassion. Better yet, they could have had people offer to "shop" with the poor. There were so many people who walked out with 1-2 things (or just grabbed anything) because they were just overwhelmed by the chaos.

When people "help" they need to be careful not to make those they are helping feel worse than before they "helped" them. It's often so awkward - both the poor and the volunteers seem uncomfortable... it's too bad there's not more "training" for those who do care and want to do the right thing.

I'm not a fan of "forced conversation"...it's just that forced conversation may have been less awkward than what I witnessed. It's a church, everyone there expected someone to offer prayer...and nobody did...it was really strange.

Sadly, too many at our churches have forgotten about Jesus. When He walked the earth, He not only healed and fed people - he LISTENED and provided COMMUNITY. Many of us just want to be heard and acknowledged...maybe even respected...poor or not. We all really have the same needs. We really could do better at meeting them.

I'm not saying the shelter system works.

So I should say adequate housing fixes house-lessness?

Those situations you described, would adequate housing not fix house-lessness?

It seems like there is - or could be - enough housing for poor people.

In the want ads, there are always rentals available and most of the apartment complexes in my area post signs all weekend long advertising openings. In light of the foreclosure situation, there are also houses/townhomes/condos sitting empty. Matter-of-fact, in some communitites they are actually tearing down homes and neighborhoods. The housing is "there", it seems we just need to fully fund the section 8 program (or whatever they're now calling it) and let people have homes to live in.

It's about priorities and funding. There is no need to have anyone on the street or in a shelter. For "temporary" emergencies, hotel/motel rooms could be subsidized. For "longer term" situations, section 8 (or something similar) could allow for more stable housing.

If we closed the shelters, wouldn't we have the funding to offer rental assistance? Those working in shelter settings could rent cheaper office space and act as "social workers" or "case workers" to help connect people to resources. Just thinking out loud...

Some of the (more like many of the) "social workers" I've met in shelters don't have the personality to BE a social worker - they lack important qualities like kindness and compassion and instead approach every person and their situation like Dr. Phil as if everything can be solved with a platitude and a kick in the ***.  These people no more deserve to be a social worker than a homeless person (or anyone else in search of assistance) deserves to encounter them during their search for assistance.  Sure, I realize social work is hard work and this can be one of the harder (or hardest) populations with which to work, but if you're so burnt out you're taking your frustrations out on your clients; it's time for a long vacation or even a career change.

Plus there's the legal side to things.  Like ownership.  Many of the owners don't want to rent and likely wouldn't sell to such programs either - and how long do we want to wait for condemnations to go through?  Would condemnation even work for this?

As to section 8 and similar programs, fixing them, funding them (appropriately) and admitting that we've made a lot of people have "housing" by playing definition games (like if you sleep in your can - bingo! you've got a home!) - could go a long way toward helping.  So could a more functional public housing system that quit spending so much of its budget on mixed-income (i.e. housing for the middle classes) housing.  While we're at it, work on education of tenants where appropriate to help those from other nations or who've spent a long time on the streets or in places resembling dens of wolves so that they no longer know how you're supposed to live in an apartment AND on the other hand where tenants HONESTLY present dangers to the other residents remove the obstacles that can make it take months to years to evict someone who's there on a program like Section 8.

I think if you check very few of those workers would actually be qualified Social Workers.

I don't know about the ones of whom Jody was speaking, but I've run across plenty who worked as "social workers" or as "case managers" whether or not they were fully qualified (I'd suspect you're right that few really were, since many assistance agencies and public health agencies cut any and every possible corner - and a great place to cut is a "qualification" corner since hiring an under or flat out not really qualified worker is MUCH cheaper than the worker who's qualified).  But typically, the ones I've seen working as "social workers" or "case managers" had the sort of temperament of Scrooge before he'd been visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past with a bit of the bosses from The Jungle mixed in for added interest. Also, quite a few had issues with things like professionalism and/or basic ethics - never mind the previously mentioned compassion in my prior post. 

When I was working and not working in a darkened room full of computer and networking gear, I tended to do volunteer work with one or another group of people in poverty and often these were people struggling also with disadvantages like language barriers or disabilities.  I know that social work, even informally as a volunteer is HARD at times - but if you can't approach it with a decent attitude you're only making it harder both for them AND you.  There ought to be some sort of sensor built into the system that weeds out bad attitudes and burn outs for mandatory vacation or paperwork processing in some office far, far away from any interaction with people.  Or at least this would be ideal for everyone.  Now that I've seen both sides.  This and can whatever loophole allows using "sort ofs" and "almosts" as actual social workers and case workers.

I know someone who works with a monkey in the circus. The monkey jumps through hoops. It's pretty entertaining!

Maybe we could get him to help us out with training those employed by shelters/pantries you mention so homeless people can better jump through hoops. It's good to make them jump through hoops hey.

Come on, lets give people their dignity. You sound very removed from any understanding of homeless people.

This sort of thing is what peeves me about being very poor due to disability and terrifies me about the ever looming possibility of a return to homelessness due to any fickle blow from the financial (or life) winds.  So many of the "assistance" programs DEPEND upon having you spend hours at first do nothing but prove who you are, why you're there, that you really do need the help, blah, blah, blah then again not too much later recertifying all those same things - that who has time to do much of anything else?  Ok, so I'm poor, I'm disabled and due to things like family that flat out doesn't give a damn I have to ask the community and government for help - but that doesn't make me a lab rat or a circus animal here for anyone and everyone to poke and prod for their curiosity or amusement in return for any "help" they may extend.  Nor does it excuse making any "help" so miserable that it SHOULD have been trash or closed & cleaned (and restaffed).  Poor and/or homeless people are still human and still deserving of whatever tiny shreds of dignity society has allowed us to keep.  "Help" has no right to take that away as its price - and yet it most often does.

I hear ya', Danetta. Now that you mention it, here's something I still wonder about:

Every time I go to one of these agencies, they have this huge pile of forms to fill out, most of which are incredibly redundant, requiring one to write the same info over and over and over again. Print, please. And, often, leaving these little, insufficient spaces to do so.

All the while the social worker sits behind their computer. And, once all the forms are complete, they'll have you verbally recite the same info while they type it in to the system... which is exactly what they should have done the first time, printing out whatever paper documents are necessary for signatures, but with all that basic info already typed in.

And the predictability of errors, even in name/address, etc. despite having been provided so very many times is absurd!

The latest trend, which I again encountered the other day, is now to have to get "receipts" for having turned various mandatory documents in. Their disappearances, inhouse, are THAT chronic.

But I need help, so what could I know?

When I've managed properties, one of my most basic drills is to rework ALL of the myriad property lease/tenant documents, so that they look/feel consistent, make sense and are easily identifiable, so that the basic info is automated into whatever other items need it, etc. And these are only very rarely "lost" somehow.