It only takes ~10 people a day offering $5 to pay for a cheap motel for the night. And yes, survival is the number one priority. A motel room provides a locked door, a shower, a bed, and peace of mind for a whole day.
Shelters are chronically over-capacity and prioritize women and children. Ask yourself, what demographic do you typically see panhandling in your area? I know who they are near me, and those people deserve survival too.
Also shelters often require things like drug/sobriety tests and restrictive curfews that would prevent homeless from holding down evening jobs, which are some of the most common types of jobs available in that situation.
I don't know where you live, but there is not a single place in my city where I can't find water to drink, a cheap or free bite to eat, or even a dumpster full of edible, contained food, and of course, a steady stream of people thinking that their 1 of 5 meal offers in a day will somehow solve the 'roof' problem.
I'm not telling you not to offer food. But if they are not hungry and you would have spent $5 on a burger, but not 1/10th of a motel, you are judging, not helping.
I'm also not telling you not to donate to shelters. If we all did, things might be better systemically. Personally, I am highly in favor of a far greater tax contribution to housing people. But that struggling person on the street corner today won't get the help they need from wishful thinking or even a spare $5 to the shelter. But they could have a bed to sleep in tonight instead of a piece of cardboard if you give to them directly today.
They likely can't buy shelter with a fiver or whatever you decide to give them either. The truth is that charities, food banks, and churches are much better equipped to supply the homeless with what they need because it isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, which is why I donate to those organizations instead of trying to hand out money.
What world do you live in that a fiver can buy someone a substantive quantity of hard, addictive drugs? You're being completely disengenious here and asserting more moral policing. The absolute worst case scenario is that they use my fiver to get just enough of a hit to stave off withdrawal symptoms, and even if that's the only relief I give them, it's still better than offering more food to someone who isn't hungry.
The solutions you are suggesting are turning away the addicts, the ones who need help the most. I'll happily put it directly in their hands over giving it to a church with an ulterior motive to push their religious views onto the most vulnerable class of people, thanks.
Offering food is fine, if they are hungry and they want it. But if they decline food when that is not the type of help they need is not some admission of guilt, as it is so often portrayed to be. Often, they're rightly skeptical of food from a stranger. Some will accept it to be polite but throw it out for their own safety. It only takes me and ~9 or so other people offering them that fiver to pay for a night's stay in a cheap motel. Offering supplies if they refuse your food is also great to help them with urban camping, but too many supplies is also a liability where they now need to be concerned about theft. Packing light is just as much a survival tactic.
So yes, let's be real here and help people with what they need not what you think they need. If that's relief from withdrawal for a night, so be it. If it's saving for a motel, even better. But services contingent on passing drug tests is not helping any drug addicts, it's just putting them back onto the street.
Nobody has ever gotten a home from food and supplies, but they sure as hell do with money.
Worth pointing out that most people who help will offer food, but you can only eat so many times a day. Food is plentiful in developed nations. Most restaurants/grocery stores are throwing away and donating tons of food a day, these people will know where to get it.
You can't buy shelter with food. Supplies are great, but they also wont help someone off of the street.
It's not an easy problem to solve, but when I'm helping someone I don't think it's my place to be the morality police. In a perfect world, we would have systems in place to help these people overcome, or prevent it in the first place . But we don't live in a perfect world.
You can use the steam deck launch option on any PC, but yeah it's really fucking dumb. Reminder to back www.stopkillinggames.com to end these bullshit practices
I used to be a big fan of rhythm games on android, but the loss of the headphone jack has completely killed it for me. Bluetooth latency is still like 200ms, it's insane. I can't stand to even watch video with it
Yes with an emulator. Look up dolphin for the gamecube version or torzu for switch. Dolphin + gamecube will be easier to run if your laptop isn't very powerful
Right. I can watch a restream of 15+ tiktok lives in the middle of the action, why would I watch fox news push narratives for 55min an hour, with a 5min clip of a burning car or someone spraying graffiti
Yeah it's pretty bleak, although there have been some moves towards right to repair in recent years.
Respecting companies is always a bit fraught though. Even the ones you like are only doing it to profit off of your niche. It's thanks to us that they even have a profitable niche to serve
AA is where it's at now. There's still insanely good games coming out, there just not by companies like EA and Activision anymore.
In some ways I think the good development studios are the same size they've always been, it's just that a new class of mainstream games has risen to profit on the masses. If you ignore those, it's not so bad. At least not until one of the AAA publishers gets their hands on them to ruin the IP and layoff the original devs
Moral members of society have an inherent obligation to be activists, for as long as marginalized groups exist.
That doesn't mean you have to be 'out', but if you're standing by and watching your fellow humans be marginalized when you could be offering help, that is wholly immoral, and frankly you don't deserve the safety that you are enjoying when you won't seek it for your fellow people.
It only takes ~10 people a day offering $5 to pay for a cheap motel for the night. And yes, survival is the number one priority. A motel room provides a locked door, a shower, a bed, and peace of mind for a whole day.
Shelters are chronically over-capacity and prioritize women and children. Ask yourself, what demographic do you typically see panhandling in your area? I know who they are near me, and those people deserve survival too.
Also shelters often require things like drug/sobriety tests and restrictive curfews that would prevent homeless from holding down evening jobs, which are some of the most common types of jobs available in that situation.
I don't know where you live, but there is not a single place in my city where I can't find water to drink, a cheap or free bite to eat, or even a dumpster full of edible, contained food, and of course, a steady stream of people thinking that their 1 of 5 meal offers in a day will somehow solve the 'roof' problem.
I'm not telling you not to offer food. But if they are not hungry and you would have spent $5 on a burger, but not 1/10th of a motel, you are judging, not helping.
I'm also not telling you not to donate to shelters. If we all did, things might be better systemically. Personally, I am highly in favor of a far greater tax contribution to housing people. But that struggling person on the street corner today won't get the help they need from wishful thinking or even a spare $5 to the shelter. But they could have a bed to sleep in tonight instead of a piece of cardboard if you give to them directly today.