What? No GIFT CARD?

Homelessness for Stupid People

The foibles of the most pampered homeless population in the Bay Area...

I'm on Twitter. Yech, yes, I know, I'm going to Hell! Please don't beat me up! But I'm subscribed to a lot of Activists for the Homeless who tweet amazing things about how these huge programs are going to solve homelessness... I'd love to wake these people up from their fantasies...

There's a frequent blog responder named Special Ed who these activists should probably talk to. He wrote the following:

“I've written in the past that I am one of those who is perfectly willing to give whatever I have to help people who are trying to help themselves. It's the abusers that annoy me. I know that I should not be judgemental but I'm not perfect and quite honestly I'm more than a little fed up.”

Wrong, Special Ed, it's okay to be judgemental. In my less than humble opinion there's not enough of it going around... I've seen plenty of what it is you're talking about. If these attitudes that create the kind of behaviour you're talking about are not corrected, nothing will ever get solved.

I mentioned, in passing, in a previous blog how Keith And Nancy, a married couple that used to sit on The Rock in front of the I580 Safeway told volunteers that the volunteers needed to pay their rent because the volunteers simply hadn't done enough to help Keith and Nancy. Keith and Nancy are just that deserving. That happened some time ago, and as many little incidents that have happened since, I've let a lot of those fade away from memory. This blog would have twice as many blog postings if I chronicled all of them.

More recently, Mariah had a birthday. Mariah isn't homeless. She's doesn't even live in Livermore. She lives in an apartment near BART in Dublin. But she shows up at Vineyard most Monday Mornings and most Thursday Afternoons.

It's easy to feel sorry for Mariah. She had some sort of accident which left her with some brain damage. She's obviously lonely, and her motives for coming to where the homeless are probably have a lot to do with some need to be around people... but I don't read minds, that's conjecture.

Mariah gets a whole lot of sympathy from the volunteers, or has in the past...

Anyway, it was her birthday this last week...

My good friend, I'll call this person The Former Masochist (TFM), was thoughtful enough to buy Mariah a cake for her birthday... I saw the cake. It wasn't an inexpensive cake, and it was more than enough to share with a lot of people. TFM was already unhappy with Mariah, since Mariah had given TFM a list of items TFM needed to bring Mariah for Mariah's birthday... I can't remember them... I just remember it being something of a frivolous list of expensive stuff.

Later that day, TFM gets a text from Mariah telling TFM that TFM had “ruined” Mariah's birthday with that cake! RUINED! It was all TFM's fault that the rest of Mariah's day went to hell, and TFM didn't even include a gift card... THE NERVE!

Over the years I've seen this kind of thing in a lot of pre-teen and young teenagers (and some older teenagers) who treat their parents this way. It's the parents job to give the kid anything they want all the time no matter what or there's hell to pay... NOT! I hope any parent reading this gets what I'm trying to say here... overindulgence is just... wrong.

One of the things that I do take are shirts. I've had most of my shirts for well over a year and I take good care of them. Mickey Kundert and Bob and Donna McKenzie both run clothing lockers on two different days. It's something they do very well. One of the things Donna will do is this: every time she finds a shirt that's “my style” (button down plaid) she'll save it for me... I haven't taken one in some time. I just haven't needed them any. I love those that I have and hope to keep the for some time to come.

But there are certain people who are so used to getting free stuff, free services, free everything, they seem to have come to expect it, as if it's a right they have. All you have to do is show up, no effort is required! Just enjoy!

Mariah is one of abusers that fits Special Ed's description. TFM told Mariah “I'm done with you!” this week to Mariah's face. I was there! That's why it's “Former” and not “Current” Masochist! I was so proud of my friend!

So, Special Ed, TFM, in the end, had to be judgemental in order to end the cycle of abuse by Mariah. Mariah's not the only one who's abused TFM, but a lot of that is coming to an end as well. TFM's experiences, I'm betting money, probably mirror yours.

I wish I could put Special Ed, TFM and some other volunteers in front of a bunch of bound and gagged activists and force them to listen instead of pontificate and seek to spend everyone else's money... that would be so much fun to see...