Afore ye go

[JesusTitties]

So
Recently here where i live we got a massive snowstorm, and since i live downtown in the core i see several homeless people (and hookers) every night. Tonight while at work, i observed about 4 homeless people sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk with winds and snowstorm hitting them. It basically looks like a bundle of blankets but anyone from the city knows what is underneath them.
The smarter ones sleep on the sewers/subway system exhaust grates where a bit of warmth creeps upward.

In the country, having a different social healthcare system than most others - id say that about 50% of our homeless, give or take, have some sort of mental health disorder that is diagnosable. Yet they slip through our healthcare system for whatever reasons, and end up on the street. These are the people in which i am *not* refering to.

When you observe something that is considerably different than what you are used to, such as a homeless person you sometimes cant help but put yourself in their shoes and imagine what you would do. If i were homeless, then chances are i have no skills and no education whatsoever. So be it.

But would you not be able to find a job to at least let your days pass? Washing dishes 4 hrs per day, work an assembly line. Anything. Take out trash at a local chinese food restaurant. I realize that a lot of this needs an address, work clothes, a social insurance number etc, but these are elementary problems to fix, and if i were homeless i could easily get around them.

Secondly, if you CHOOSE to live on the street - and get a low level job then technically outside of food would you not after a few months actually have quite a bit of money saved after not having to pay for living expenses?

The question remains - 'perhaps these people simply choose not to work, and choose to live on the street in the blistering cold'.
Fair enough, i can live with that.
But it seems that the homeless squeegie kids and/or the beggars outside of restaurants i always see technically are "working", just not what our society permittingly refers to as an occupation.
Call me logical, but if it came down to living on the street no matter what, and dodging cars at a traffic intersection for a few cents per windshield.....or living on the streets and washing dishes in the back of some shitty restaurant 4 hrs per day at 9 bucks an hour, you know what i am going to choose.

And lets not forget shelters. Yes, they are violent and i could only imagine the walks of life that are in these places which would seem to be a pillar for even the homeless....but could you not just swallow your objections for a few nights during the frigid winter temperatures? Christ, the city taxpayers...myself included, pays for these government housing homes. Dont use them its ok, but dont lay out on the god damn street at -40C and freeze to death.

Anyways, i try my hardest to understand and inject all variables from both sides, and yet these are the issues that i constantly cant get around.