Living basic to save on bills

[boatman]

It was on Oahu that we found a strange situation on Waikiki beach. People holidaying in tents and homeless people living next door to them in tents. On the mainland we met several homeless. One was an old crippled couple who seemed to live on a pier. We have homeless in the UK but this couple would have been swept up by the social services. As it was they seemed to get nothing from the state.

I loved the visit to the USA but it did strike me as a very hard place if you were destitute.

 

[British Red]

I've never lived on the street.

Clearly

I suppose one could say these people have no value. They are unquestionably a public nuisance

From someone who has been homeless there is no "they". The homeless are just people - there are drunk, sober, upper class, lower class, indolent, hard working, clean, dirty and all other types of homeless (although I'm not sure why you brought ethnicity into it - all races too by the way).

There are common problems caused by not having a "fixed abode" - lack of cooking and washing facilities are amongst them but even the simplest problems such a if you need a referral for specialist medical treatment, you cannot be contacted (no phone, no address). However some homeless find work, albeit usually cash work - usually dirty manual work - and eventually save enough to break the cycle. Certainly not all are the "public nuisance" you describe - because you probably do not even recognise them as homeless.

 

[BlueTrain]

The only reason I mention the Asians, if that's what you meant, was to show that I was in other parts of London besides where the tourists visit, for what it's worth. I was not suggesting there is any racial characteristics among the homeless, although there may be. Don't ask me.

I didn't invent any of those words and other use the expression "public nuisance," because, to them, they, the homless, are. And their solution to their perceived problem (their problem, not the problems of the homess) is just to get them to go somewhere else. Of course, that sort of thing happens to people who actually own houses, not just the homeless, but that's a different story.

There is also in this country a population of migrant workers who spend their lives moving around mostly doing farm work, especially at harvest time. They usually live in what might described as camps and camps they are, because they are there only temporarily. They have families, too. So among other things, children may not attend school. But these people do have an economic function, to be sure.

The funny thing about this thread is that the whole point of the forum, as I see it, is about a sort of primitive life. It's all about camping, self-reliance, getting out of the house and so on. Then there are people who actually have to live like that.