Bob- Just a couple of things to think about.

As far as i know, people without a permanent address can't get food stamps. And do you ever wonder why some people can't get a permanent address. When I was in New York, I knew guys who were homeless. The city would give them $25/night vouchers to use in flea-bag city-sanctioned SRO hotels. THink about that. That's $750 a month. Now for $750/month each, two homeless peopele could get an aparment in Manhattan (this was the early 90s, when you could still get an apartment in NYC for $1500). BUT, if they got an apartment, they were no longer homeless -- so they lose the subsidy. So basically, the government is willing to pay them $750/month to live like animals, but nothing if they get their act together. Do you think this inspires pride in yourself, or in your surroundings?

But my real problem with your post, and the posts of some others, is your willingness to lump every homeless person together. Yes, there are very definitely some peopel who could try harder. There are also the mentally ill. There are victims of abuse -- women who had to leave their husbands with nothing because they were being beaten. People who left home at 14 because their father was raping them. Once they get ont he street they are abused by cops, treated like animals. No education. They turn tricks to make a buck, get arrested, now they have a criminal record. Hey maybe they try drugs (as many of us have), and they're among the unfortunate group who can't handle them and get addicted. You know, when Jeb Bush's daughter gets hooked on coke, he bails her out. Who is a kid who left home because her dad was raping her supposed to turn to?

Sure, I know, bleeding heart sob stories. The truth is, for every one of the people I described, there is a lazy "bum" that you describe. But the people I describe are real, no matter how much we want to deny their existence. And I don't think that anything you or I have been through compares.

And for the record, I've never been homeless, but I had to do some disgusting jobs to avoid it. I lost my job a week after getting married and moving to New York, and had to tend bar in a Bowery dive where I had to pick junkies off the bathroom floor to pay my rent. But I had middle-class white parents and the education that they paid for to help me land that lousy job.

Anyway-

thanks for the debate