It is appalling to me that anyone with the caliber of ability this person has, clear from her writing, ever became homeless in the first place (not that I'm saying anyone deserves to be homeless).
I do have a few questions though:
>The other reason this website does not list homeless services is because I became increasingly concerned about creating a website that could serve as an attractive nuisance. In other words, I didn't want to cause problems for a particular area by advertising all the free meal sites and the like in that area and potentially having homeless people from elsewhere flock to that area and overwhelm their services.
1) How common was this attitude among your fellow homeless?
My experience is that people in American cities rarely feel a sense of "ownership" for keeping things nice around them, much less homeless people who are probably focused on survival.
2) Have you been accused of "pulling the ladder up behind you" for not sharing whatever info you had, and how would you respond to that?
It is appalling to me that anyone with the caliber of ability this person has, clear from her writing, ever became homeless in the first place
I have a serious medical condition. As best I can tell, this is a much more common root cause of homelessness than the addiction and mental health issues that get so much more attention.
1) How common was this attitude among your fellow homeless? My experience is that people in American cities rarely feel a sense of "ownership" for keeping things nice around them, much less homeless people who are probably focused on survival.
I can't really answer that.
I didn't interact that much with other homeless individuals. I did my best to stay away from both other homeless individuals and homeless services.
I'm a woman. Most street homeless are male and they were pretty quick to sexually harass me as one of the few females in their perceived "price range" so to speak
I also avoided other homeless people for germ control reasons due to the aforementioned medical condition.
2) Have you been accused of "pulling the ladder up behind you" for not sharing whatever info you had, and how would you respond to that?
Nope. The San Diego Homeless Survival Guide remains online. Whatever info it had is still accessible. Everyone who talks to me about such things seems to see me as a valued homeless advocate.
The Yimby wiki lists multiple of my websites and the local police department has been handing out my flyers listing my websites for over a year.
The fact that I've moved on to focusing on other types of info has not gotten me accused of abandoning the cause because I haven't.
Standard practice in most locales seems to be to share such info via paper handouts rather than putting it online. I think that's a best practice for helping local homeless individuals find the resources they need without creating an attractive nuisance.
>I have a serious medical condition. As best I can tell, this is a much more common root cause of homelessness than the addiction and mental health issues that get so much more attention.
I'm just now realizing that my (and possibly other's) unpleasant interactions with homeless people probably skewed my sense of how many homeless are mentally ill or drug addicted -- simply because those are the ones more likely to accost people on the street.
It's worth noting that I did not appear that competent to most people while I was homeless because I was so very ill. Although my condition is incurable, I'm vastly healthier these days.
My comments in online forums were frequently riddled with typos when I was homeless and often sounded like gibberish.
No matter how smart or well educated you are, being extremely ill will hurt your ability to perform. This gets compounded by situational factors if you are also homeless.
You cited paranoia for a lot of your reasons to limit the information you shared and how it could lead someone to deduce your whereabouts.
That seems logical enough to me, I do the same online and don't have to worry about half as much but I guess my question is, was the paranoia justified? Was there any preceeding incidents to cause you to become more cautious?
Tbh I originally assumed the blogger's perspective was male and the caution maybe a bit over the top - but understandable - re-reading it now after seeing your HN username I totally get it. Hope your situation has changed for the better since your blogging days!
What do you think about mental condition induced homelessness in terms of a solution?
I know institutionalisation used to be more common, but also seems quite bad for some people. A friend of mine was once institutionalized and had horror stories about it. I can't help but feel like mental institutions are bad AND letting people with mental problems roam on their own is bad. Is the solution to have good institutions?
I don't think I can really do this question justice in an off-the-cuff comment on Hacker News. Your framing of the question suggests to me that there would be a great deal of ground to cover to try to get you to see the problem space the way I see the problem space.
I've made a note of it in a draft. Perhaps I will find the words someday and address it, at least somewhat, in a post on Street Life Solutions.
I know a couple of homeless people, van-dwellers, in San Diego. One had his van window smashed for parking in the wrong neighborhood, the other is keen to avoid spending too much time in one place.
The local businesses are quite aware of how it affects the bottom line. A nearby Starbucks was losing a few hundred dollars in revenue from the growing visible homeless presence, so they took out all the power outlets to keep people from charging their phones. It used to be a decent shopping center for the homeless people who were in the area; there were also often a bunch using wifi in the supermarket next door. But more unattractive people came into the area and the supermarket also changed their setup to deal with it.
I do have a few questions though:
>The other reason this website does not list homeless services is because I became increasingly concerned about creating a website that could serve as an attractive nuisance. In other words, I didn't want to cause problems for a particular area by advertising all the free meal sites and the like in that area and potentially having homeless people from elsewhere flock to that area and overwhelm their services.
1) How common was this attitude among your fellow homeless? My experience is that people in American cities rarely feel a sense of "ownership" for keeping things nice around them, much less homeless people who are probably focused on survival.
2) Have you been accused of "pulling the ladder up behind you" for not sharing whatever info you had, and how would you respond to that?