Gosh, this is a shock:
The study found that between 2001 and 2003, homeless people died at the rate of 2,192 per 100,000 people. This figure is twice the death rate of normal adults in New York City.
Gosh, this is a shock:
The study found that between 2001 and 2003, homeless people died at the rate of 2,192 per 100,000 people. This figure is twice the death rate of normal adults in New York City.
Comments
I don't really find it all that shocking considering the high number of "homeless by choice" that are drug addicts and alcoholics.
>considering the high number of "homeless by
>choice" that are drug addicts and alcoholics.
I don't know who is being quoted there, but the informed opinion these days is that true addicts and alcoholics have "lost the power of choice" regarding ingesting a drink or a drug and must have persistent, substantial, and often repeated outside help from experts before they can hope to recover.
I'm not defending addiction, just correcting a common misunderstanding (willful or not) about it.
On a marginally related note, I am getting tired of inaccurate generalizations like "the homeless are all lazy," they "don't deserve sympathy," they just "need to get off their butts."
Such junk isn't debate and adds nothing to the new and critical question of what to do to save the American middle class, to repair the damage of the recent lay-offs of literally hundreds of thousands of career Americans.
These people were anything but indigents, but they now report they have to scratch for part-time work or settle for severe underemployment Their unemployment benefits and Cobra insurance ran out long ago. Their contracted retirement funds may well have been stolen. They can no longer afford health care on what they make returning to the first job they ever had -- McD's.
Many of these middle-class-now-indigent folks, maybe most of them, are traumatized, depressed, and demoralized, and their numbers across the nation are huge and growing.
Their dilemma is fresh and not absolutely necessary. Many are probably so emotionally injured by having their lives torn from them that they will have to have treatment before they regain any ability to climb back on the horse. These workers were ambushed by a trend. They did nothing to deserve what they are getting and are much harder to rationalize.
We can't dismiss them as lazy, or in need of a boot in the bum. These people just had a monumental one, and it will hobble them to some degree for the rest of their time on earth. Unless they use the power of the majority to vote to fix their problem.
And I think Americans will do that. If they don't get voluntary help from either business or government to stop their own decline, they'll insist on voting people in who CAN fix their problem. If you destroy the middle class, they'll say, the cure is is worse than the disease, and unacceptable to the people. They'll say, with typical simplicity and common sense, that you can't fix America by bringing ruin to Americans.
They have the votes to make it stick, and it will be painful for those that failed to foresee the consequences of their actions.
Americans know what their standard of living looks like, and they all plan to bequeath their success to their kids. Or else.