"Why don't homeless people just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?" What I believe some housed people mean by this question is that homeless people should be able to get themselves out of homelessness by themselves, through their own efforts. Of all the myths about homelessness, I feel that this myth indicates the least understanding about the situation in which homeless people find themselves.
Homelessness is a very complex issue. Actually, homelessness is the result of many factors that contribute to people becoming and staying homeless. Among these factors are lack of affordable housing, insufficient income, lack of jobs, mental and physical impairments, addictions, abuse, the foreclosure crisis, municipal ordinances and community attitudes.
Lack of affordable housing is the most obvious, yet the most challenging factor, in my opinion, in overcoming homelessness. There are not enough emergency shelters, transitional housing, permanent supportive housing or affordable housing in any major city to house the number of homeless people living in that city.
In the event that a homeless person receives some kind of federal or state support, these benefits are generally not sufficient to cover the cost of housing, food and necessities, such as medical care and medicine, in any major city.
But how about homeless people getting jobs that will allow them to pay for housing? Some homeless people do work, but cannot make and then save enough money for first and last month's rent, plus a security deposit, so that they can move into an apartment.
And then there is the credit check done by some potential landlords through which they eliminate people who have poor credit scores as potential tenants. Many homeless people, including most foreclosure victims, have poor credit scores and thus do not qualify for some housing.
Nearly everyone recognizes that there is a high unemployment rate in the United States. There are just not enough jobs to go around. Unemployed homeless people have the same challenges as housed people as they seek employment. However, homeless people often don't have the supportive environment and means, such as a home, clean clothes, job skills and transportation, essential to making a good impression for job interviews and securing jobs.
I asked several eminent professionals and unhoused people about their thoughts on the statement, "Homeless people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps." I am very grateful to them for their comments that follow.
Ken Peters, Peer Liaison for San Diego County through Recovery Innovations of California: "I do feel the idea that homeless people with mental illness need only 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps' is ridiculous. Most of this community is so worn down by life they have little hope things can be any better. Many have been abandoned by friends and family and feel no one cares."
Stephen Carroll, M.S.W., Homeless/Transition Age Services Division Director, San Diego Youth Services: "Regarding 'bootstraps,' my thought is that 'to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps' implies that we are responsible first and foremost for the changes that we want to make or need to make in our lives.
But like most, if not all, of us, when we find ourselves literally pulling up our bootstraps, we need someone or something to lean on to help support us until we have succeeded. One is an American value, the other a human value. And in my opinion, each is complimentary of the other."
Roger, 26 years old, unhoused: "My belief is that we have to work as a team to do anything. We have to come together as a unit and [that way we'll] get 10 times as much done as we can by ourselves."
Clayton, 25 years old, unhoused: "You should always be ready to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps because you can only count on yourself. But, working as a team and taking guidance from elders are always a plus."
Sean, 19 years old, unhoused: "People need places to go where you can get a place to stay, where they can get a job."
Brooke, 21 years old, unhoused: "Do good deeds and you get good deeds."
Darcy, 21 years old, unhoused: "I think it's a community effort. We can help ourselves and yet, we need to work together."
Glorious, 23 years old, unhoused: "We have a lack of common spaces. Our world needs that right now. We're interdependent. To learn anything, we need teachers. Our experiences are shared."
Keoni, 28 years old, unhoused: "I've been on the road since I was 16 years old. I know how to get myself up. But I have to meet 'locals' [housed people] to get a job and a house."
People who have no homes have fallen upon hard times. They may experience a crisis state that envelops them and can feel overwhelming. They may need a respite, a time to gather their thoughts, reflect and make plans for the future. Perhaps counseling would help. Certainly, being outdoors day and night during a time of crisis is not conducive to recovery from the crisis.
In my opinion, we all need to help one another. Homeless people may need help to get out of homelessness. Through understanding and compassion, we can help our neighbors be they housed or unhoused.
I look forward to your comments. Thank you,
Christine
Single mom of 4 kids. 3 were living with her. 20+ son came to stay & she tried to get him on the lease, but lease was terminated (though with help of an attorney, some deposit was returned and references will be OK).
Oldest 2 kids are now with separate friends of theirs and youngest 2 and mom are with someone else in a one-bedroom apt. Belongings are in storage. She thought she would qualify for low income, but because one of 2 jobs paid some OT last year, just over limit. Added problem is that with a common last name, there's someone in a city just over an hour away, in the same state, with the same name, who has had 5 evictions. She can prove that the high eviction record person is not her, but sometimes you are not told why you are rejected or only that they got the credit checks back on someone else faster. As in most other places, housing which approaches affordability is very tight here.
Another potential problem: One of the places she works for requires that you agree to credit and unspecified background reviews at any time at their discretion...
(Anyone else finding corporate requirements for unspecified background checks as a condition of employment, even in jobs which do not or barely pay a living wage, especially when dependents are considered?)
The world is such a complicated place...
Bootstraps and temporary fixes...
Couple of situations I encountered recently:
Guy has a small services business and 3 or so years past a rocky divorce. Ex says "just pay the mortgage" (slightly greater than the child support) which he does for a while since he's left her and the kids in the house. Ex can't find work despite numerous applications. Ex goes and applies for welfare (I think) and now child support enforcement in on the guy's back, so he tells her, "I can't pay both, so I guess I'll just pay the child support". House now threatened with foreclosure...
Added problem: house is in his dad's name which he thought would protect his business and parents are retired. Now he's trying to pay catch up on mortgage and child support along with payments on an SBA loan, hopping housing between a 20 something daughter, parents, and friends...
Another problem:... pays a helper under the table or sometimes nothing at all except lunch and beers. Worker lives in the basement of his ex's house and is about to get thrown out for being a slob and not paying rent...
How many people here are now threatened with being un-housed?
(Another post follows)
Thanks for your comment.
Your brief statement of support to lefty 2026 gives me an opportunity to say that I really appreciate all of the comments that you and others make about my posts and about other's comments.
I think that homelessness is not often discussed among non-law makers.
Those who are in the position to pass legislation/ordinances, do often discuss homelessness from the point of view of "how to solve the problem."
But, I believe that when we, the electorate, educate ourselves, get some understanding of the issues of homelessness and then exhibit compassion, our laws and ordinances will change for the better.
Perhaps then we will stop looking at how to "solve the problem of homelessness" and consider how to help the people who need us.
Please stay in touch,
Christine
Thank you for your comment.
You bring up so many interesting points, especially in your description of (presumably) housed people who may have negative views of homeless people.
Please let me know if I've correctly described the people you appear to be speaking about.
Christine
Thank you for further information about yourself. However, I am so sorry to learn that your experiences "was enough to break down" your physical health.
Your personal situation inspires me and makes me think that perhaps I should write about the effect of homelessness/hunger upon the health of the person who is a victim of same.
There are so many "unsung heroes" out there - people who live and grow despite the toughest life circumstances are heroes to me.
Please stay in touch,
Christine
Beside our parents, we are dependent on others to maintain the roads that we use, to provide the electricity that we use, to build the apartments and houses that we rent or buy, to staff the hospitals that we depend on when we are sick or injured. No one is an island unto themselves. The thing is to figure out how to balance our need for community with our responsibility to be as little burden as possible to others. It is a question that every person tries to balance throughout their lives.
As for bootstrapping - the law requires a parent to care for a child up until a certain age, which varies by state, I think. I have known children who were unwanted by their parents, and as a consequence received the bare minimum of required sustenance up until the age of independence, and then were cut off completely by their parents - not because they were criminal or unruly, but because the parents separated and did not want to be burdened with children from an earlier marriage. It happens all of the time.
Thanks for your comment.
And thanks for your comments which really bring in a larger perspective. Very, very interesting.
We are all dependent upon one another. I think that is the human condition. Interdependence.
Great to hear from you again. Please stay in touch,
Christine
Homeless people need something desperately that many, many people take for granted: Safe sleep.
The common lack of safety for homeless people at night makes for the ongoing condition of "hypervigilance" -- the state of always being on guard, never fully giving in to sleep. It is agonizing to try and find, then maintain, a normal job demanding normal alertness when you feel as though you're about to keel over at any minute. And there are all the other tasks leading up to "walking out the door" in fresh, clean clothes that also involve the ability to plan and maintain a structured routine amidst unsafe, unpredictable conditions. A person can't do any of this while basically "sleepwalking" in order to survive.
Thank you for your comment.
You raise such an interesting point. Sleep is vital to health. When we don't sleep, when we are sleep-deprived, we can become ill. And that's for a housed person.
What happens to a homeless person when they are sleep-deprived? You've described it brilliantly.
From what or where did you get your insight?
Christine
My former co-worker lost her job and is now in a bigger city in a homeless shelter. She thought it would be a few weeks until she found another job and landed on her feet. It has been several months now but she is still hopeful that things will turn around. She had a very positive initail phone interview with one employer but as soon as they saw her in person they said you seem too old for our housekeeping department. Illegal, I know, but when you are homeless and at rock bottom are you going to pursue a lawsuit or keep looking for work? I wish her and everyone else facing this same position the best of luck.
Thank you for your comment.
And thank you for sharing some of your story with all of us.
Hopefully, you are no longer homeless. If you are currently housed, would you share with us how you managed to get housed again? This is a huge accomplishment.
In the event that you are not housed, would you care to share your plan, if any, for the future?
Your first-hand experience with homelessness is very valuable information for those of us who are attempting to understand and help.
Christine
My own experience was two over two decades ago, and very brief. I lived in a car for two weeks before traveling a few states away to stay with family, which is still technically homelessness because it isn't your own place, but was a better situation. I was young and in a very, very bad relationship situation. Thankfully I'm past all of that. Poor yes, but never again as poor as I was.
This is only true if there are no mental or physical impairments to overcome.
It gets harder to do the longer you have been unhoused.
Doing it at all, regardless of length of time, is a more difficult exertion of will than I - or anyone would make that unqualified statement - have ever had to deal with.
Thank you for your comment.
You raise many interesting points, but the one that resonates with me the most right now is, "It gets harder to do the longer you have been unhoused."
I agree with you.
However, would you care to give the reasons for why it gets harder to "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" the longer you have been unhoused? I think your answer would be helpful to all of us.
And perhaps you could expand on your last point about "regardless of length of time, [it] is more difficult exertion of will than I - or anyone would make that unqualified statement - have ever had to deal with."
Christine
My last statement was simply to make the clarification between "they CAN pull..." and "they SHOULD JUST pull...". I do think that someone has the ability to pull themselves out of an unhoused situation so I agree with the first iteration; but I can't even imagine the difficulty - for most of us, when we have a problem the fallback is "At least I have a place to live" - if you haven't been unhoused, and I haven't, there is no way to know how difficult that life is.
Thanks for your comment.
Wow, you are so clear on the steps it takes to go from being homeless to being housed. Thanks for that! I wonder if housed people generally understand all the energy and effort it takes to make all these steps, as you describe them.
It is always great to hear from you. I keep thinking about what a great life's story you have.
Please keep in touch,
Christine
Thank you for your comment.
And thank you for the slice of reality about the cost of renting an apartment. I agree that it is very important to notice what a minimum wage will get you - not an apartment, to be sure, in any city that I know.
Would you care to share the name of your city and/or a little more about your work with homeless people and marginally housed people?
Fact gathering, I believe, is very helpful in this field.
Also, thank you for your encouragement.
Please stay in touch,
Christine
My husband lost his automotive job two years ago and I've been looking for full time work for over a year to no avail. My husband was lucky to have been accepted into a retraining program that extends his unemployment. He'll be an RPN (registered practical nurse) in April and that will make him very employable. I'm currently managing a seasonal store... 6 weeks of work I'm happy to have and I've gone from looking for mid salary range jobs to minimum wage but both are equally hard to find.
I think that without the bootstraps we were fortunate to have built over our marriage, we could easily be homeless. I'm a longtime volunteer (ironically teaching job skills to help others find work) at our shelter and food bank and there are too many families there lately who are not mentally ill, who don't have drug or alcohol issues.. they just don't have the support system I have.
If something catastrophic were to happen to us now, we'd have to sell our home for the equity (which is substantial) because if you're unemployed, you can't get a loan or remortgage. We also can't buy a car until we're working..
Thank you for your comment.
And thank you for sharing so much of your story.
I really feel like you're saying, "Wake up, America! This is what is happening right now to all of us. "
Thank you for your wake-up call. You are an inspiration. Thanks for your continuing comments.
Please keep in touch,
Christine
To be honest, its not as easy as many housed people think. I live in San Francisco and I frequently have conversations with homeless people. Many times, I hear in my dialogue with homeless people that even though one has money its often difficult to find a place to live because to apply for no/low-income housing or wait for social security/medicare to get processed typically takes a minimum of 45 - 90 days and requires various forms of identifications which many individuals do not possess.
Thanks for your comment.
You bring up an excellent point. Having ID is critical. We housed people take ID for granted. Perhaps our biggest concern is ID theft, which is no small thing.
But to have no ID paperwork means essentially that the person does not exist. Getting ID, birth certificates, for example, is often a huge task.
Every State has its own requirements for getting a certified copy of a person's birth certificate. Some States require a picture ID.
In other words, some States require that a person has ID paperwork before they will send out a certified copy of the person's birth certificate.
I am so happy to learn that your "shelter has a volunteer who's only job is to help people re-establish their identity." Great! Congratulations!
I would love to talk to that person. Would it be possible for you to contact me through our website, www.chphp.com, where our email address is given so that you could share at least the shelter's name with me. I'll contact the shelter and see if I can speak to the volunteer about his/her work.
Please keep in touch,
Christine
Thank you for your comment.
And thanks for adding the time factor, the waiting period, into the discussion. I have often asked, but seldom written, about what do people do during the 45 day - 90 day waiting period for some benefits? What do they do when their local shelter has a 6 month waiting period? What do they do when they have to wait in a long line for entry into a food program?
Some housed drivers don't like to take the time to wait at a red light. Can we imagine what they'd feel and do waiting for food?
And the requirement for ID - don't get me started. Suffice it to say that the requirement for ID for food or other necessities often puts an onerous burden upon homeless people who are very, very hungry but who lost their ID.
Your further thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Please stay in touch,
Christine
What I don't understand is why those offices couldn't make the phone calls directly to each other while she waited at the office. Why humiliate a fellow human being just because she has no money or smelled poorly due to difficult circumstances? Why make her children suffer along with her? Are there some office procedures which disallow people to call other offices? Isn't the whole purpose of this system to help people?
There should be a mechanism online where homeless people can report or review office personnel: e.g. a yelp for government and private entities. In my honest opinion, I believe that many issues occur due to lack of transparency.
Sincerely,
Jey Pandian
Thanks for your comment.
And thank you for sharing about your own life. Congratulations upon being a recovering alcoholic. I guess maybe a good thing about recovering from any addiction is perhaps we become more aware of the challenges of others.
I do have a question: when you say that you "live in a small city (population ninety thousand)," do you mean "nine thousand?" I personally think of ninety thousand as a good size city. Maybe I'm wrong on that.
In any event, renting an apartment for $350 looks great until a person figures out, as you point out, that "it is still a hassle even after the person gets clean and finds an entry-level job."
Times are challenging where ever we live. And for homeless people times are so very challenging.
Do you have any ideas of where would be the best place, based on a financial basis, where homeless people would have the least challenges - a place where homeless people would find the most advantages for themselves? I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Please stay in touch,
Christine
Thank you for your comment.
And I appreciate the compliment.
I'm wondering if you have heard the expression, "Why don't homeless people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?"
Please stay in touch.
Christine
Thank you for your comment.
And thank you for sharing your insightful perspective with all of us. I agree with you. This "disconnect" exists and is the result, I believe of ignorance.
As you know, I am a believer in "Education, Understanding, Compassion," the motto of our Center for Justice and Social Compassion.
How to educate those in higher realms of wealth? Hopefully, your comment and subsequent discussion will help.
Please stay in touch,
Christine