posted
The camera follows a homeless California man through his daily routine, collecting bottles and cans for recycling, and whining about how messed up the system is.
He says he can't get a job or a girl because his front teeth are all messed up. He says someday when he has enough money, he'll head down to Tijuana to get his teeth fixed.
Showtime tosses a briefcase with $100,000 cash into one of this guy's regular dumpsters. The camera shows the man weeping over his find.
We follow the man for the next six months as he squanders the cash on smokes, beer, crack, and bar whores.
We leave the man when he's down to less than $5000, still hasn't gotten his teeth fixed, never bought the tools for his trade, and never started a job search.
posted
Did anyone bother to help this guy get on his feet and change his habits? Money isn't the only thing most homeless folks are missing from their lives.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Leo doesn't argue. She deals with the most hard-core of Fairfax's roughly 2,000 homeless people -- those who won't go inside. They are the "unsheltered homeless," the redundant-sounding official term for people who shun the county's shelter system, staking out all-but-invisible havens in the shadows of Fairfax's extraordinary wealth -- in parks, in the woods off main roads or in abandoned buildings.
A little more than 200 of them, mostly adult men, live in the county, according to statistics compiled by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. An additional 750 are spread across the Washington area, part of the region's total homeless population of more than 12,000.
Their problems -- mental illness, drug and alcohol dependence, or a cascade of bad luck -- pose a significant challenge for Fairfax officials, who have resolved to eliminate homelessness by 2015.
On paper, Leo's mission for the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board is to bring men such as H.N.C. into the county's social service system and begin their transition back into the mainstream. Each year, she and her four colleagues point a handful of clients in that direction.
But her outreach is more often a holding action, designed to protect and sustain them -- mostly from themselves. The county can't legally force anyone into drug or alcohol treatment. And the state's threshold for involuntary psychiatric commitment -- that a person is an "imminent danger" to himself or others -- can be difficult to prove.
It's not always money. Unless we're willing to drastically loosen civil commitment laws - something I find to be incredibly dangerous - I don't know that there's any way to save some people. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Well its something that affects a lot of people. I read somewhere that a large percentage of lottery winners end up declaring bankruptcy.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
What, would they take his box away from him?
Jail has significantly better conditions than what he probably lives with on a daily basis, so I'm not sure what the point of that would be.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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I believe so. The cars Oprah gave to her audience were considered income (as opposed to gifts) because of the business motive for Oprah to give them away (ratings). Same thing seems to apply here.
quote:With income-averaging he wouldn't owe too much.
What's that?
quote:What, would they take his box away from him?
If Showtime was supposed to withhold, their on the hook for the withholding plus a hundred percent penalty. I have no clue if they were supposed to or not.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Income-averaging = spreading a windfall over the last few years of zero income?
Ah, thanks. Thankfully, that never came up when I had to do our corporate or personal taxes. I'd have liked the windfall, but the zero income sure sounds bad.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
They'll still have to find him before they can tax him. Returning to a fixed mailing address at the end of the work day isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I know somebody who became homeless, but not before throwing away $60,000 in equity (which was a lot back then) and thousands of dollars worth of stuff, and rejecting every offer of help (including several from the government). And this was someone with a master's degree. I have to agree with the assessment that it takes more than bad luck to make someone permanently homeless, and that if you gave a homeless person a large sum money it would likely be wasted.
I understand the important reasons why it is hard to commit someone involuntarily, but it's a real tragedy that so many mentally ill people end up on the street, when they could be productive and happy and sheltered if only it were possible to get them help. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:I understand the important reasons why it is hard to commit someone involuntarily, but it's a real tragedy that so many mentally ill people end up on the street, when they could be productive and happy and sheltered if only it were possible to get them help.
This is ultimately the dilemma that cost my brother-in-law his life. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I think involuntary committment would be a worse evil, personally. Taking agency away from someone is arguably worse than killing them. And how many abusive families claim of the children they abuse, who take steps to protect themselves, leave, run-away, or begin to build new lives for themselves, that they are crazy? How many abusive spouses, when the abused spouse finally leaves them, claim that they are crazy? It's more or less the typical response, I think. How many of those abused people would end up involuntarily committed for deciding to leave their abusers?
Even if the guy failed miserably, it was his own failure, and he had the opportunity to learn from that. There's no way you can force anyone to succeed, for that just means they have failed with no possible chance of ever redeeming themselves. I have much more respect for free agency than that.
Just as the first admendment is mainly there to protect speech we DON'T want to hear, the principle of free agency is there to protect people's right to make what we think of as stupid choices.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I don't disagree, Tatiana. But we're not talking stupidity here, and we're not talking about people who can learn from their mistakes. I'm just saying it's tragic, is all.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:I think involuntary committment would be a worse evil, personally. Taking agency away from someone is arguably worse than killing them.
I don't agree with that as an absolute statement. Sometimes involuntary commitment is necessary.
quote:And how many abusive families claim of the children they abuse, who take steps to protect themselves, leave, run-away, or begin to build new lives for themselves that they are crazy? It's more or less the typical response, I think. How many of those would end up involuntarily committed for deciding to leave their abusers?
This is an option, right now. Constitutionally, there is no standard other than a review by a doctor required for a parent to commit a child. Many or most states don't provide any additional review. So we can answer that question now, based on seeing how many it happens to.
I am not advocating a radical loosing of the involuntary commitment laws. However, I am advocating a continual ongoing examination of where we draw the line, precisely because we are trying to balance basic personal autonomy and preventing violent deaths.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
The person I am talking about was a danger to self. And in Dagonee's case, the fact that he is dead suggests that his brother-in-law was too. The Baker Act system failed, and failed miserably, in the case I got to see up close.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
How the hell do you blow through 95k in six months if you're single?
Even if I bought all the toys I wanted, put a down payment on a house and drank ten times as much as I do now, I still don't think I could do it.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote: Showtime tosses a briefcase with $100,000 cash into one of this guy's regular dumpsters. The camera shows the man weeping over his find.
We follow the man for the next six months as he squanders the cash on smokes, beer, crack, and bar whores.
Given that there's an enormously high incidence of mental illness among the homeless, I not only find the outcome unsurprising but find Showtime's behavior reprehensible.
You don't save someone dying of thirst by throwing him into the middle of a lake.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I'm betting they had some selection criteria in mind that tended to predict this kind of outcome, too.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
This makes me very sad. How could they do that? I no longer like Showtime if they can knowingly do that to someone. What corporate jerks.
Posts: 2121 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I'd like that to sink in for everyone for a minute: The act of giving this man $100,000 is something some people are considering reprehensible.
Most people would consider the act of giving the average person a Very Nice Thing.
This should provide a visceral indicator of how contrary to common experience the issue of mental health and homelessness is. Our common sense is largely useless.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
A hundred thousand dollars is an interesting amount of money. Sure, it means a down payment on a house, and it would buy me a little time-- not even six months, probably-- but to tell the truth, I think I would just spend 8,000 dollars to pay of my debt, and just put the rest in the bank and try to forget about it. I don't know how much the difference between 20,000 dollars and a 100,000 dollars would change the quality of my life. Then again, I'm not too imaginative with money.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
*nod* A hundred thousand is just enough to spend frivolously. Any more and it'd be hard to burn through without acquiring some assets; any less and it wouldn't be impressive.
I suspect they chose both their target and their amount with this end in mind.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I just think it's interesting that Reticulum apparently considers the adjective "corporate" to be universally perjorative Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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1. $50,000 in the bank, immediately. 2. Pay off all credit card debt. 3. Pay off car. 4. Finish remodel on house. 5. Pour the rest into a massive house payment. 6. When tax season rolls around, pay taxes out of banked $50K. 7. Keep the remainder either in savings or in the house, don't care which. 8. Consider my newfound lack of monthly-paid debt a "raise" and live better.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Would you guys that have been speaking out about how horrible it was for Showtime to do such a thing explain exactly why you think it was wrong?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I haven't read most of this thread, but I wanted to add something. I have a sister who has fairly severe brain damage. She has attempted suicide more times than anyone would care to count and is currently in a wheelchair permanently because of one attempt. At the time she was living in a kind of assisted living place because the mental institute in our part of North Carolina refused to take her any longer than 90 days. So she followed a pattern of spend 90 days in a mental institute, get out, go in to hospice housing for 30 days before they kick her out for being a danger to other occupants. She then lived on the streets for another month or so before the state would allow her to be placed back into the hospital. Usually this was following a pretty major suicide attempt or drug abuse arrest. The suicide attempt that put her in a wheel chair happened a full 4 years before the state finally decided that she actually was a danger to herself and others. Regardless of the fact that she had threatened the lives of many nurses with sharp metal objects. Of course, this was when she WASN'T in the hospital that this happened. Every time she entered the hospital she was an absolute darling who never did anything wrong. As such, the hospital chose to avoid putting her on permanent admission until about a year ago. Now, as important as it is to worry about the rights of everyone, I think it's more important to make certain that people with severe mental illness are kept in an environment that they can be cared for properly.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Would you guys that have been speaking out about how horrible it was for Showtime to do such a thing explain exactly why you think it was wrong?
I do think it's a bit morally questionable to be so close to a person, to have $100,000 dollars for them, and to spend it gawking at them as they squander it, RATHER than actually helping them.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Would you guys that have been speaking out about how horrible it was for Showtime to do such a thing explain exactly why you think it was wrong?
I am making some assumptions:
1.) They knew he was addicted to crack. 2.) They provided no help whatsoever in spending the money. 3.) They did it so they could make their movie.
I wouldn't consider it reprehensible for someone to unknowingly give a homeless person a large sum of money, even if it hurts them or doesn't help them.
I do consider it rephrehensible to do so in order to make a movie whose basic point seems to be, "look at this idiot!"
Edit: and this is all based on my current impression, which might be wrong.
A show that picked a person or family that needed a leg up, gave them the money, and then showed the process of planning how to use it would be worthwhile. This is, at best, founded on ignorance.
posted
I think it's at least an open question as to whether this individual is actually worse off (after having spent $100,000) than he was before.
The money allowed him to engage in self-destructive behaviors (drug abuse, sex with prostitutes) that might have serious health consequences for him, and thus he would be judged as worse off than before.
But barring the ill effects of those things, if he's right back where he started, the events during his period of relative wealth may have had little or no impact on his day-to-day life.
That this man needs help also sounds pretty plain and obvious. But what help does he really need? Without knowing more about him, it's impossible to tell. It could very well be that he's mentally ill from organic causes, or that he is suffering from the effects of long-term drug or alcohol abuse and may have so damaged his brain that he is no longer rehabilitatable to some arbitrary standard we'd care to mention (say, for example, holding a job, paying rent, having a fixed abode, etc.)
I'm not saying he is or he isn't. I suspect without a bit of time in detox and a full workup by trained professionals, it'd be impossible to say.
39% of homeless people are under age 17. 42% of those are less than 5 years old.
(there's some confusion in the average age of homeless people stats...in part skewed by whether the count includes only people in shelters or all people (on the street or in shelters). These stats are pretty reliable. I don't buy the "average age is 9" statistic that is floating around out there. But...
A study in London found that the average age at death of homeless adults was 42. If that's a generally true number for all homelessness, it would tend to set a low upper limit on the average age of all homeless people, though...
Families comprise 33% of the homeless population over the past decade. This is causing some alarm bells to go off as it appears to be a rather sharp increase over prior decades.
Mental illness figures as a factor in about 22% of all homeless adults. That's a bit lower than I would've thought. I was not surprised by the statistic that showed only a very small percentage of these people had a disorder that required institutionalization. If they had a bit more stability and took appropriate meds, the vast majority of mentally ill homeless people would not be seriously debilitated to the point of requiring hospitalization.
Veterans are slightly over-represented among the homeless.
Substance abuse is a major factor. As is domestic violence.
At any rate, the thing I don't like about the Showtime idea is that rather than focusing on this problem and exploring its intricacies -- actually educating people -- they fed into the common stereotypes of the bum digging through dumpsters to get enough cash to get high.
Pretty much sucks.
Of course such people are out there. And if you go to the right places, you find them and can exploit them.
But all we've learned from this is that a segment of our population fits a stereotype. How is that news? I consider this a sadly wasted opportunity to do something amazing.
I read today that the film Traffic actually changed Capitol Hill's notions of what it means to fight drug abuse effectively. That even Orrin Hatch had an epiphany of sorts regarding the best ways to combat drugs.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if a station like Showtime could produce something that impactful regarding homelessness?
The concentration of wealth in the US more top heavy than any time since the 1920s, and more than triple the lopsidedness of the next closest Western nation (Germany).
The top 10% owns more than 71% of all private assets in the US (I say more than because this is based on 2001 data and the trend is upward, so by now it's above 71% for sure). (note, some sources put the percentage in the high 80-something percent range)
if the average net worth of the bottom 80% of people in the US was represented by a one-inch high bar, the wealth of the top 1% would be represented by a bar 33 FEET high.
Back almost a decade ago, Bill Gates' personal fortune was equal to the total wealth of the bottom 40% of the US population.
While I agree that the problems are just money, and tossing money at a homeless guy cherry-picked for his dysfunctions isn't going to do much, it'd still be nice to adjust the trickle-up economy we've got going.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
They should have given him 100k in food stamps; it would be like combining it with Supersize Me.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Skillery, did you see this documentary? Could you provide me with a link? I was unable to obtain any Google hits.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I thought the guy got off to a good start. He bought a new bicycle and a trailer to go behind it and a big lock. But then I value stability, and I've learned that money can buy me a bit of it: buy stuff that will last and lock it up. That's stable.
Some folks place value on looking good, or indulging their senses, or finding that rush that comes from not knowing what comes next. We all invest every last penny in what we value.
Maybe this guy is smarter than me, and there is no stability to be had at any price. I've never been a victim of anything, so I continue to believe that my stuff will last.
I can imagine a society that has been plagued by a series of disasters, in which the majority lives in the burn-it-while-you've-got-it paradigm. I would guess that has been the main mode of living for most of human history.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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1. $50,000 in the bank, immediately. 2. Pay off all credit card debt. 3. Pay off car. 4. Finish remodel on house. 5. Pour the rest into a massive house payment. 6. When tax season rolls around, pay taxes out of banked $50K. 7. Keep the remainder either in savings or in the house, don't care which. 8. Consider my newfound lack of monthly-paid debt a "raise" and live better.
*revokes temple recommend*
As far as the Showtime show, I really have no problem with it. The guy had a great six months. And I hope they legally have to pay him royalties and that they try and actually get him help now.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: I know somebody who became homeless, but not before throwing away $60,000 in equity (which was a lot back then) and thousands of dollars worth of stuff, and rejecting every offer of help (including several from the government). And this was someone with a master's degree. I have to agree with the assessment that it takes more than bad luck to make someone permanently homeless, and that if you gave a homeless person a large sum money it would likely be wasted.
I don't know if it is a comfort or a scary thought, but if I stopped bathing myself, working, going to school, eating, or functioning as a human being, my family and friends would still probably take care of me. I agree, it takes alot of work to become homeless. Not impossible though.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
In most places in the US, a single person should EASILY be able to get by on $25-30,000 a year. If this guy had any sense, he could have had an apartment and good food for 3 years or more on that money, even if he never worked a day.
I'm also including basic health insurance and a fair amount of spending money in that budget.
I don't see how anyone can say that Showtime was in the wrong for giving this guy money. He's the one who wasted it. If anything, you should be mad at him, for blowing a great chance to make a good life for himself.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
It definitely sits very wrong with me. I mean, why give him the money and then sit back and laugh at him while he wastes it? Skillery mentioned that they offered him financial advisers and he turned them away, but that is still no excuse to shrug your shoulders and say 'Oh well, we tried our best but now we get to watch this guys squander the only chance he's ever likely to get.'
I agree with Dagonee that it would have been a much better show if they had given him the money and then sat down and worked with him to make a better life for himself. Then we would get to see his rise from the streets and the trials and tribulations of getting a job and attempting a social life. Hmm, that would actually be a great show: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy + Extreme Makeover Home Edition + The Apprentice. Well, maybe not that over the top, but you get the idea.
Anyway, if they had made stipulations on how the money was to be spent and with who's help, I think it would have been a better show. Less morally depressing anyways. I just can't help thinking 'Why did they do that? Why didn't they help him?"
quote:I have to agree with the assessment that it takes more than bad luck to make someone permanently homeless, and that if you gave a homeless person a large sum money it would likely be wasted.
This is what I don't agree with. I actually think that the absence of good luck is enough to put you on the street. I also think that if you have to choose between being single and homeless and single and working 12 hour shifts at a labor intensive minimum wage job, the tramp's life becomes rather attractive.
Again, 20k would change my life tremendously, including giving me a ten thousand dollar cushion. Hell, honesty, if someone gave me a 20k in cash, I'd probably be married inside of two years, but any more than 20,000, would almost be negligible up to 250,000, then I'd hit another plateau until 1.5 million, then the philanthropy could kick in and I could start the gears moving to run the after school center of my dreams.
posted
I think that by reinforcing the stereotype of a dumpster-diving drunk, Showtime did a disservice to homeless people who make good use of any financial help they get.
It seems manipulative to send this poor guy through all the gyrations of dealing with sudden wealth.
Showtime is making a mockery of this guy’s values, lack of education, and substance abuse.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:I also think that if you have to choose between being single and homeless and single and working 12 hour shifts at a labor intensive minimum wage job, the tramp's life becomes rather attractive.
That is also very true. They have to at least pick a homeless person that doesn't want to be homeless. I know it sounds odd, but I have personally spoken with (anecdotal evidence, I know) several homeless people who have chosen that life. Who like not having any responsibilities and never having anyone to account to. I dunno, I guess I can see the appeal. But I do not think that this is the norm, rather the exception.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:I have to agree with the assessment that it takes more than bad luck to make someone permanently homeless, and that if you gave a homeless person a large sum money it would likely be wasted.
This is what I don't agree with. I actually think that the absence of good luck is enough to put you on the street. I also think that if you have to choose between being single and homeless and single and working 12 hour shifts at a labor intensive minimum wage job, the tramp's life becomes rather attractive.
With all due respect, I actually know a hell of a lot more about homelessness and how you become homeless than you do. I guarantee it.
posted
I don't think most of you are looking at the extreme complications of a homeless man suddenly finding $100,000 in a dumpster.
Some of you have said, put it in the bank, but that means it gets reported to the Federal government, and how do you explain finding $100,000.
The money would have to be turned over to the authorities, then the long wait while they tried to find out who had lost the money. What if someone made a false but reasonable sounding claim against the money? What if the authorities just kept it; essentially just screwed him out of it?
So, let's just say this homeless person decides to keep it rather than turn it in. Where does he keep it? If anyone even remotely knew he had any kind of money, he would be a severe risk of being robbed and probably killed. To a homeless man, $100,000 CASH is not an asset, it is an extreme liability. The faster you get rid of it the better off you are.
Even putting it in a safety deposit box still represents a liability if anyone finds out.
Most of you are speculating on what you would do with the money, but YOU are not a homeless person. Put yourself in this person's place; no home, no mailing address, no telephone, completely vulnerable on the street, sleep in under bridges, surrounded by dark and desperate people, no one you can trust, walking the mean streets with $100,000 in cash in your pocket. That is a very dangerous and unstable position. That is a position that could easily get you killed.
Now if this news crew really wanted to help this person, they would have arranged a bank account for him, and put the money in there. Then they would have arrange for him to take care of the tax liability. Then they would have found a place for him to live. That would have given him a stable start. That would have allowed him a safe and stable way to have the money without risking his life.
This wasn't an attempt to help this homeless person, they simply used him as a social experiment. The set him up for failure, and then sat back and filmed while he fullfilled the expectations spectacularly.
Before you comment on what you would do, put yourself in his position, put yourself alone on the dark and dangerous streets with $100,000 cash, out there amoung the junkies, thieves, and assorted riff-raff.
You would probably do exactly what this person did, dump the cash as soon as possible, dump it before it got you killed.
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I'd have liked the windfall, but the zero income sure sounds bad.
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