My cynical nature over charities and donations

[sapphi_snake]

Kasz216 said:

Society isn't set up for that kind of situation.  Helping people in the long run is ironically seen as cruel.

From foreign aid, to welfare to homeless charities, they almost all treat the problem the same way.  By giving people stuff.

You take a homeless person, and what are his issues.

He's homless, why's he homeless?  He can't get a job.  Why can't he get a job?  Well because he's homeless... you can't really impress people in a job interview if your homeless.   Even if you give him a place to stay, which most cities do have places for these people to stay... it doesn't fix the root cause that these people don't have jobs... and are basically in a situation where they can't get jobs.

 

So what do you do?  You take one of your homeless shelters... put in a bunch of telephones, and get some telemarketing contracts.  Start with the US Census if you have too, they need work done all the time.  You run the government.  You train the homeless to do telemarketing.  It's not that hard and nobody wants to do it.  Put in some rules about when they can leave, set a curfew to make sure people are alright, hold back a portion of their salary to make sure they have money when they get out and drug test to make sure people stay clean.

Then theoretically when a year or so has passed.  You've got people with some money in their pocket who have some work expierence in a field that's almost always hiring.  Use whatever money is left over to open up new "franchises" in different areas and have a welfare program that expands.

Only problem is, Democrats would say you were explointing the homless and being cruel when you should just give them money, Republicans wouldn't want to pay for it... and if you organized it through a private orginization the government would do everything they could to shut you down for "exploiting the homeless".  With an orginzation like that and dealing with the homeless, minor violations of some sort of city or governmental code would be almost impossible to avoid even when trying your hardest watching everything and the slightest excuse would be used to shut you down.

Even then, you wouldn't save everybody... there are a lot of people you can't save.  People with addictions who refuse to get rid of them, people with mental problems who don't want to take their medicine.

You can't force these people to get treatment, and it's hard to just ignore them.

If i'm ever rich, i'd like to give it a shot, though I'd imagine it'd just end up with most people thinking I was some sort of evil sweatshop CEO monster or something.  Only since it's the evolution of an Idea i've had since like, 5th or 6th grade.

I think that you have the right ideea on how this should be handled properly. The main problem I've alwys had with charity is that it only provides short term solutions (and makes the people who contribute feel better about themselves), but in the long run nothing changes. The poor people stay poor, and that's due to the vicious cycle you pointed out (poor 'cause you don't have a job, can't get a job because no one wants to hire a poor vagabond).

The fact that Western people (and most humans really) in general only make deicsions that have short term effects and instant gratification is probably a reason for this. You can see this in pretty much every field (business, education etc.), not just regarding charity. I think the whole ideea of charity should be redefined, as charity in it's current form (handouts) is deeply flawed, and offers benefits mostly to the people who donate (psychological benefits), not the people who need help.

Back during the Communist regime, here in Romania it was illegal not to have a job. If you didn't have a job you were sent to jail, and after you were released you were trained for a certain traid, and then given a job. Obviously this is extreme, but it would be nice of teh Government (excuse me for this, but here in Romania, due to what has happened historically, we think that it's the Government's job to handle this type of things) had some sort of program that helped homeless people gain work skills and money (in other words the very thing you proposed).

I can understand the reason Republican's would be against it (greed), but the Democrat's reason is just plain stupid. How is helping people gain workskills and earn money "exploiting" them? If you were underpaying them, or not paying them at all I could understand that argument, but surely regulators would make sure that isn't happening.

The problem with private individuals taking such an initialtive would be that you can be sure some sweatshop monster CEO would try to take advantage and exploit the homeless. The Government is an entity who at least theoretically serve's the people (including homeless people), while a private person serves him/herself and may have ulterior motives (didn't private people exploit convicts during the Civil Wars you guys had?). I suppose though that some sort of non-profit organisation could handle this.

As for some people not wanting help, that's true, but many do want help, while other have given up simply because they see no way out. Lots of people could be saved.