Both parties make their money by serving their puppet masters who steal money from us. The middle class used to capture 25% of GDP back in the 70's. Now we're lucky to capture 7%. And we've had plenty of politicians from both sides that just made the problem worse. It's not Dem's vs. Rep's, it's the rich enslaving the poor. Always has been, always will be.

There's tons of value! Venture capitalists and tech firms sinking their last dimes into circular debt... The government changing finance rules so investment firms can sink your 401k retirement funds into unregulated private equity firms so they can sink YOUR last dime into AI... Investment banks tranching bad AI debt and reselling it just like they did back in '08 with mortgage-backed securities... There's tons of value. You just need an Enron mindset...

Right now I don't think either side is looking out for the average American citizen or the longevity of the country. My next vote is no confidence.

Yeah it can be tricky here in the States as well. Bank accounts are easy enough (any residential address will do), but for your driver's license or voting registration it gets more difficult -- you have to have "proof of residence". Which means you need to provide 2 documents. Lease agreement (in your name), utility bill (in your name), insurance bill (in your hame), mailed bank statement (unopened) less than 30 days old, etc. For a homeless person, that's impossible so losing an ID is a huge issue. Many states now will allow for a letter from a shelter and/or proof of homelessness as proof of residency, but that also brings up issues with insurance and benefits because 200 people will use that address for their ID's. So the insurance companies know it's a shelter (ergo higher rates) and many Federal benefits get denied because it sets off their fraud flags.

I'll ride out what's left on SSVF. I've been in touch with American Warrior Partnership, they said they might be able to help extend my stay since the SSI claim is pending. But as usual, "no promises" on that one. Hope for the best, plan for the worst!

I would love it if HUD/VASH came through, but I've been told not to get my hopes up. Seems here, there's a limited number of seats in that program and they tend to reserve it for people who are already on VA disability (and apparently they can't even house all of them). So hopefully the SSI goes through. I'll be leaving Denver either way, like you said it's just too big. At my ripe age of 52 I like peace, quiet, and no people!

You have to have an address for a bank account here as well. But some day shelters will let you use their address for driver's licenses, voting, bank accounts, etc.

Similar deal here in Denver -- SSVF had a ton of funds and was housing vets left and right (9-month housing limit, though). So the guys at the VA resource center sent me over to VOA, a week later I was in a hotel and a few weeks after that they moved me into the apartment I'm in now. I applied for SSI, got a lawyer, but we're still stuck at step two with SSA and my housing ends on September 30th. I hope your housing lasts long enough for you to get whatever you need taken care of, and I really hope SSA expedites my case. If approved, it won't be enough to cover the rent where I'm at (rent is $1,400 - SSI is $900), but at least with the back pay I can get a van to sleep in and never panhandle again. Good luck my friend!

Likely the same misconceptions I had before I became homeless -- All homeless people are drug addicts. They're lazy and choose the "lifestyle". They must have "burned everyone they knew" in order to end up like that. They choose not to work. They're all guilty of a crime so horrible nobody will hire them.

The reality is 180 degrees from what most people think. Most homeless (myself included) don't use drugs at all. Many are disabled. Able-bodied homeless come and go, many of those are back in housing of some sort in 3-6 months (they usually still have a car to sleep in and use for work). Many homeless are orphans, zero family support. Others, like me, are just older and came from small families that are gone.

The fact is the homeless you see are addicts. The homeless you don't notice stay clean and stay hidden. The latter outnumbers the former, and on the whole you wouldn't know they were homeless unless they told you.

I was born in the early 70's, so the whole "work your way out of it -- pull yourself up by the bootstraps" still rings in my ears. But the reality is nobody hires a homeless person. I've taken jobs before the stenosis got bad. As soon as someone found out I was homeless (someone always does), that was it. "We really feel bad about your situation and we wish you the best but we just can't have this kind of image..." and you're cut loose before you even have the minimum number of hours to collect unemployment. Back to square one, only with your pride hurt that much more. The flip side is you do take a job, issued uniforms, and then an addict steals them (or police sweep your camp) while you're at work. Occasionally you get the "nice guy" who offers to pay you to paint a shed or something else on his property. Only after you finish he refuses to pay and then calls the cops on you. That's happened to me twice.

About the drug issue -- there is one and it is a real problem. But I do have to say that in my 13 years I've seen plenty of people who otherwise never would have touched a drug end up addicted within a 6-month time frame. It's always the same story. Starts with "I'm going to get out of this" and ends with futility. After a few months the reality sets in. Too damn hard to shower and panhandle to eat everyday and then try to get a job on top of surviving. And many have the same employment experiences I just wrote about. After that, they lose hope. Starts with weed, ends with meth or heroine. Just last month I got a phone call from a guy I know in Houston. A young kid we both liked was found dead under a bridge with a needle hanging out of his arm. Turned out to be fentanyl. He was 22 years old. The mortality rate for young people on the street is far greater than for older people (to a certain age). There is a dynamic there but I'm already a little off-topic.

So to sum things up, there's really no "biggest misconception" about homelessness. It's the entire view of homelessness that is a misconception. You don't need to be a criminal, you don't need to be an addict, you don't need to do anything wrong, you don't need to be lazy -- it can, and does, happen to people from all walks of life. Once you're there, you're generalized into extreme negativity. You're viewed as an addict even if you've never touched a drug. You're viewed as a criminal even if your record is clean. You're viewed as lazy even if you're a very hard worker. Heck, I have a 738 credit score and 4 major credit cards, all with zero balances. Most housed people don't have that. But I'm less financially responsible, somehow. Thank you for your question!

In 40 years, GenZ will be the new Boomers. They won't understand the new Generation D (for "dummy") that's too lazy to make their own bowl of cereal without a robot doing it for them. GenD will call GenZ out of touch because they choose to bathe themselves alone rather than shower with a bathing robot. GenZ will reminisce about the brief time they drove their own car, how this new generation just doesn't understand, and the few remaining GenX'ers will one-up them from the retirement home with talk about stick shifts. Oh, how that new lazy generation knows nothing about the hellscape of manually vacuuming the house. Or having a job. GenD will put down GenZ about not knowing how to live in a fully-automated world, while GenZ quips back about how they were the ones that built that fully-automated world. The big generational debate will be on whether or not to elect robots to Congress or just have AI run the country. And that GenD should liquidate and redistribute the wealth GenZ is hoarding. I hope I'm still around, and I hope there's popcorn!!! :-)

The tiny home idea is good, but both solutions completely ignore the same problem that ultimately makes shelters fail: Concentration.

Basically, there's 3 kinds of homeless. One third have psychological issues, one third has physical disabilities, and one third are homeless because of addiction issues.

When you put all of that together in one place, bad habits begin to multiply. As well, the people who run the places begin to dehumanize the people that live there. Shelters always fail. You'll never read about a successful one. Concentration is the main issue. Disease, theft and drugs move in with many of the clients (and is also the reason I'll never stay in one).

To really make a dent in the homeless problem, you have to eliminate the drugs first. If you can eliminate that, 1/3 of the problem goes away by itself. Granted, current addicts may never recover but at least we won't be making any new ones.

Affordable housing needs to happen. If my SSI case is approved sometime this decade, my income will be limited to $900 per month. You'd be amazed at how many homeless that are actually receiving disability but can't afford to live anywhere. Sure, you could rent an apartment. But then how do you eat and pay for other necessities?

If it were me, I'd make it law that any multi-family apartment complex has to have X amount of efficiency-type apartments (like we had in the 70s and 80s) that could be rented for $500 per month. No more first + last + deposit up front. And require that landlords accept deposits prorated. A $600 move-in price is achievable on minimum wage. A $3,000 move-in price isn't.

This would enable a majority of homeless to get themselves off the streets without having to spend any public funds.

But homelessness is a business. And a racket at that. The State of Colorado (and many others) spend greater than $40,000 per year for services for every homeless person you see. And they're still homeless.

The big issue I see now is AI automation, and soon robotics. The "low hire" job market is here to stay, and I see the homeless numbers increasing a lot before any significant change might be installed.

Thank you for your question!

It really does depend on location. If I'm in Houston, Central Park has a few buildings with 75-cent showers. Here in Denver the VA has an office off 35th and York with private showers. If I'm on the road, usually a creek or river. Worst case scenario -pay $12 at a truck stop.