Asklemmy

44149 readers

1423 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Where do the rural homeless near you live? (lemm.ee)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This seems to be something people don't always give second thought to. When people talk about the homeless, the first things thought about are images of people on busy city streets in rusty clothes waiting around near allies. In there, the answer is quite static, because it can be I guess. But if that's the case, change the setting and that changes too. In the places where I've lived, people often needed that mapped out. Where are they known in your rural locales?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (3 children)

There really aren't any rural homeless. Most homeless people hang out in cities because resources are abundant in cities. They can be anonymous and live in the shadows among millions of people coming and going, they can dig in dumpsters, and beg strangers for money. Those are things you cannot do out in the countryside because there are no dumpsters and no millions of random people to mooch off of.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

The periphery of small towns covered in makeshift tents and shanty style campers would disagree with your statement.

These encampments used to be for seasonal workers passing through. But more and more become year-round all the time.

You are certainly correct about the bulk of homeless making their way towards the cities, but there are a growing number of those who don't.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

You don't know what you are talking about. There are absolutely homeless people in rural areas. While you might not see people begging on the street downtown, there are absolutely people living in their car, camping, or sleeping under a bridge.

I grew up in a very small rural town of 2500 nowhere near a city. There were absolutely homeless people. You seem to have a view of homeless people that only exists in the movies.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

You say that like rural areas don't have crop fields.

In all seriousness, I know enough about it to know it's not too different. Dumpsters and trash cans can be found anywhere for example, though they're not great sources of food in either place. I was once an anonymous rural example, but it's for that reason one could look at me and say they don't think we exist in rural areas. I was lucky enough though to couch hop. Others found solace under a local landmark, but not all rural areas have those, though they might have other things. I felt bad for one who asked me for a ride since I don't drive.