The October 2008 issue of Complex magazine with Aubrey O'Day from Danity Kane on the cover (yowza) had a short article where a bum reveals some of his sly tactics and lies for conning gullible people out of money.
I like the one lie about his family being in Cleveland and that they're all suffering from acute lepromeningosis. Googling lepromeningosis revealed no results, so don't feel bad for not knowing the word, because it doesn't exist (Google says: Did you mean: leptomeningitis). Regardless, saying your family is in Cleveland should be enough to get money from anyone who has ever been to Cleveland. I went there in 2003 and it sucked. The Rock and Roll Museum was a huge let down. I did see a celebrity there....convicted murderer and swindler Don King was staying at my hotel. Sweet. Don't get me wrong, Cleveland is way better than a ton of other large cities out there, like that shit hole New Orleans which should be washed away and never rebuilt...but I still wouldn't want to live there.
It's also nice to see the bum criticize sickening cutesy attempts at humor on signs that some bums use in hopes of getting money. "Funny" bum signs during a recession probably increase a bum's chances of getting doused with gasoline and set on fire. We hope.
The EDAR, a cross between a shopping cart and a pop-up camper, is a step up.
Christopher Raynor's father kicked him out when he was 13, after his stepmother interrupted an orgy in his bedroom and the teen jammed a broom handle against her throat.
Daaaaaamn son, an orgy at 13?! You were a mack! I'd be pissed too if anyone interrupted my orgy. Now a days it's illegal to kick a kid that young out of the house. Maybe it was allowed 27 years ago when this supposedly happened.
Raynor's mother died of stomach cancer, his father was shot to death, and he himself has served time in jail. He spends much of each day intoxicated and grimy. He despises most people.
What's that ladies? You want to know if he's single?
EDAR creator Peter Samuelson discusses how he came up with the idea for the EDAR by interviewing homeless people:
"Where do you spend the night?" he asked one woman. She led him by the hand into the bushes and showed him a large cardboard Sub-Zero box.
I bet that's not ALL she showed him if you catch my drift. *wink wink* *knowing nod* Cue the 70's porno music!
Samuelson said he was shocked by the demographics: About 60% of the homeless were men, 24% were women, and 15% were under 18. (Adult transgender individuals accounted for the rest.)
Wait a second, if we do 100% total people, minus 60% men, minus 24% women, that leaves us with 16% trannies! Yikes that's a lot of trannies! I suppose it makes sense though, because most people don't want trannies around; they're just too damn weird. This makes it hard for them to get hired for jobs and no one on Craigslist will room with them, so they go homeless.
Admiral Ackbar does his best to warn you about those trannies
Here is another EDAR user's story:
After Dehanka Straughter was laid off from her job as a cook at a Compton preschool, she and her two sons, ages 2 and 6, were evicted from their $975-a-month apartment. ... Now the petite Straughter, 27, sleeps in an EDAR with her boys on the fourth floor of the mission. They like it better than she does. "The kids adjust to anything," she said. "They think they're camping."
Damn, these poor kids. What are the laws on keeping kids in shelters like this? At what point are the kids removed from the mom because she can't take care of them? If you don't have much money, then don't have all these kids!
Raynor learned about EDAR from homeless acquaintances. A high school dropout and former construction worker, Raynor had spent three years in jail for auto theft and forgery. With police after him in Texas and his home state of Missouri, he went to Arizona. He left there in search of more temperate weather and found it next to Pacific Coast Highway.
As traffic rushed by one recent starry Friday night, Raynor reminisced about his brushes with the law. Beer can in hand, he spoke of jumping a freight train to Texas to search for a friend's missing 13-year-old daughter. Wielding a sawed-off shotgun, he banged down a door and tied up two men who he thought knew her whereabouts. "How was I to know they were cops working on a sting operation?" he said.
lol wut?! I like how he's acting like his actions aren't that big of a deal and that he just got unlucky with the undercover cops. Dude, you aren't OJ Simpson, you can't be busting into places with a gun and tying people up.
Recently, a woman he described as his fiancee was struck and killed by a driver on PCH. Not long after, a male friend suffered the same fate, he said. The woman he'd married in Arizona disappeared from his life. He shares his PCH-adjacent turf with a woman named Yolanda, whose speech has been slurred by alcohol and a head injury.
Damn, PCH is gangster! PCH in Long Beach is where I saw my first big homeless caravan of people. It's not surprising that these bums are getting nailed by cars on PCH. I saw a bum walk straight across PCH with tons of cars flying by that had a green light. Basically it was the bum saying "fuck all of you, what are you gonna do, hit me and damage your cars?"
Meanwhile, lawyers are sorting out legal issues. Will municipal codes allow users to park their units anywhere? What about constitutional questions and not-in-my-backyard complaints?
My buddy in Long Beach is a doctor who had a homeless woman set up camp with her carts and boxes full of garbage right on his parking lot in the back of his office. He called the cops to move her out of there. The woman was taking her sweet time gathering her garbage, and the cops finally said, "we're busy and have to go now," no doubt to take care of the one million other crimes going on in Long Beach at that moment. "Homeless woman, make sure you're out of here within the next hour." Well of course as soon as the cops left the homeless woman just plunked her trash right back down to where she was. *sigh*
These EDARs are indeed a step up from living in card board boxes, but unfortunately some homeless will use EDARs to rationalize and justify that their way of life is accpetable because they have this nifty transportable tent-like device. Regardless, more EDARs should be tested and deployed to bums everywhere.
I came across this curiously named "Homeless Roll" at Mikomi sushi restaurant located at 414 S Myrtle Ave Monrovia, CA 91016. Since I am an authoritative source on all things homeless, I had to give it a try. The roll consists of shrimp tempura, avocado inside, chopped prime size soft shell crab on top. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the homeless sushi roll does not contain homeless man raw meat in it. The homeless roll is item number S11 on the menu and costs $13.50. I asked the waitress if she knew why the Homeless Roll was called the Homeless Roll and not surprisingly she said "Oh, I don't know, tee-hee." My guess would be because of all the crab sits in the middle of the plate by itself. If you can figure out the reasoning for the naming, let me know.
Poor kid. He's so young and innocent and doesn't know that homeless people are actually lazy pieces of shit who don't deserve to be fed, unless you're feeding them something inedible.
Homeless veteran is a nomad no more -Navy veteran Joe O'Boyle spent 15 years living on the street -A nonprofit called Pathways to Housing helped him find an apartment -Pathways is a pioneer in separating treatment needs from housing needs ... O'Boyle spent two of his homeless years underground, riding the trains of the city's subway system.
"I had nothing to do, so I rode the trains. I got to know the whole subway system like the back of my hand," O'Boyle said.
You had nothing to do? How about looking for a god damn job, asshole. Seriously, WTF?!
If your To-Do List looks like this, then go get a fucking job
Tsemberis believes that putting his clients in a place of their own is paramount in achieving success with their counseling and stabilization, as is the case with O'Boyle.
"You have to separate the treatment needs from the housing needs, which is what we were able to do for him. Give him a place to live so that he can feel safe and secure first, and then he's interested in helping himself with his psychiatric or addiction issues, employment issues. All of the issues follow the security of housing."
Hmmm there might be some truth in that....Then again, all homeless once had homes and went down from there...but there's no doubt that having a home would make getting back on your feet a lot easier.
Tsemberis says veterans' perspectives played a key role in the ideological creation of Pathways to Housing.
"They had already served their country, so jumping through hoops was not really something they were willing to put themselves through and would really accept housing on their own terms," he said.
"They felt that they had done their part and that someone should help them in the way that they deserved to be helped. And we agreed with that."
Ugh there is the bum's dangerous sense of self-entitlement. I have to say, I do feel way more sympathy for homeless Veterans than almost all other kinds of bums, but it's not like capable veterans shouldn't have to ever work again after a few years of service.
Pathways clients typically receive about $20,000 in rent and services which include mental health, addiction, health, employment and peer support. Tsemberis says that figure is half the amount a homeless person usually costs the system.
Daaaaamn that's expensive. This Tsemberis is saying that a homeless person usually costs "the system" $40,000? Man I didn't even make $40,000 a year until 2004, and didn't make more than $40,000 until 2005...and that was doing pretty well in Chicago!
The money comes from federal, state and some city funds, and clients have to meet standard lease obligations, such as paying 30 percent of income toward rent. Rental rates on apartments are fair market, with a studio usually going for about $750 a month.
Yeah NY rentals are expensive, but it sounds like these bums are living pretty well with the help of this service. I hope it produces rehabilitative results.
Wearing 'almost homeless' sign, ex-executive seeks -Paul Nawrocki worked in toy industry for 36 years before February layoff -After unsuccessful initial job hunt, Nawrocki started wearing sign in New York -Sign says: "Almost homeless. Looking for employment" -Nawrocki is running out of money; partially disabled wife on 15 medications
Paul Nawrocki says he's beyond the point where he cares about humiliation.
That's why he weekly takes a 90-minute train ride to New York, where he walks the streets wearing a sandwich board that advertises his plight: The former toy-industry executive needs a job.
"Almost homeless," reads the sign. "Looking for employment. Very experienced operations and administration manager."
Dude, of all things you were an operations and administration manager and you're taking 90 minute train rides to stand there with a sandwich board sign in attempts to get a job? This isn't a good use of your time dumbass. What did you do all 36 of those years working in the toy industry? You apparently didn't learn much and you most likely did a shitty job. Get your ass on the internet job boards, start posting and sending your resume out there, and start making some phone calls.
He tried more traditional approaches at looking for work, but nothing came through.
ORLY? Keep trying the traditional methods. Let's look at your job searching methods, review your resume, and check on your interviewing skills, because I bet they all suck a fat one.
His daughter eventually suggested handing out résumés on the street.
"We started talking, and she actually came up with the suggestion of putting on the sign board. I thought, 'That's not a bad idea.' So, here I am," he said.
You're wrong, that is a bad idea. You look like a fucking crazy person with that sandwich board sign. You're daughter doesn't know WTF she's talking about. If you were looking for jobs at her skill level in life, such as waiting tables, flipping burgers, and babysitting, then maybe passing out resumes on the street could work. No company is going to hire you into anything remotely close to an executive level position with a goddamn sign hanging around your neck begging for work!
Getting the right person's attention is tough. Competing with him for the eyes of passers-by are charity groups and homeless people seeking donations.
Exactly dude. You aren't going to get an executive level job out of pity, you have to actually be qualified for the position, so you shouldn't be out begging for a job alongside charities and bums. Wearing a sign around your neck like that to look for a white-collar job shows that you have a poor understanding of how the business world actually works. Furthermore, your sign says "Almost homeless," which implies many negative things about you. First, it implies that you are a poor manager of money, since you had little savings to rely on during your unemployment. Second, it implies that you have a poor social network and are unresourceful in finding help and money to avoid homelessness. Third, it implies that you have been jobless for a long time, which means that many companies saw you and didn't want you, because you suck.
But there was one hopeful moment as CNN was interviewing him. A man identifying himself as the head of a New York executive recruiting firm took one of Nawrocki's résumés. ... Warren was asked whether someone could find a job using Nawrocki's walking-the-streets tactic.
"Well, I found his résumé here, so I'm going to try to find him [something]," he said.
Nawrocki could have found this recruiter on the internet and emailed the recruiter his resume which would have saved him the hassle of standing around with a sign like a damn fool. If the recruitment guy actually looks for a job for Nawrocki, which the recruiter shouldn't unless he wants to lose credibility with the companies that he supplies potential employees to, he better hope the companies don't do a quick Google search on "Paul Nawrocki"....because they'll find out that this guy is so inept that he wore a fucking sandwich board sign around his goddamn neck looking for an executive level job. Paul Nawrocki, lose the sign gimmick and start looking for professional occupations through professional modern means like the internet, or you won't be "Almost Homeless", you will be homeless.
$75,000 reward in homeless man's death Police are still looking for the man who set John Robert McGraham on fire, killing him.
Imagine my confusion when I learned that the reward is actually for helping arrest the person who set the bum on fire, and NOT a cash prize for having killed the bum! Insanity!
John Robert McGraham was killed Oct. 9 when someone doused him with gasoline and set him on fire. He had been sitting on the sidewalk in front of a boarded-up dental office at Third and Berendo streets. ... For two decades, he repeatedly refused help from family members and others who attempted to remove him from the streets and obtain treatment for him. He was well-known to area residents, who often fed and provided clothing for him.
Stupid mother fucker, why didn't you take their help? Were you too prideful? Did you want to ensure that you would never have to work again?
"The community is horrified by this senseless act of violence," LaBonge said in a telephone interview. He said he and fellow Councilman Eric Garcetti are seeking to have attacks against homeless people classified as hate crimes under state law.
This hate crime shit is so idiotic. Of course it's a hate crime! Every time someone beats someone else's ass or violently murders someone it's a hate crime! They're not assaulting the person out of love, it's because they're filled with hate!
At least two people have died because of the blazes, which have burned 8,000 acres in the hills and mountains of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, fire and police officials said.
One was identified as a man who died in a makeshift wood-and-cardboard shelter and appeared to be homeless.
Like in the movie The Dark Knight, Alfred tells Bruce Wayne that in order to catch a bandit, "We burned down the forest." In order to make an omlet, you gotta break a few eggs. In this case, in order to burn a bum alive, you gotta set acres of land on fire. Or you can just go to your local alleyway and set a bum on fire there too. Whatever's easiest.
