ATTITUDES

Some of the homeless have chosen their condition. They get a government check once a month and use that to party and rent a cheap hotel room for a couple of weeks. After that, they stay in shelters until the next monthly check and the cycle repeats.

Others have what I think is an attitude problem. They are angry and consumed with stupid, short-term self-interest. (NOTE: I can recognize this in others because I am similar to them.)

One fellow I know well, Ken Murphy, routinely runs out of food stamps well before the 1st of the month because he insists on buying expensive food because it tastes great to him. When he runs out, others help him pick up the slack but they still have food stamp money because they purchased more wisely.

I introduced Ken to PCs and the Internet one weekend and it was clear that he needed to know a lot more in addition to getting practice with the keyboard. A day or two later, we were talking around 8 AM and he said he had "time to kill" before an appointment at 11 AM. I didn't say anything then but instead of wasting time, he could have gone to a public library (there was one about 10 minutes away) or the U of A library and practiced by doing his PC & Internet search skills. Ken has made that comment a few times since then and has done little or no Internet searching on his own. Finally, after a few weeks of "killing time," he found some valuable information - the whereabouts of his daughters, although I don't see how that is of any help in his current situation. He did not find any information about Angie, his former GF who had gotten a restraining order on him and had not done so by the time of his appeal hearing yesterday. He was going to try to get it postponed but I do not know if he was successful.

Ken and I both work for ACORN as voter registers. His performance has been dismal and he frankly doesn't care as long as he's getting $7/hr. We get a raise to $8/hr after we sign up 20 people and most of us got that during our 1st week. Ken still doesn't have 20 after more than 2 weeks and doesn't seem likely to get to 20 any time soon. He plans to use his 1st paycheck to pay off traffic fines in Illinois so he can get his AZ driver's license back. He then thinks that he can easily find a job. We'll see.