Why Homeless People Don’t Use Shelters

http://culture.squidoo.com/why_homeless_people_avoid_shelters

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Please, keep in mind that not all shelters have all or even any of these down sides. Some have none of them. These are the things many homeless people who don't use them anymore have experienced at some facilities in the U.S. which may have caused them to later avoid using shelters. There are good ones out there, too. They can just be hard to find sometimes.

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Fear of Contracting Parasites

No matter how clean a facility is kept, the danger of getting parasites by using it is still very high. Mind you, this is not the fault of staff or organizations running shelters it is simply a hazard of having sleeping arrangements that hundreds of people cycle through; bedbugs are now even fairly common in high end hotels. Homeless people tend to carry a lot of parasites, likely because they tend to sleep in lots of different places. So if you sleep every night in a different bed that a long string of other people have slept in or sleep too close to an ever-changing assortmenty of people , eventually you are bound to get head lice, pubic lice or scabies. It’s hard as heck to get rid of parasites when you have no home.

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http://www.divinecaroline.com/life-etc/culture-causes/why-some-homeless-people-choose-streets-over-shelters

Becky Blanton, a writer who was homeless from March 2006 to August 2007, says she had a lot of reasons to not enter shelters when she lost her housing. “Disease, violence, mental illness, and addiction,” she said simply before going on to explain that, in her experience, staying in many emergency shelters leads to scabies, lice, bed bugs, the transmission of hepatitis and tuberculosis, athlete’s foot from the showers, the common cold and lots of other things that “are no big deal if you can stay home in bed, but can kill you if you’re homeless.”

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She worked the entire time she was homeless—at a newspaper for awhile and then at odd jobs. The restrictive schedule of shelters would have made it impossible for her to work, she said, since once a person checks in sometime in the afternoon, she can’t check out again until early morning. Blanton’s not alone in this, says Eckstine. “A lot of shelters don’t let you use your own alarm clock or provide an early enough wakeup call.” For people working day labor, from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., or overnight shifts, they’re generally out of luck. Eckstine knows some who sleep in their cars just outside shelters, so they can get showers and meals without the curfews.

The restraints can also interfere with recovery programs. “I’ve talked to people who literally had to choose between going to their 12-Step meetings and going to the shelter,” Eckstine says.

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It’s not just convenience and health concerns that keep people in the streets, though. Blanton, who kept a Rottweiler and a house cat while she was homeless, said she met lots of fellow pet-owners who refused to leave their animals, as well as families and couples who didn’t want to split up into male and female quarters in shelters. Several homeless alcoholics and drug addicts won’t enter a shelter where they can’t drink or use for an extended period of time, especially if they’re at risk of withdrawal symptoms. [People can die from alcohol withdrawal.]

Worse, some people don’t have any choice but to sleep outdoors or in friends’ homes. Shelters are routinely full in cities across the country, particularly since the recession has made many people homeless for the first time. As Eckstine says, “Most cities have vastly fewer shelter beds than homeless people.”


culture.squidoo.com/why_homeless_people_avoid_shelters

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Contrary to popular belief, many homeless people have jobs. Because check-in hours for shelters are often rigid and the process of waiting in line and checking in usually takes hours, many working poor cannot use them. Others work evening or night hours which don’t allow them to get inside before curfew. People who work from nine to five usually can’t use them, either; by the time they get off work, it’s usually too late for them to get in line to check into a shelter.

Another reason some homeless shelters are incompatible with having a job is that they require people to attend AA or other drug abuse rehab classes (often held during normal work hours) every day or most days they use the shelter – whether those people have a drug or alcohol problem or not. Others require those who use their services to take rudimentary job skill classes or other life-skill classes during business hours even if employed and already well-educated on the topics.

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Homeless shelters and the areas around them are often hunting grounds for human predators. Some very few of the craftier ones get jobs at the charities while most others just watch for individuals departing in the morning or arriving in the evening. It’s not just rapists, either. Predators in search of “excitement” will track a lone person leaving a shelter so they can beat him or harass him for fun.

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Lack of Handicapped Accommodations
Disabilities make use difficult

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Service dogs other than Seeing Eye dogs and hearing assistance dogs are sometimes denied entry to homeless shelters. Mobility dogs (dogs that help you stand or get into your wheelchair, assist you up stairs, etc), dogs that provide assistance for mental conditions such as anxiety or agoraphobia, and other service dogs are even more often denied entry.

People frequently lose their own identification papers, often through no fault of their own, so it is no surprise that they often lose identification papers for their service animals. Even in the case of Seeing Eye dogs and hearing assistance dogs, if the person has lost the dog’s paperwork or doesn’t have an official harness, the dog will not be allowed inside. Few people in that situation will abandon a service dog.

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While most homeless people are not thieves, a few of them are. It only takes one to spoil it for everyone else. When you have no home, your little bit of stuff is precious; it’s all you have.

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Most shelters and kitchens have some sort of religious service people are required to sit through to eat or sleep there. I’m an atheist but this didn’t bother me much. Frankly, I was pleased to be in a climate controlled room and sitting at rest somewhere without fear of getting harassed by gangs or police no matter what I had to pretend to believe. It didn’t even bother me that I had to give lip-service to the notion that I was being punished by God for being a bad person.

However, some people object to this, often people with strong religious beliefs of their own who believe they already have a good relationship with God. I’ve met a decent number of people unwilling to sit through the services and pretend their situation is a just punishment from God for being a terrible person. Very religious people seem to get extremely offended when someone looks down on them and tells them they don’t have a good enough relationship with Jesus to deserve a place to live.

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Many homed people would argue that people who are down on their luck are not deserving of privacy. However, the complete lack of privacy can be especially hard on people with mental disorders that make them fear crowds. I encountered several crowd phobic people who could not be convinced to use a homeless shelter even though they were sickly and ill suited to outdoor sleeping even when the weather was good.

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And the #1 Reason Homeless People Don't Use Shelters- Lack of Available Beds
There is not enough shelter for everyone

No matter how many people choose not to use them there are still not nearly enough beds available for those who would like to sleep indoors despite the risks involved.

In most cities in America there’s space in homeless shelters for less than 25% of the homeless people living in that city. In other cities there is only enough room in shelters for less than 5% of their homeless population. There’s not enough funding to provide beds for every homeless person in America.

Additionally, many areas in America have made ordinances limiting the number of people a charity may serve. In some cities,they may not provide beds for more than 20 people! Additionally, some cities have created ordinances preventing them from being in or near the downtown area (where the churches and other organizations likely to provide such services are most likely to own property) or laws preventing two homeless shelters from being within a certain distance of each other.

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