A project for the benefit of homeless people

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Ayu
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A project for the benefit of homeless people

Post by Ayu »

Happening these days on a monthly base in Germany. I love this:



At the end they wrote: "Due to respect for the people we didn't show the long talks, appreciation and care that happened as well "
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

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Ayu wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 12:04 pm Happening these days on a monthly base in Germany. I love this:



At the end they wrote: "Due to respect for the people we didn't show the long talks, appreciation and care that happened as well "
So this noble project is taking place through Tibet-Zentrum Hannover - Samten Dargyeling -(Tibet Center in the city of Hannover).

They have a donation page via PayPal: The Homeless Care Project of the Tibet Center Hannover - at the bottom of the page they have a Spenden (Donate) button that takes you to PayPal for this project.

Kirt
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

Post by narhwal90 »

Thats how you do it :namaste: out there face to face. I really like how they gave out hot coffee and put a coin in their donation cups, and spent a bit of time talking to them.

We only get a trickle of homeless walk-ins at the pantry, but enough that we make a few special bags for them with food that doesn't need refrigeration or cooking, and include toiletries; toothpase & brush, plastic utensils, napkins etc. Last month we had a couple, one guy came through who was living in a car.
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

Post by Sherab Rigdrol »

Ayu wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 12:04 pm Happening these days on a monthly base in Germany. I love this:



At the end they wrote: "Due to respect for the people we didn't show the long talks, appreciation and care that happened as well "
Being homeless in Germany, I'm sure, is lifetimes better than being struggling, lower class in America.

Good project :)
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

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Hard to say, some of those folks in the video look like some of ours. The 24x7 outside homeless develop a look, quite different from other folks- even those living in very unfortunate circumstances. We don't have a tent community in the area of the city we service, so I don't have a sense of what they end up looking like. I've only seen a few of those I call the "ghosts", those that live in the side streets and alleys- not seen in the kinds of places shown on the video, and having even less than a grocery cart.
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

Post by megaman chiquito »

I always make a slow vow or genuflection when I give to a beggar. Im very shy but last time i told a woman with her children about a nearby church which provides food relief. Some others dont beg but sell cheap paper tissues, I think buying from them is a form of alms giving.
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

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narhwal90 wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 11:46 pm Hard to say, some of those folks in the video look like some of ours. The 24x7 outside homeless develop a look, quite different from other folks- even those living in very unfortunate circumstances. We don't have a tent community in the area of the city we service, so I don't have a sense of what they end up looking like. I've only seen a few of those I call the "ghosts", those that live in the side streets and alleys- not seen in the kinds of places shown on the video, and having even less than a grocery cart.
Part of "the look" is likely staying awake by using meth, due to having to be on the move all the time, not having good sleep arrangements, just being around it all the time when not in a stable place, etc. When I worked with this population it taught me a ton about how some people end up on meth and heroin, and the intersection between the homeless crisis and the opioid crisis. A lot of people assume it's a choice people make at a stable point in life or something, but seriously a good portion of the homeless community uses it to one degree or another simply due to the situation they are in, and it just makes the homeless issue that much more difficult to deal with, because now they also have a possible lifetime addiction to confront and manage.

The best thing would be if our societies just spent -way- more money and had better long term treatment and social programs, it's shameful to me that we spend what we do on military, corporate welfare etc. (talking specifically about the US there) and yet things like housing people and offering basic health services have to be taken up by various charities. It's also some of the most noble work one can do though, in my opinion.
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

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Yeah the meth and heroin show up a lot for us also. We've lost a number of our regulars at the pantry to it, kills the folks with houses too. I had never seen track marks up close until I started at the pantry. Have to give full marks to the Maryland Food Bank, this year they have really stepped up the distribution efforts- we get a lot of stock from them. The lack of investment in the blighted neighborhoods is shocking.. but apparently plenty of money to build casinos and sports facilities. In the parish we serve the biggest apparent investment has been demolishing a few of the worst of the abandoned houses, many dozens more rotting into their foundations year after year.
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

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narhwal90 wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2021 3:31 am Yeah the meth and heroin show up a lot for us also. We've lost a number of our regulars at the pantry to it, kills the folks with houses too. I had never seen track marks up close until I started at the pantry. Have to give full marks to the Maryland Food Bank, this year they have really stepped up the distribution efforts- we get a lot of stock from them. The lack of investment in the blighted neighborhoods is shocking.. but apparently plenty of money to build casinos and sports facilities. In the parish we serve the biggest apparent investment has been demolishing a few of the worst of the abandoned houses, many dozens more rotting into their foundations year after year.
Drug and alcohol abuse is in my opinion one of the biggest scourges of western society. If this problem could be overcome I believe that other problems like unemployment, homelessness, domestic violence and petty crime would also reduce.
Unfortunately I'm not smart enough to think of a cure.
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

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shaunc wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2021 4:40 am Drug and alcohol abuse is in my opinion one of the biggest scourges of western society. If this problem could be overcome I believe that other problems like unemployment, homelessness, domestic violence and petty crime would also reduce.
Unfortunately I'm not smart enough to think of a cure.
Buddha thought of the cure. :smile: And you are living it! Being compassionate with the Dharma can bring many out of the haze of drug addiction and into the most happy and moral filled lives that they have always secretly dreamed of, to be free of Samsara and to make all of the changes in the world that save humanity and all sentient beings!
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

Post by Hazel »

shaunc wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2021 4:40 am
narhwal90 wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2021 3:31 am Yeah the meth and heroin show up a lot for us also. We've lost a number of our regulars at the pantry to it, kills the folks with houses too. I had never seen track marks up close until I started at the pantry. Have to give full marks to the Maryland Food Bank, this year they have really stepped up the distribution efforts- we get a lot of stock from them. The lack of investment in the blighted neighborhoods is shocking.. but apparently plenty of money to build casinos and sports facilities. In the parish we serve the biggest apparent investment has been demolishing a few of the worst of the abandoned houses, many dozens more rotting into their foundations year after year.
Drug and alcohol abuse is in my opinion one of the biggest scourges of western society. If this problem could be overcome I believe that other problems like unemployment, homelessness, domestic violence and petty crime would also reduce.
Unfortunately I'm not smart enough to think of a cure.
I personally believe for some of these in your list the causality is flipped and in others they share a root cause. I personally find it useful to frame alcohol/drug as a symptom, a high-cost coping mechanism, not an illness.

Edit: Rephrased to speak only of my personal view/experience in the latter sentence
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Re: A project for the benefit of homeless people

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Hazel wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2021 6:05 pm
shaunc wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2021 4:40 am
narhwal90 wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2021 3:31 am Yeah the meth and heroin show up a lot for us also. We've lost a number of our regulars at the pantry to it, kills the folks with houses too. I had never seen track marks up close until I started at the pantry. Have to give full marks to the Maryland Food Bank, this year they have really stepped up the distribution efforts- we get a lot of stock from them. The lack of investment in the blighted neighborhoods is shocking.. but apparently plenty of money to build casinos and sports facilities. In the parish we serve the biggest apparent investment has been demolishing a few of the worst of the abandoned houses, many dozens more rotting into their foundations year after year.
Drug and alcohol abuse is in my opinion one of the biggest scourges of western society. If this problem could be overcome I believe that other problems like unemployment, homelessness, domestic violence and petty crime would also reduce.
Unfortunately I'm not smart enough to think of a cure.
I personally believe for some of these in your list the causality is flipped and in others they share a root cause. I personally find it useful to frame alcohol/drug as a symptom, a high-cost coping mechanism, not an illness.

Edit: Rephrased to speak only of my personal view/experience in the latter sentence
I don't know if this is what you mean, but I think agree. Meaning, in my original post I was saying that I think a substantial portion of chronic addiction comes about as a result of chronic homelessness. The same could likely be said to some degree about domestic violence, poverty etc., though of course we get into a chicken and egg thing there, it's quite hard to disentangle. I was speaking from my professional experience, just listening to so many stories of "here's how I got here".

People on one side of the debate will always say "oh but look there's way less addicts above a certain economic level", but I don't know if that's true, we just treat it as less of a crime when people are not poor, and they are able to more discretely get treatment, and it's generally a more manageable condition the more good stuff you have in your life. So addiction is more visible the poorer someone is, which I admit means that my opinion on it has to be taken with a grain of salt.

I do think it is an illness though, it's just an acquired illness, often coming about through a complex set of circumstances. We know now that in cases of Chronic addictions some people's brain chemistry is permanently altered. in that sense, in some ways true chronic addiction (which btw is not the same as substance abuse, it is a progression) is similar to diabetes...it is more likely if you are poor, stressed out, etc. because poor and homeless people tend to have fewer of the protective factors against it that other populations do.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
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