[tdfx]

There's tons of qualified people that are unable to find work simply because of their immigration status. Having work permission in the US is a massive economic advantage so it makes the situation of Americans who throw away that gift they were born into that much more jarring and hard to sympathize with.

Anecdotally, a friend of mine has attempted to hire homeless people on multiple occasions to help him in residential demolition projects (no clean clothes, resume, or shower necessary). In one instance, he scheduled work for the following day and zero out of 8 people showed up. I'm sure there's homeless people that would like to work their way of the situation, but I don't think they are in the majority. Any solutions to this problem need to be more realistic about the motivations and intentions of the group they're trying to assist.

[everforward]

The other side of the "not showing up" story has merit too. I had a (former) friend that did the same, and asked why people hadn't shown up.

The pay is terrible. In his case, it was below minimum wage. He argued he could get better labor for minimum wage, so they could either take it or be replaced.

He was also renting them the same place they were renovating. It was a slum, and he was using their labor to improve it so he could kick them out and replace them with someone that would pay. Not exactly a thrilling proposal.

There was no safety equipment provided. It was an old building, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was full of asbestos (and maybe why he didn't hire a reputable company in the first place).

The place was filthy. Human feces in a bucket kind of filthy.

> Any solutions to this problem need to be more realistic about the motivations and intentions of the group they're trying to assist.

There's a grain of truth here. My phrasing would be "Any solution provided needs to be better than panhandling." Doing difficult physical labor for below minimum wage doesn't meet that criteria. Even at minimum wage, I don't know if it's better.

[thegrimmest]

To elaborate, it seems that for most of human history the value proposition for most people, as imposed by nature, was "work hard or starve". Somehow, sometime, we've decided that this value proposition was unethical. So now it's "work hard, or live in the social safety net, such as it is". This is much more palatable for many more people, despite the downsides, so many more people take the offer.

I assure you many people on earth would enthusiastically clean the worst filth in order to feed their families. This should not be regarded as degradation, but rather strength and triumph.