part of that is trust. given what some people who are in those situations have had to deal with – be it ptsd from war, abuse from loved ones, run ins with the cops – trust is hard.
both the trust that change will help. and the trust that the people offering change are really going to be there for them.
except for the rape thing – a lot of that is seriously difficult. imagine you have nothing except a few bags worth of stuff, but you’re only allowed to bring in one bag. imagine you’re seriously addicted, but have no safe place to fix. imagine you miss your bus and you’ve got to walk.
one kind of shelter, and one kind of process will not work for everyone. for people who are the worst off – often those who are the most visible – sometimes it needs to be about more harm reduction more than enforcing shelter.
i don’t know for sure how it is these days, but it used to be that there was a relatively small subset of very visible people who were chronically houseless and a much larger set of unseen people who were temporarily houseless ( from the loss of a job, a family death, divorce, etc. )
due to the cost of food and housing – and the lack of consistent well run programs – i imagine those two populations have merged quite a bit.
