>I think the definition of a risk is very relative though.

That was part of my point, though I worded it poorly.

>then taking time to educate themselves (a vocation school, getting resources on how to stretch a dollar, etc.) may seem like a risk.

I think the biggest issue here is kids. I taught at a local community college, and I can say that almost everyone there was taking a risk of some kind to get through school. But the moms that had to leave class early to pick up their kid from one place and bring them to another place and then go to Walmart for work to make ends meet.

I had a student who was homeless, and now has a good job. He worked harder than 99% of the other students. (I taught for about 12 years)

I also had a student that was watching porn and left his baby in the tub and it drowned.

These are the people that would benefit from help, but the problems that I see are that they have help right now. I know this because I was a homeless teen on the streets for a while. And there's help all over the place.

I think people that have never been homeless don't understand it at all. It's a totally foreign world. But half the people that were my friends were trying to get off the streets, and the other half were not. Drugs were pervasive, and one friend was this happy, carefree kid, and a year later when I was back in town, he was on meth and was mugging people.

What people are missing is good parents that could teach their kids how to live, especially when it gets hard. Save money, don't waste your life on drugs, work hard, be decent to people.

Many of my friends were happy being on the streets (I was for a time) because home life was so wretched.

What would happen if all these kids got a chunk of money every month? Drugs and entertainment, I gurantee you that. Why? Because they saw no hope in spending it wisely when many couldn't look further than a day in the future. Misery an hopelessness was their daily life.

Some kids would get some money, and they go to a fancy restaurant for a single meal. One time a bunch of kids spanged (spare changing) for a whole day just to get a night at the Hilton hotel and bunch of them took showers there. (there are showers at the shelter, and they still did this) And yes, the shelter was totally safe (some theft) but it was kids, not crazed adults. I think the adults lives are just an extension of what the teens experience, but a more realistic outlook, and hopelessness is spread out over time differently. (I was homeless as an adult for awhile as well)

The kids that made it out were the ones looking for jobs and housing, even when all they had was a local shelter and general mailbox and phone service provided by a local volunteer house for homeless kids.

Risk plays no part in helping any of these kids, or me when I was there. There daily life is full of risk. There were kids selling drugs, a few prostituted themselves in various ways. (though this gets worse the longer you are out there) I finally got a job, but had nothing to spend money on. I had hundreds of dollars in my pocket at one point, and was still homeless.

Unless you have 10k or more, what "risk" could you possibly take without family or a huge support network? And if you did have that money, but no support, it would be insane to take a risk. I think talking about risks in regards to helping the needing is red herring, a strawman, and distraction.

What these people need is real hope, so that when they change from spending $30 a day at McDonalds, to spending $100 a week at a grociery store, that they truly believe and understand they are making their future better.

I have so much more to say about this, but I will pause. I find many comments about the poor and downtrodden to be based on faulty understanding of these people's reality. It reminds me of white people arguing about what black people experience. Can they? Of course, but they often sound silly and misinformed.