It's all relative. Maybe things are not that bad for you and you can deal with it - but only you can tell.
Let me describe being in America -- one of the most wretched places on earth - for some.
For others it can be heaven.
Try living in the US without a job. There is almost no welfare here - it is not like Europe / Australia etc.
It is impossible to cope for long without a job in the US - and once homeless / destitute -- suicide to escape it becomes almost impossible too.
For the few who can hustle the cash and navigate this world - maybe a drug overdose - but many bad drug deals with fake powders / many arrests --not an easy path.
Guns / inert gas / Nembutal etc all impossible with no money. Tall buildings and bridges now almost impossible.
Nowhere undisturbed for 30 min to hang oneself in public. Parks closed / patrolled at night.
The only people who seem to be able to hang themselves with a sheet or improvised rope etc using partial hanging --and can take the terrible pain and go through with it -- seem to be severely mentally ill people with voices screaming in their heads -- or maybe I am just not brave enough. I just could not do it and not stop part way and stand up.
Full suspension hanging is harder - where to get a rope - how to climb up and tie it - not simple. Maybe I just don't have the courage to endure the pain.
Just couldn't - no matter how bad things are.
Here they will let / make you literally starve to death / die of dehydration in the heat / get frostbite in -20C weather in a flimsy tent in the woods or in the gutter in a city.
Amputated fingers and toes from frostbite - untreated abscessed teeth leading eventually to meningitis and death - blindness from parasites from dirty drinking water - you name it - hepatitis A, B and C. Eye diseases - skin diseases - trench foot.
No one will help you - unless single mother with very young kids and healthy / able to work at least part time and with a support network of friends/family.
Single males - doomed -- end up in a prison being exploited for private prison shares, convict labour, guards salaries, phone company ripoffs, commissary food supplement ripoffs etc etc. -- on top of the violence from inmates and guards, untreated medical and dental issues, rapes, poor diet, filthy conditions etc etc
Full disability here is maybe $500 - $1K /month -- will barely pay rent for a single room - but if haven't worked in a few years before becoming disabled - then not eligible for anything no matter how disabled -- and they exclude so many. Deaf is not deaf if even one ear partly works/ could work with a $3K hearing aid you cannot afford.
Is unbelievable - but true.
For example - be unemployed - stay at home Dad for 10 years - so have not worked in 5 yrs of last 10 years -- then go blind, lose both your legs , lose an arm --- you get ZERO.
You can starve / die in the snow -you get nada in the US if you are not eligible for SSI. Have to be working within the last few years before being disabled and even then is a multi-year effort to get them to register for disability - so how are you supposed to cope in the meantime ... and need medical records etc - these are not free in the US.
If you lose your job and are all paid up on contributions then you get a few months of EU type few hundred a week - but after 6 -9 months or whatever when it runs out -you get zero. Then need to work again for a couple of years before can do it again. Otherwise nada. No food no shelter no water nothing.
Nada. Then homeless then prison for the crime of being homeless. There are no public water fountains for drinking water. No public restrooms. What do you do ?
Shelters and "charities" are often "not for profit" - which just means they pay themselves well enough that there is nothing left over -they are businesses - though they do have some good people.
They have a few min wage front line staff - or ex prisoners working for free so they don't get put back in prison - but rest are well paid senior staff who never even see a homeless person and are very well paid.
They lock up almost 10 times as many per capita as other places - is a vast gulag - where companies make money off supplying and staffing and exploiting the prisoners.
No AC in 35C+ weather -no heating in sub zero weather - not enough food - $$ per minute phone calls - kick backs to the prison owners - privatized prisons - compulsory labour at $1 a day type wages - just unimaginable suffering --on top of all the violence untreated diseases TB/AIDS/rape/HepC
-- and it is for life - because once your sentence is up you can leave but you're coming right back because the outside world has nowhere for you as an ex convict - and you will be re-arrested in days / weeks /months on some new charge.
Loitering / public urination / public trespass (sitting down from exhaustion) / not getting a job if on parole though it is almost impossible to get a job with a record aside form manual day labor if young strong then winter comes no work back to prison / etc -- hardly hardened criminal acts deserving of such extreme punishment
They have $100/month ( not a typo) foodstamps - if you can meet all the eligibility criteria and do all the paperwork ( and have ID) - but cannot buy cooked food - but cannot afford anywhere to cook /prepare raw food - so can get bread/ peanut butter and not much else -- and you have to work but make less than a certain amount or you get just a couple of years per lifetime then nada. Single males not working get zero.
-- and somehow you have to keep a residence address/ pay rent --or you cease to exist and are eligible for nothing.
The only people who get any welfare here are low paid single mothers - somehow still housed - working at least part time-with very young children - and it is not much.
There is essentially no welfare in the US.
It is not like Europe where can get unemployment for life - sometimes if never even had a job.
Other than that - no job then no rent - then soon no address - then no driver's license because no address - then no ID because no address - then cannot even apply for a job without ID -- then begging and sleeping rough then arrested then jail /prison - then unemployable for life. Then homeless --> jail --> homeless over and over.
After 3 years ( if locked up for example) - banks confiscate all account contents if no activity - good luck writing letters to claimn it back when homeless. LEgally not allowed have a bank acct if no residential address ( no - not everyone has a "friend" who will pick up their mail) - same with driver's license - and state photo id --need an address.
Once homeless - especially with any inevitable "criminal" record is almost impossible here - even with help -- to crawl back out of it.
Now THAT is something that would inspire CTB -- no wonder the OD rate is over 92,000 / year now in the US -- double the official suicide rate of 48,000/yr.
and half of the suicides are with guns here -- but cannot own/carry a gun when homeless - or an ex prisoner - can't maintain a permit -- so those are just the richer people.
Food is occasional church soup kitchens and "not for profit" charities with well paid CEO's / grant managers who get paid well but have to occasionally actually help some poor people - so they themselves can get more grants --etc. Some volunteers - but it is actually an industry here - and it never fixes much of the poverty because it isn't meant to.
Shelters often have limited duration stays -- get a job or go back to the gutter - sometimes there are no jobs - if you have no skills - papers - ID - or a criminal record.
Get arrested for public urination here and often they will add on indecent exposure - and will register you as a sex offender for life - on paper you may as well be a pedophile.
-- then try to get a job anywhere with 10 second online background checks and all records permanent and public as soon as even arrested never mind convicted.
Though there are some good people - charities here are an industry built on the suffering of poor people - same as the prisons - imagine over 3 million locked up and twice that on the way in or out of prison - hundreds of thousands of probation officers tormenting people every step of the way - while picking up a pay cheque.
Home is a tent on the street - in the woods - nowhere to get drinking water - no public restrooms so get arrested again - nowhere to cook or store food - no ID so no job -- cannot ever escape and climb back out. No dental treatment - no medical treatment - expensive public transport - often no public transport - drive or walk - miles and miles with no footpaths.
Here they put blind people and cripples in wheelchairs out in the street homeless to beg in the heat and snow - left to starve or not - and then arrest them for begging - or defecating in an alley when there is no alternative. I don't know how they last a week never mind years of this.
Go to San Francisco or Los Angeles or New York city or Philadelphia or many other places - even more rural places -- street upon street of thousands of these people.
They throw cripples on the floors of prison cells and throw away their wheel chairs if they don't fit in the door of a small cell - leaving the cripple to crawl across and eat off the floor. Google the Marshall project on US prisons -- is harrowing reading.
The US as an unemployed / homeless person - or worse a prisoner in their gulag -- is truly hell on earth - but almost impossible to escape.
Count your blessings if you are not here. Have your method ready to go in case things get this bad.
