If you are one of these generous, well-meaning souls who is inclined to think that letting a random homeless person move in with you is a good idea, let me state unequivocally that I do NOT recommend this as a method for helping the homeless and you might want to watch the movie called Black Butterfly if you need some convincing.
While homeless, I had several offers to just move in with someone. In some cases it was a guy and he clearly had an agenda and I turned all these offers down. (One of these guys later told me his life had gone to hell and it was MY FAULT for NOT moving in with him.)
I did not consider it to be a good idea for EITHER party. It will not likely go well if you are well-meaning individual who feels "charity begins at home" or something and it will likely not go well for the homeless individual.
I have had someone email me and ASK what the hell to do now that they had invited a homeless person to move in with them and didn't know how best to cope. I have also read articles about real life cases where someone invited a homeless person to move in with them and it ended in murder, like this story about a guy who murdered some of the members of the family that took him in.
If you want to help the homeless, that's cool but don't be foolish about it. The BEST thing you can do is find local charities you like and support them and also advocate for more housing to be built. Lack of affordable housing is a PRIMARY cause of homelessness in the US and simply building MORE housing tends to help make housing more available and generally more affordable.
If you really, really want to help the homeless directly, I recommend giving cash, gift cards, paying for their groceries or gifting them a hotel stay
But please don't take some random stranger into your home thinking you will help them that way. This has "bad idea" written all over it.
In my twenties, I let a young pregnant woman, her boyfriend and her baby move in with my family. This rapidly went sideways and we quickly moved them out again.
They were on the verge of homelessness because she was being evicted. TLDR: We helped the boyfriend join the military, she ultimately opted to NOT marry him and moved back home with her mother to have her THIRD child by a THIRD father out of wedlock. The first one was given up for adoption, the second one she was raising and I lost track of her after we moved her out of our house.
Giving her the mostly unused third bedroom of our three bedroom house did not raise her up to our middle class lifestyle. It dragged us down to her slum lifestyle while she let all her friends know our phone number so they could call her and felt we had unreasonable expectations when we told her she needed to let us know when she was coming home and she needed to tell her friends to not call us at 2 a.m. because my husbnad needed to be at work early.
First, it's always inherently problematic to let some total stranger move in with you. This is true even if they supposedly have their act together and you vet them beforehand.
This is why we have horror movies about getting roommates, like Single White Female. It's also why there are multiple internet forums where you can find questions about how to deal with "the roommate from hell" scenarios.
Second, helping someone who can't pay you rent get on their feet takes a LOT of resources, starting with money but not ending there. It takes so much that it will probably strain your budget even if you are fairly comfortably well off.
In a way, it's worse than adopting a baby. It's more like doing foster care for troubled teenagers with substance abuse problems.
The odds are very good that if you want to be kind and caring to this person, you will find youself dealing with a scenario where they constantly need more from you while telling you that it isn't reasonble for you to place any limits on them or their behavior. And their behavior is highly likely to be pretty problematic.
Homeless people have a tendency to be in a whole heap of trouble. Money alone doesn't fix it.
Compassion can be a wonderful thing, but please find some other way to be kind to people. THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA.
It's such a bad idea, this is NOT the first post I have written to say this. And in fact parts of this post are essentially a repeat of that one. But I have just seen too many stories, so wanted to say it again. Please do NOT do this.
While homeless, I had several offers to just move in with someone. In some cases it was a guy and he clearly had an agenda and I turned all these offers down. (One of these guys later told me his life had gone to hell and it was MY FAULT for NOT moving in with him.)
I did not consider it to be a good idea for EITHER party. It will not likely go well if you are well-meaning individual who feels "charity begins at home" or something and it will likely not go well for the homeless individual.
I have had someone email me and ASK what the hell to do now that they had invited a homeless person to move in with them and didn't know how best to cope. I have also read articles about real life cases where someone invited a homeless person to move in with them and it ended in murder, like this story about a guy who murdered some of the members of the family that took him in.
If you want to help the homeless, that's cool but don't be foolish about it. The BEST thing you can do is find local charities you like and support them and also advocate for more housing to be built. Lack of affordable housing is a PRIMARY cause of homelessness in the US and simply building MORE housing tends to help make housing more available and generally more affordable.
If you really, really want to help the homeless directly, I recommend giving cash, gift cards, paying for their groceries or gifting them a hotel stay
But please don't take some random stranger into your home thinking you will help them that way. This has "bad idea" written all over it.
In my twenties, I let a young pregnant woman, her boyfriend and her baby move in with my family. This rapidly went sideways and we quickly moved them out again.
They were on the verge of homelessness because she was being evicted. TLDR: We helped the boyfriend join the military, she ultimately opted to NOT marry him and moved back home with her mother to have her THIRD child by a THIRD father out of wedlock. The first one was given up for adoption, the second one she was raising and I lost track of her after we moved her out of our house.
Giving her the mostly unused third bedroom of our three bedroom house did not raise her up to our middle class lifestyle. It dragged us down to her slum lifestyle while she let all her friends know our phone number so they could call her and felt we had unreasonable expectations when we told her she needed to let us know when she was coming home and she needed to tell her friends to not call us at 2 a.m. because my husbnad needed to be at work early.
First, it's always inherently problematic to let some total stranger move in with you. This is true even if they supposedly have their act together and you vet them beforehand.
This is why we have horror movies about getting roommates, like Single White Female. It's also why there are multiple internet forums where you can find questions about how to deal with "the roommate from hell" scenarios.
Second, helping someone who can't pay you rent get on their feet takes a LOT of resources, starting with money but not ending there. It takes so much that it will probably strain your budget even if you are fairly comfortably well off.
In a way, it's worse than adopting a baby. It's more like doing foster care for troubled teenagers with substance abuse problems.
The odds are very good that if you want to be kind and caring to this person, you will find youself dealing with a scenario where they constantly need more from you while telling you that it isn't reasonble for you to place any limits on them or their behavior. And their behavior is highly likely to be pretty problematic.
Homeless people have a tendency to be in a whole heap of trouble. Money alone doesn't fix it.
Compassion can be a wonderful thing, but please find some other way to be kind to people. THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA.
It's such a bad idea, this is NOT the first post I have written to say this. And in fact parts of this post are essentially a repeat of that one. But I have just seen too many stories, so wanted to say it again. Please do NOT do this.