“...what could be better for these men than a program that promoted virtue, work, and self-sufficiency? But both expressed trepidation, which I pressed them on: Why choose the path of chronic homelessness over the path out of poverty? Both men cited the same reason: “I couldn’t give up my cell phone.” Participants in the Forge program are asked to give up their phone for six months to enable a distraction-free environment.”
Totally ignores human nature and what is off kilter in their lives in the first place. Same reason a lot of missionaries ended up as the main course.
Night Patrol by Robert Cray Band 1980s
See him huddled in the shadows
Sleepin' on his cardboard bed
Using rags for a pillow
Where he lays his unwashed head
His blanket's old newspaper
Not much good against the snow
See so many like him out there
When you walk the night patrol
When you walk the night patrol
Oh, you wonder where he came from
Where he's gonna go
Was it a woman or a bottle?
That's brought him down so low
What's happened to his family?
Do they know he's out here in the cold?
He's just a nameless soldier
Marching on the night patrol
Marching on the night patrol
The Dying Hobo multiple sources including my Dad - Depression era
”Beside a Western water tank one cold December day
Inside an empty boxcar, a dying hobo lay
His partner stood beside him with a low and bowed down head
Listening to the last words that the dying hobo said
‘I am going to a better land where everything is bright
Where handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
And you never have to work at all, and never change your socks
And the little streams of whiskey come trickling down the rocks
Tell all the boys in Frisco town my trade is almost due
Tell them I caught a fast train and I'm going straight on through
Yes, tell them not to weep for me, no tears in my eyes must blur
I'm going to a better land where they hate the word called work
Oh! hark, I hear the whistling, I'll catch her on the fly
Just one more scoop of beer I'd like, once more before I die’
Then the hobo stopped, his head fell back, he'd sung his last refrain
And his partner took his hat and shoes and caught the Eastbound train.”
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