[zkirby]

It rarely is - only 1/4th of homeless adults in LA suffer from a severe mental illness [1].

The sad reality is that the difference between the folks you pass by on the street and you is often just a little bit of bad luck and no support system.

Go listen to interviews with the folks that live in the sewers in Vegas, most of them want to work but can't get a government ID because they've had their old Ids and birth certificates stolen a long time ago.

I met a woman in her 60s in Oakland who was homeless and worked three (part-time) jobs. Couldn't afford to rent even the cheapest of apartments, couldn't work her way out of debt, was unmarried and had no living relatives.

Ol' Uncle Sam tends to not take kindly to those that can't pay to play.

1. https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/homeles....

[willcipriano]

Listen to people in prison, all of them innocent.

Listen to men who beat their wives, all of them had it coming.

People say what they think you want to hear. Don't take it at face value.

Specifically for this case: Whenever someone tells you how many jobs they work vs how many hours it's because it isn't that many hours.

[netsharc]

To reply to your last line: if you believe that "just work hard and you'll be successful", then you have to believe that the opposite is true, "if you are not successful, that must be because you're lazy".

Someone else said, "if hard work correlates to success, there'd be many millionaire African women.". But many successful people discount that they've had luck, e.g. the luck of being born in a rich country/to rich parents.

[jschveibinz]

To clarify, roughly 46% suffer from mental illness or substance abuse, and 25% from severe mental illness alone.

- SAMHSA, 2019