OK, but can't we do it in San Diego?

Ah yes, the Seattle Library. I checked it out a few years ago when it first opened. I went to one of the upstairs reading areas and the place was packed with bums, er...homeless folks, sleeping in the chairs. I didn't hang around long. Never been back, now that I think about it.

"Poverty Tourism" is GENEROUS!
It's the trademark Leftist CONTEMPT for those whom they *claim* to care...all in the name of "sanctimonious superiority."

Take pictures of the fools who buy into it and post them online to shame them.
(No, no extortion...*that* would be too "exploitative"...bwahahahahahahaha!)

If this is an Onion or Peoples Cube post it is a funny one. If it is the real deal it is a sad one.

There is the Hobo Nation, which seems to be a similar celebration of losers, except transient ones. After the last financial crash (1929) many men took to the rails, leaving the ashes of their lives and shortening their perimeters. "... Knapsack on my back and the hounds is on my track ..." Euphemisms and rationalizations, glorifying hopelessness and despair. With the support of the Welfare State enablers, many can't/won't/don't try to get out of the pit. They are told that they are stupid, weak, too dysfunctional to help themselves. "Here, let us help you" is anything but. As with other aspects of socialism the lesser folks are kept down on the plantation, down in the alleys, only realized to fulfill quotas and census displays for more funding.

Along comes this schmuck with a scheme for a vicarious experience. Go ahead and do it for a few days and you'll have life credentials. When you want to save the whales or feed the bastards or march in some protest of Unfairness to the Poor you can always say "yeah, man, I did that". Brag about how noble you are by being a loser. Get a tattoo and a t shirt. Make a reality show out of it.

Anybody that gives this guy two thousand bucks for the Disney tour of the streets, I wonder how they could have accumulated the money in the first place and being fools, why they were not separated from it sooner.

Just another chapter in the continuing soap opera "Lifestyles of the Boomers" Maybe he'll make enough money to buy a Benz and move to Gig Harbor.

Good for him.

"you'll get a real perspective on how the public perceives the homeless".

Shiftless parasites like you, buddy?

Hope the publicity keeps then in Seattle. Hope someone in the other homeless enclaves does the same thing. Our town is not known being homeless friendly. They may stay at the Salvation Army or one of the two missions for a day or two, but soon move on to better pickings.

Where were the homeless before the closure of many state mental hospitals ? Where were the single mothers before the government became their husbands?
Where were illegal aliens before they became the entitled group ?
Who are the enablers ?

Preying on the bleeding heart Seattle affluent progressives.. $2000 bucks to sleep in a shelter and beg on the street. Hahahaha.. That’s too rich.. can’t say I’m not amused, though .. I guess it doesn’t occur to them that maybe they could get their authentic experience by begging for free and donate that $2K to the Union Gospel Mission or any one of dozens of charities that feed and house the homeless. That captures the "caring liberal" mindset in a nutshell.

Preying on the bleeding heart Seattle affluent progressives.. $2000 bucks to sleep in a shelter and beg on the street. Hahahaha.. That’s too rich.. can’t say I’m not amused, though .. I guess it doesn’t occur to them that maybe they could get their authentic experience by begging for free and donate that $2K to the Union Gospel Mission or any one of dozens of charities that feed and house the homeless. That captures the "caring liberal" mindset in a nutshell.

It reads like that Hogarth print of "The Rake's Progress" were the rake is dying in Bedlam and the gentry are walking by on their tour to see the mad. At least, as if one of the gentry decided to do an experiment of living in Bedlam to report back on the life of the mad.

Or if some member of the Victorian gentry decided to spend some time in a workhouse to see how the poor widows and orphans managed to get by.

Only with a lot more stupid added to it.

chasmatic:

King of the Road

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrhAC0dFis0

Sounds more glamorous this way....

Don't know why the guy is catching flak for it. Hell, there are anthropologist/sociologist professors who land much bigger grants to do the same thing on the taxpayer's dime.

Griz,

I don't think most of the commenters object to the guy. I don't. There's a sucker born every minute and this guy is taking advantage of it. Following capitalist free enterprise strategies. Some people got product and they sell it to others whether they need it or want it, shrug. Wouldn't you?

The objection I see is that there are people out there, touchy-feely hope&changers mostly, that want to experience poverty without actually being poor. Like, take the Disney Povertyland tour, getcher tickets, right this way. Showers and food at the end of it, go back to your Subaru and Starbucks with stories to tell. Oh, bring your iPhone and get some great pictures: here's me dumpster-diving and lookit that gal, she's got no teeth, Ohh ahh. Of course not mentioned are the cops that roust you or the roving bands of thugs that will play soccer with your noggin or douse you with lighter fluid and make bum candles out of you..

Having worked extensively with and among the poor back when poverty was harder to come by in the Land o' Plenty, it was usual for the majority of them to be ex-cons of one sort or another. Women and children that clung to these guys did so by choice, since there were ample charities to take them in.

The rest of them were homeless by choice; their pride, restlessness,social antipathy, drugs or whatever just made it easier and preferable to live outside the edges of society. You could feed and clothe them, be friends with them, but you could never get them to hold a job, or an apartment, or any other sort of responsibility for more than a week, at most.

The true hard luck cases were rare, because when you encountered them and helped them, they were back on their own feet and off the street as soon as they could manage. And they were grateful.

Nowadays, it could be any of us at any moment.

He could charge double if he would market it in a place like Chicago and call it an "Urban Survivalist Workshop" or "Urban Zombie Defense Training."

Hell! I can give you the secret to the ultimate homeless adventure tour for free...and you'd even save the price of rent or your mortgage.

Kinda reminds me: I used to hear people object to homeschooling on the (laughable) grounds that homeschooled children fail to get "socialized", that being in the rough-and-tumble of the public school teaches children how to get along with others in ways that they just don't learn at home. I always countered that an even more effective way to teach that kind of "socialization" would be to send kids out on the street to live homeless for a year, but somehow I don't think that those skills are worth the price, whether learned on the streets or in the public schools.