There's no confusion. People like this just don't think a homeless person deserves anything.
I imagine they take it as an affront, that a homeless man could have the "gall" to take charity from them, while he has a phone "hidden" in his pocket, as if that means he's a con-man, and not really in need at all.
In their mind, if a homeless man owns a phone, then he can't be genuinely destitute. If he was then he should sell that phone to afford his next meal, instead of begging on the street.
Never mind that a phone is probably the single most important tool to in modern life to stay informed and connected, not to mention and entertained and sane.
Never mind that a phone could be the difference between staying homeless for ever, or finding work.
No - if you are homeless then you certainly aren't allowed to own any tools that would help you get out of it.
When people say, "beggars can't be choosers", my response is always, "how do they stop being beggars, then, Karen?"
The conservative mindset believes social class is preordained. Karen believes people who have become homeless are destined to remain that way and it'd be a waste of resources to try to help them.
If you look at it through this lens, the phone is just prolonging their thrashing before they accept their fate and starve to death.
They're supposed to suck it up, take the first and worst job they manage to plead and grovel for, and stick with it no matter how many health and safety violations you have to ignore, no matter how hard, painful, or tiring it is. If you'd rather die than keep working there, then go die.
If you don't, if you stick to it, if you get enough money to start renting some place, then you suck it up and live in the cheapest dump if you have to, show your gratitude to God, and you do everything in your power to fix it up and make it nice.
And it doesn't matter what state it's in, doesn't matter what needs to be done, doesn't matter what you've been taught or not. Just do the thing. If you prove to be bad at whatever it is, then that's what you are. And if the landlord won't let you do anything? Landlord who? Still your fault. Maybe you shouldn't allow yourself to give off the impression that you're an incompetent craftsman when you ask permission for something so crucial. It is shameful to live in a home out of order and in disrepair. So that's the next step, be ashamed of your condition, until you can afford to be a chooser. Maybe. Unless you'll never earn enough to live somewhere better. Then just stick with it. Live and work in shame of your incompetence.
Besides, phones are incredibly cheap now. I dropped my pixel 7 in a river a few weeks ago so I went to Walmart and asked for the cheapest android burner they had. For $100 it has a 90hz display, snapdragon 680, 5000mAh battery. I don't need any upgrade from this
There's a lot more info on this when you relate it to an older analysis that says many people are seemingly in search of the 'deserving poor' as an excuse to never help anyone.
they do not see and interpret reality.
they have their idea of what is, and then use visual input (for example) only as a muse to further develop that idea. you can't argue with them, because anything that doesn't support them just passes through (and if you trojan horse this, you are now the devil).
they're solipsists, and its by choice. not human beings, not entities in the same world as us, sharing the same context and world and connectedness and shit. in a very real way, these fuckers are taking the world from us, in a very real way, these fuckers are invaders from another world (a world they made up and does not exist, but which their consciousness occupies, which ours infringes upon).
that's why your uncle or whatever getting taken by fox news feels like such a loss. they are genuinely lost, the person is gone. no longer here. bricked in an unrecoverable manner.
It's almost certainly not that deep.
The random person not thinking too much about it is almost certainly simply assuming that someone who's homeless wouldn't be in a position where they can save up for anything, so how could they have a smartphone, isn't the little money they can get their hands on always necessarily spent on more immediate concerns like food, etc.
You don't have to assume the most malicious motivation possible every time, lol.
I am not the guy above but I would give them that benefit if I hadn't had a hundred or so conversations where they said exactly that. Also people on benefits don't deserve anything nice. Like food stamps can only be for milk, bread, and cheese.
If you watch Fox News or read any conservative sphere media you can pretty immediately see where they get the idea from.
I think I probably would have fallen in to this group had I not read those thread first. While I wouldn't use it as a stick to beat the less fortunate, it would probably have weighed on my mind.
I think it's best to educate the ignorant to allow people the opportunity to be better, rather than marginalising them - I think people are more likely to dig their heels in and feel the warm embrace of the far right if we do that.
Yup I know the term gets thrown around alot but it's a thought terminating cliche.
"He says he can't afford anhouse but he has a cell phone, all he would have to do would be go without the phone for 60 years and he could afford a house except then in 60 years hell have to save for another 200 years to afford the cutrent home prices."
or they're just trolling. this is the kind of shit people on 4chan say to bait people with, and then make fun of them for even responding to it.
Old person mentality: smartphones are expensive and food is cheap.
If you're homeless or low income, there are programs through DHS that will send you a free phone and plan. It's not a great phone, but they still give people the ability to apply for jobs online, contact hospitals/case workers/ shelters, and to be safe in case of an emergency. I'm not sure if other states have it, but Michigan and Colorado do
they also set up tables at stores with a lot of poor people (like dollar stores), and they have free phones and set them up for you right there….
i’ve got several phones that way… for a while they had good data, but congress just ended ACP….
never trust anyone with a free DHS cell phone.
The same person is confused that Africans also have phones: "What they are not using stone tools in Africa?"
Reminds me of my health class in high school here in the US. We had to introduce ourselves and give 2 interesting facts about ourselves. I said that I used to play voliball competitively for my school in Mexico and my second fact was that I was on TV for it. A girl blurted out 'you have channels in Mexico?' it was funny and I did sorta feel bad for the girl getting ridiculed by the class. Sometimes people don't think about that sort of stuff.
Long ongoing way to undermine poverty for middle class audiences:
look, man... tides comes in, tides goes out. you can't explain that. same with the microwaves.
The original person's comment made sense up until about the 2010s if it was referring to 'smartphones'. Smartphones are extremely accessible to someone who is destitute today comparative to 15 years ago.
Most phone providers in the US at least, have programs where when you register a single line, you usually get either a basic "razor-esque" smartphone, or in some cases even the newest apple or Samsung line, because it costs them pennies to provide, but they profit off the recurring contract income.
Back in 2008, the only way you were getting the newest smartphone was if you had $500-1k in disposable income. But cell phones in general have been an inexpensive commodity since at least 2000.
It's honestly kind of funny, because I feel like having the latest phone is way more expensive now than it was in the early/mid 2000s. I remember having pretty crazy offers for getting the latest flagship phones for free when you re-upped your contract. Even in High school I could afford to have the first 2 iPhones, and Galaxies S3-S6 brand new, 100% free, nothing added to my normal contract price whatsoever. Now, it seems like they just hide it in "24 easy payments" over the contract, maybe giving you a few hundred on trading in last year's $1500 phone, while you're still paying well over $1000 for a phone, just in $50/mo increments. Even now that I make good money, I can't fathom spending flagship phone money, and have been rocking my $300 loaded Note S20 5G for 3 years now.
I purchased my Pixel 4a in 2020. Still going strong. $400, unlinked. And it helps me in my current homelessness.
yeah i used to get 1 free phone upgrade every 2 years with Verizon, up until a few years ago when they stopped offering that. flagship phones too. it was pretty tight
You can get a free smartphone of reasonable quality if you meet certain qualifications. All expenses paid. Obama phone continues to provide for those in poverty, homeless, with low income medical insurance, food stamps, etc.
I bet he ate Avocado Toast once too
Could have made sense in 1995, at the latest(?)
There is a Czech "film" (actually leaked "home" video tape) documenting the wedding of Prague homeless people in 2000, and the titular character famously uses his Nokia to organize the event in the hours and minutes prior. Someone apparently could not believe it and tagged it "scifi" on IMDB.
