Hi Cole,
Just to give you a background on where I am coming from: I am an ER and ICU nurse working in downtown San Francisco. I have also worked in LA and Seattle. I work on a day to day basis with the homeless. I talk to them, treat their physical and mental illnessess, provide them food, get them new clothing and get them help via social services. I also delouse, de-scabies (??), remove their clothes and shoes and bathe them. I have up-close and personal experience of the problems of homelessness.

So YOU will drive the bus, will you? You mentioned, disparagingly, several times my comment about their smell. I have been in enclosed spaces with the homeless on many occasions and it is NOT fun. They do not give off an odor, they give off a stench. If you had 20 homeless on a bus with you, you would PUKE unless you had a gas mask and some deodorizer inside the mask. This is not a tirade against the homeless, this is a fact from pure experience. You have NO IDEA about how bad the smell would be. Its bad enough to make me get the dry heaves and make my eyes water and I am not squeamish in any way.

You asked, "will YOU help get them a drink if they get the shakes?" No, I wouldn't. I don't feel that enabling an alcoholic is appropriate. I WOULD get them some benzos and help them to get treatment.

You said, "these people don't need a dose of realism. they have plenty of that as it is... " Yeah, so you take them from the literal garbage dump and put them into the Garden of Eden. I've got a great life and have no mental illnesses and I had post-burn depression for 2 weeks. These people have no coping mechanisms and often no support systems,as such they would probably go into a crippling depression, have a psycotic break and/or commit suicide when you drop them back off at the dump.

You cannot compare Ted's experiment to the experiment that you are proposing. Ted was ONE person, responsible for himself who was fully prepared to accept the consequences of his own actions. Will YOU accept the consequences of the actions of a mentally ill alcoholic out on the playa? Will YOU have to explain it to his mother when this homeless guy commits suicide because you showed him a perfect life.... and he gets to go back and live in the dump?

And yes, the comment about relocating them was intended to be tongue in cheek.

Both of us have opinions on the causes and cures of homelessness, but this is not the forum for that. You ASKED for opinions on your idea and I gave it. Yes, loving-kindness would go a long way and mean a lot to this population, but BM is NOT the forum to do this. You COULD cause a lot of happiness, but you could also cause a lot of misery for these people and a lot of problems at BM. The law of unintended consequences is and well.

Cass