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Nobody wants to go to a public park and see somebody living in there necessarily, that can be scary for some people and fights could break out or even fires could break out and all kinds of other things. Personally I think homeless people should try to live in and restore abandoned houses, legally of coursel! There are so many of those, and if you really want to go camp out in a forest that's everywhere I mean West Virginia is fully contained within a forest called Appalachia so there's plenty of places to sleep, plenty of trees to sleep under out there, don't choose a public park. Kids and families are going to public parks. Interesting thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/WestVirginia/s/esPuFkQY3z

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How would a homeless person afford to restore an abandoned house? And, besides, many already stay in abandos and get felony trespass charges

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I agree it's a radical idea but the fact of the matter is these homes need people living in them as soon as possible before they're unable to be lived in by anybody. You can have government contractors that do masonry and roofing and electric and plumbing and get a group together and have them assist the homeless people in projects, their own rehabilitation (if they're an addict) could come from some of this work. If they have a home that's the beginning and then they can beautify it as they take one day at a time with the support they need. Basically it could be some kind of rehabilitation exchange program where instead of paying rent they live somewhere for free while they fix it up...... Then when they get their feet on the ground they can start paying rent after it's fixed up and they've had all the help they need with the fixer upper then we help them get that job doing something else. Obviously there are rules and guidelines and planning and organization so that people can feel motivated and feel a part of something that can give them resources that they need. There's lots of government resources people don't use because they don't even know about them. This would just be an alternative type of government resource.

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