I've been homeless and I don't fit into the stereotype people see on the streets. I didn't have an addiction problem and I am a graduate. Folks need food, water and shelter to survive. Take away one of those and you find yourself in mortal danger. The experience very nearly meant my end and it was like a wrecking ball tearing through my life. What I'll never forget is the way people sneered at me and looked down upon me as I tried to get a bit of a sleep on a part bench. I was fortunate to get some help and support from an amazing charity who got me back on my feet. Without them I simply wouldn't be here and many others I met along the way are no longer with us.
It sounds exactly like an addict. What do you mean some people didn't make it. Like they starved? Overdosed? How did a college graduate become homeless? I was a heroin addict n being a heroin addict is very difficult to hold a job which is what made me homeless. Methadone n a landscaping job on Craigslist with the help of my parents is what got me out but you gotta say screw it I gotta help myself before someone else will get that burden.
I shared a house with a homeless man for a short while. I learned how very lucky I was not to be an addict and the importance of looking after myself because no one else was going to..
I was homeless in Detroit and Flint from 2012-2016...it was the Darkest time of my life by far...last week I moved my family into our new home ..this June will be 5 years clean off dope..im so grateful every day because I made the choice to get my life back..but I'll admit there are times I miss being homeless..it was dark, cold, violent all that stuff but livin'with no responsibility and surviving off your instincts alone has a certain charm to it that I can't quite put into words..I guess it trained me to read ppl better, but one thing I can easily do now is tell which guys flying a sign or pan handling are faking or are actually homeless.. something about the fake homeless guys makes my skin crawl..being homeless is looked down upon enough and it's not always the person's fault, but pretending to be homeless with your lil sweater dog, trying to get money to score is even grimier than the actual bums
I miss being homeless, or another way to put it is I miss being BILL FREE apart from my cell bill. I slept in my storage unit, Was super easy than paying 1k for a 1 bed room now, before I was able to invest in my small business and my health since I was working full time. It got extremely hard to be homeless in the N.Y winter I was homeless for 9 or 10 months every check I got when towards something meaningful, bills don't feel meaningful for some reason. But I'm not even 30 yet, no kids I live alone, work 39 hours a week as a truck driver helper (I sleep a lot on the clock) making 750-$800 per week. 20 an hour.. I think I'd be happier and more successful if I was homeless or BILL FREE. I had a lot of financial freedom being BILL FREE
Congratulations on turning your life around!!! 4 years is a long time to be on the streets. That is not an easy task to accomplish especially living in very difficult areas of the nation. Hang in there and keep goals and a vision to continue to make your life better for yourself and your family. Yeah, the charm you experienced is probably the freedom you feel from all of the financial pressures we have just to exist everyday in this world. Its tough. I do dumpster diving at Aldi and foodbanks to help supplement costs in my family. Sad isn't it?
Brand is so intriguing, intellectual and imaginative.. much respect for his overcoming such challenges as drug addiction and sticking around to share his thoughtful insights
I live in the Netherlands and we basically fixed the homeless people problem. Adam Curry once told about it on your show. It always feels weird and uncomfortable for a Dutch person when being abroad and seeing all those homeless people. In the Netherlands it was fixed by creating shelter places that require a minimal payment (like 4 euros a day or something). This incentivizes people to go out and do something. A great way to facilitate in this is the ‘homeless-paper’, which they go a sell to make money. This enables people to do something productive and make a few bucks. I think most importantly, it creates a form of stability and meaning that is required to get your live back on track, to the degree in which this is possible for the individual. Often these homeless shelters are ran with help of volunteers, so it will require a willingness from local communities as well. I hope some day other countries will adopt this from us. Edit: amazed by so many positive responses! Many thanks to all! To people saying ‘scale is an issue’ or ‘the US has 20 times more people’, i’d like to respond. The Netherlands is a very densely populated country. Why can’t you build 20 times as many homeless shelters? You’re rightfully proud of saying you put a man on the moon, but building enough homeless shelters is somehow an impossible challenge?
Please post the websites that are connected tothese, I will make sure the CA poli-tician-theives are shown that model and will someohow force these greedy, connivers CA politicans (of all stripes ) to prototype them.
The only issue whereby I diagree is that I beleieve this isn't a homeless problem in America , or even in the UK, it's a drug problem, not a homeless problem. Sure, they are tied together, but the main issue is drug addiction
I started really seeing homelessness in Seattle around 2017. The problem has grown SUBSTANTIALLY in volume and territory. There is quite a bit of drug addiction and darkness, alienation and hardship. Awful. Sad. Wasteful.
I have a long term friend on the left and we can still manage that, it's genuinely nice. We often correct each other on misinformation from either side that we didn't realise we'd fallen for.
@@beverlyweaver1280 don’t kill the messengers, just absorb the useful wisdom … human team evolves as one & the universe speaks through everyone ☮️🙏🌍💕🌈✌🏾🛸
Gee Russel I can't understand why the homeless man left after you exploited him and traumatized him by requiring he bathe with you just so you could make a few quid on your show. Years later someone likely asked him "have you ever tried living indoors?" "Yeah, I tried, but the guy made me bathe with him, I ain't doing that anymore." As to Cobalt miners, you mean like the Appalachian people who lived in abject poverty while working the mines for JP. Morgan, Carnegie, the Rockefellers et al?? Unregulated Capitalism and no unions will always lead to that.
@@jtjones4081 Well Joe used to support Bernie Sanders and now has a man-crush on Ron DeSantis so I don’t think that kind of talk will be allowed on the show very often sorry. And this is primarily a right-wing audience so…
It's a shame mainstream media give so little of a crap about homeless. Imagine how nice it would be if the media had a large focus on community effort to care for each other, homeless and homed alike, rather than focusing on some useless grammy nomination.
Russell has came very far and is in a small minority of influential people that actually speak out and stand up for the poorest and most sidelined people in our society without an agenda or for personal gain. Money doesn't seem to drive him and it looks like he gets more from loving and caring about others which is very rare and a beautiful thing these days.
I used to work at a hotel where the church would pay for homeless people to stay over the winter time, and don't get me wrong there where a couple people that treated it with respect. But the other 90% completely trashed those rooms and I found countless needles and other disgusting things in those rooms. If you're getting your housing paid for, and you treat it like that, you don't deserve outside help, figure it out yourself
Treating the problem of homeless needs to be addressed at different angles. Housing is good but they also need medical assistance and therapy because going through what they go through is traumatic.
Most of these people don’t need a place to live. They have lost their mind, and it’s tragic because the only way you get through that is with other people helping you through it. Everyone wants to throw money at these people, but they need other kinds of help.
Amen. That's the problem. You only receive help when YOU want it. They will look for help when they need it. Quit trying to help the unwilling, all y'all is doing is enabling the lifestyle. If they'd just freeze to death people would try really fking hard.
@unkdunk the problem is they won't do those things. Have you ever tried hiring a homeless person to come do yardwork for $20 an hour? They'll tell you to piss off. It's a huge issue. They don't want to work. They don't want to earn Healthcare. They don't want to get therapy. They either want everything free and paid for, and to also be able to do drugs, or they want nothing.
I remember watching that show where Russell lived with a homeless man, it’s called Re-Brand and is still available on CZcams. I’d have never thought at the time watching it that this man would turn out to be such an insightful voice in this lost generation we are currently in
I live in Orlando FL. Through the pandemic we did this too. We got two huge hotels in the city area and housed homeless during the pandemic. A lot of people don’t even know that. I work for the fire department, what ended up happening is we started running 4-6 overdoses a day to these hotels and other terrible calls. The hotels were also vandalized and some of the rooms were completely destroyed. They lost a lot of money. It was nice to see that many people off of the street and with a bed to sleep in. But sadly it’s just not sustainable. It was a terrible situation.
All paid for by the government ( the taxpayers)...includimg the repairs for the vandalism. In UK. The hotels made a fortune! Now the same places are making even more money taking "refugees" by the boatload
They can't help themselves. The fact is that they need to be physically removed from the street replaced in a mandatory rehab center or jail if you would like. Everyone that says "but that's their freedom you can't do that let them live their lives". The same people that can't offer any solutions. Trust me they're not lives that they want to live. They simply just can't help themselves. They need somebody to help them therefore if you don't have a better solution don't complain about the one that's going to work. you should just keep your mouth shut. They have tried this program over in Rhode Island it had a 67% success rate... There were many once homeless drug addicted people grateful for the program they said it saved their lives. The fact is is that everybody wants to stand up for human rights in this and that but these people cannot help themselves. It's really that simple. I saw that homeless guy last year and he didn't have any shoes or socks on outside of the 7-Eleven. I had a pair of shoes in my trunk. As I was walking in the store I offered him the shoes, he said no I don't want them. I came out of the store and I offered him $1 he gladly took that $1. It's nonsensical. The shoes alone he could have got $10-$30 or he could have kept his feet warm but instead he chose to take the $1 to add to whatever cash he had swindled out of people earlier to collect and stack his next injection. People want to tiptoe around stuff, there's no reason to now. The homeless epidemic has got over hundreds of thousands now and it's only going to multiply from here with inflation of the constant rising of prices. At the end of the day if you are not a constructive person in society, you don't pay your taxes, you litter, you loiter, you steal, you perform acts of violence. Then your freedom will be taken from you. You will be placed in a rehab center or jail until you have been rehabilitated. That seems fair for the rest of us considering we are not stealing, loitering, littering, assaulting, shooting up in front of other people leading needles at schools. And for those who are they deserve the same "help". Or should we just keep walking by them and driving by them like they don't exist? Is that really a better alternative? I mean, isn't trying to fix something better than just watching it collapse?
Drug addiction is the most common side effect of being homeless. It would have been a better option if the hotels had said to the welfare system and the C.D.C that they would not accept addicts,even with the pandemic, because they are, especially Ice addicts,very destructive in how they live their lives, so why would they have any respect for the owners of the property or abide by their rules. The only people who should have been given rooms etc, were the ones who were homeless because of losing their job and then their home, not because they chose to be idiots and over indulge in drugs to the point where they lost everything,but, in most cases, they don't accept any responsibility for their own actions, they bitch about how hard it is living on the streets but it was their own fault that they ended up there anyway. And before all the bleeding hearts start, unless you were forced, IT IS YOUR FAULT ,and broken homes are a cop out too because there are plenty of successful people who came from the poverty line. It is only when a sexual crime against a child has done its damage that the broken home has credence, but it is up to the individual to decide how he or she will live their lives Always has been that way.
And the unfortunate side effect of wanting to do a good deed is it almost always results in tragedy. Something good like that is done and how are you repaid? With vandalism and a mess they don't have to clean up and when good people go through that they lose all sympathy and don't want to help people ever again.
When I was homeless in San Francisco, many people would rather stay outside rather than use the shelters. I had no issues with the shelters myself. I also noticed that a lot of people got their social security checks the first of the month, went and partied, and by the end of the week they were back in the shelter. Most of the people I met were addicts. Some had severe mental illness. Others just wanted to live freely outside the system. Recently I have been working homeless and found many people even in the suburbs living in their cars. I currently make 50k a year and barely qualified for a decent apartment in my area (Mid Atlantic USA). It's only gonna get worse.
sjhudon, thanks for chiming in. That experience is pretty classic, especially in the Bay Area. Meanwhile, most folks have no idea how common working homeless is these days. Good for you getting your shit together.
Yeah I stayed in shelters and got tired of it then started sleeping in a tent n my friend n his girlfriend had a tent and it was great but when winter hit my brother let me move in. He said I could but no drinking so I prefered the tent until it got to cold and I moved in and now three months sober. Sometimes it just takes a helping hand to save someone.
What do you mean it's only gonna get worse? Seems as though you've already improved your situation significantly. Life is tough but keep improving and keep moving up. Don't be hard on yourself
I own a business in Los Angeles. Gower St which Russel referenced in this video is downtown, which is about 20 mins from me. There is one homeless man I've known for over 10 years. I generally don't allow panhandlers to open doors or loiter around the property. I made an exception for this guy because he was always sober, sound of mind, and made customers laugh, and he kept the crazy/violent homeless people away. He didn't ask for money but instead offered to wash their windows. Always had his squeegee and spray bottle with him. He had a large gregarious personality but not in a loud obnoxious way. Sadly I watched him deteriorate over the years to the point I had to get a restraining order against him. Drugs and alcohol completely took over his life. His personality and even his face are completely different now. He's assaulted my staff numerous times, causing them to quit, and I've had him arrested over a dozen times. A cop told me his rap sheet has over 100 arrests. One of my customers owns an apartment building nearby and offered to put him up, but he always refused. The homeless crisis is mostly a drug abuse and mental health crisis. More housing isn't going to solve this. The money we throw at homelessness has exploded exponentially yet the problem gets worse. A lot of these politicians are involved in non-profits and it's all corrupt. The only one who was trying to do anything about it was Sheriff Villanueva, and the dirty politicians put a stop to it because it was going to effect their pockets. He was ousted by the Board of Supervisors. This city has NO intention of solving this problem. They're getting rich off of it. In fact Sheriff Villanueva would be a great guest on this show. He has a unique perspective being on the inside dealing with all the corruption.
It's not surprising to me that one of the most logical and articulate comments, that I've seen anyway, has very few likes by comparison to some of the most hardened opinions expressed here. Thank you for understanding this for what it is. This issue has affected my life in ways that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Not even on the ones that are willfully ignorant and making and making equally ignorant comments. People that are addicted don't get that way because they don't give a f*** ..... It always starts with an underlying cause. Usually in the way of mental illness. In my case, I gave a f**". I tried. I tried hard to maintain a life. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder made it impossible for me to function for very long at a time. Two, of my five older brothers, (I was far younger and the only girl) molested me regularly. My my earliest memory is when I was about 3 1/2 or 4 and my oldest brother being on top of me. That's a reoccurring theme for the next 7 years. Eventually, another brother raped me. I was 11. This was my entire childhood. It was inevitable, I'm certain of that, that I would end up addicted, in and out of prison, and eventually homeless. So thank you for having a clear understanding of the issue. It helps.
@Golden Child Not trying to attack what happened in your life but all you're pretty much saying is there was a 'excuse' to jump to drugs/alcohol simply because reality is to hard for some? We all battle our own personal demons but no body is pushing you to ruin your life with addictions except yourself.
So nice, I listened to the entire podcast twice... As always when listening to these 2, I come away with knowledge and a sense of thoughtfulness. I love it. WONDERFUL CONVERSATION!
I think the biggest draw is speaking from experiences. I don't get the feeling of being talked down to. Nor the feeling of being talked at. Completely no bs. Conversations
I am one of those people that was housed in a hotel during the pandemic in Virginia. It quite frankly save my life, and I don't care what anybody thinks about it. I was grateful to all of those people.
Edgar Hoover is Disney ed penner and Rudolph hoess Judy Garland is Helga Goebbels Roy Patti Disney is Magda Joseph Goebbels. Erwin Rommel desert fox is Disneys hams luske Walt Disney is Kermit Roosevelt Walter Cronkite Adolph Hitler Elon musk is Werner von Braun son .buy Orion bush connection sabotage hw. Hw is Joe Kennedy Jr Quentin Roosevelt is Joe Kennedy sr. Erin Rommel SS desert fox is Disneys hams luske Joseph mengele had seven Romanian Jewish dwarfs of auswitch no snow white just white angel of death Heinrich Himmler was inspiration for Goofy
@my name is jeeeyf I recall Joe jokingly saying if nothing else, we could just shoot them, but he insisted he was being sarcastic but his guest nodded and said, "sounds good to me"
@@johnsmith-wk2tb For all of Russel's flaws, no one can say he isn't compassionate - something Joe lacks. Something most people lack until they're a homeless drug user. I am not a Russel fanboy but always enjoy his empathy.
Hearing Russel talk about his experiences of humbleness and challenging the mind in such a bold way, off of his show, is pretty interesting I gotta say.
I had an uncle who despite our best efforts, free loving home, food, clothing and spending money but he enjoyed the streets more because he wanted the booze and drugs in an environment where he felt he can do these things without judgement. He felt he didn’t belong in a functional environment despite our best efforts to convince him otherwise. He would often just disappear and we would find him passed out, half naked on the street in the dead of winter. We found out later he would trade his new coat, hat, gloves and boots for booze or drugs and sometimes they were outright stolen from him while passed out. Sadly the streets eventually claimed his life but you just have to understand, they’ll take your handouts all day long but you’ll never get them off the streets. They love that freedom without judgment to just stay high.
Wonder what happened to your uncle as a child?? Maybe he was always the black sheep and eventually internalized it. 🙁 Without those "hand outs" he might not have made it at all. I wouldn't look at your efforts in vain, maybe he chose freedom over pity and resentment ... Just a thought... For the people who give "handouts". Resentment is a strong force you can rarely hide under clean dry socks.
This is a very romanticized point of view. "They love that freedom without judgment to just stay high." That's not freedom friend, they're fully held captive my their addictions, they're the opposite of free.
He also has a very eloquent way of speaking and getting his point across. You can tell he is very smart and thinks in deeper ways than the average person.
The hardest part is the way people treat you. I had some money, was an honorable veteran, was not looking to do anything or anyone wrong...I was just homeless. It made me hate and judge all the other homeless here in FL for being bad and making everyone hate us.
I understand your comment about the way regular society treats the homeless, as I experienced it first-hand. However, it made me see the underworld of the homeless community in a different, gentle light, despite some shortcomings. Instead, I had intense anger, probably hate, towards society for their trivial complaints and ugly souls. That was four years ago... it feels like a different life. I have struggled with the reality that I was able to move on with my life whilst the majority I met are still suffering in their own minds, continuing the cycle of street living. Part of me has feared that if I recover from my "trauma" of being homeless then I will forget about the friends I made back in 2018. But, with that being said, it feels good to be able to interact in this comment section and reflect on my own life without becoming emotional. The journey of healing, whatever our own personal experiences, is a continuous road. I feel blessed to be here, with access to my own laptop, to watch CZcams in my downtime and read people's views. :)
The homeless people were shoved into personally owned businesses aka those hotels. Imagine being told that your business has to host 100s of homeless people because the government said so. Imagine those people trashed your business and literally scared paying customers away. They didn't figure homelessness out. They foisted their man made problem on to personal owned business and said " hey you have to deal with our mess".
Idk which country your talking about but they weren't forced in most. It was either have no one in your hotel due to covid or get paid by the government to put homeless in your accom. Same thing was used for covid isolation hotels. This actually kept businesses afloat otherwise they would have made zilch. But I agree if it were my business then as soon as its over you'd want to go back to tourists etc.. But it wasnt forced or not paid for most hotels were trying to become an iso or shelter
While working with some homeless in my area (the ones that didn't strike me as very dangerous) I noticed the whole "gravity" thing as well. They genuinely wanted to be off the street, but every time we found a place for them to stay, they would inadvertently "run-away" back to the streets. They had gotten so used to their homeless way of life that, from what it seems, they didn't know how not to be homeless. It was tragic to witness and a very stark lesson for me to do everything in my power to avoid becoming like that myself.
It's like institutionalised prisoners that can't handle being let free, except the total inverse. They are so used to the way of life that their mind has molded itself to fit in that situation. To the point where, unless you're handed something on a plate, you can't overcome the motivation threshold to actually make progress.
If your homeless...your part of the homeless community and you are having face to face human contact all day long....give that person a home/apartment/studio and what happens ?....the person is home alone, lonely, isolated, bored and not getting much human interaction and conversation
@@suzanneblaylock9598 No, more deep-rooted. Like a completely different way of life that has become so engrained into them for the sake of survival that they can't escape it. This is for those who have been homeless for a long time though, I imagine ones who have only done it for a couple years wouldn't have too much a problem readjusting back to a more normal way of life.
A couple of nights ago, my wife and I were watching a Netflix show called New Amsterdam. The episode we watched had a homeless man who was in the emergency room but he had run up a million dollar bill and the medical director, Max, came up with an idea to literally prescribe the man an apartment for him to live in. In the episode, that man was seen almost immediately back in the e.r. for yet another issue. It seemed to me that the guy was just lonely and was somehow searching for some company. Then, some fast-food delivery guy came in asking for some person in one of the medical departments and the lonely guy rattled off the direction to the department. Then, Max, seeing that came up with an idea to get this man a position working in the information booth to help visiting patients and their families and friends. Some people feeling that gravity to go back out into the streets needs to find a purpose and belonging besides the basic needs of the individual.
I went from homelessness to getting straight, getting all my kids back and eventually, years later... married to a beautiful woman. We have the most wonderful blended family and you wouldn't know that unless i told you ..I still have to remind myself almost daily ..how lucky I am. How blessed I am. I give it all to Him. Praise God 🙏❤️💯 I still have trouble praying for their mother, as she is still active..but I'm working on it ! Love yall
jeRm, I know several formerly homeless guys (and gals) who now have somewhat stable lives for the same reason you do. I learned a lot from these people but the thing that surprised me the most was they tell me that there's a kind of psychology in the homeless "community" (Yeah, I know, I hate that word too) that like being homeless and don't actually WANT to "come in". It's like a sort of freedom. A lot of the homeless we met in NYC would tell us that it stops being "fun" around the age of 30 but by then they now lack the talents necessary to function in society and they are way behind the eight-ball making it even more difficult to "rehabilitate" them. It's a serious, serious problem and there really is no answer besides the one that your post alludes to.
So have I but never beat my back red patting myself there....... it's people like you who kinda inspire me in some small way so stop screaming about how God did this and that it was you and the self-righteousness disgusts me as a sober person
I saw your segment with James on rebrand around 2010. I gave my speech just last week about that segment and how it changed my attitude forever when he spoke about how he’d rather be spit on or yelled at, that it’s the ignoring that makes you feel sub-human. I’m a new mom and I can’t imagine being that lonely. Loved rebrand even addict Russ is full of heart. Hated to see you hurting never hurt like that again!
My sons had a percussionist music teacher that was homeless. He had only one red backpack and one bag of drum sticks.They were about twelve, right after Ike destroyed their house on the coast here in Galveston, when he started to teach them at the house we evacuated to on the mainland and 13-14 when they realized he was homeless living in downtown Houston. They looked at U-Tube videos to learn how to build and my young 14 year old sons built a home for him on a piece of property I had with all this cool hand made furniture and very cool corrugated metal walls with a secret door to escape from if he needed to as he was worried sometimes.They surprised him one day with a key to his own place, rent free. He eventually drummed with them for ten years in their band until they were 22, he schooled my sons and was the band shaman. His name was Gerri and his house was bigger than yours or mine and he died in the home they built for him, not on the streets, still with one red bag and one bag of sticks. His funeral was surreal, a drum circle lasting 5 hours and when we stopped drumming, I got up to say words as I had written him a poem, with my two sons at my side and I choked on the words and so did my sons, we burst into tears, all I could say was, "Gerri opened the window."...All the heavy duty rasta men from different bands at the funeral, about 100 people all burst into tears at that moment, grown tough men, all reggae men busting for the doors choking on their tears running so no-one would see them cry. We did a paddle out next on surfboards, when we spread the ashes and turned to paddle away in a sun pattern, dolphins stood up on their tails in the center of the circle of boards, smak dab in his ashes...Ocean Roots Band, ORB is golden light! Oh and did I mention Gerri was Yoruban, the exact area of Africa populated with the Dogon people via Cuba and the sugercane slave trade and these tribes, believe in men or Gods called Nommos, half dolphin, half human that brought them to earth...yeah....those dolphins came to his funeral...try that one on for size...I still have the red bag and the sticks. We never opened the bag.
My sister worked at a homeless shelter. She always said about 20% of the people just fell on hard times and needed help to get back on their feet(which they did). The other 80% were content to live as homeless, it was just a way of life. They wouldn’t even pay to wash their clothes because they knew they could get more free clothes and save their money for drugs and booze.
@@donHooligan Nah dude, alot of them are lazy cracked out bums who have no interest in turning their life around... not sure what to say, but you can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink
@@Teh_Random_Canadian you may not believe it, but there really are victims in this society. to judge someone who gives up....even to the point of suicide, is outlandishly arrogant. "Hell has no pain like these i leave." -Cervantes
@@donHooligan I understand most have had trauma in their lives, but unless they are willing to help themselves they are never getting off the streets no matter what you do
This conservation was great. I am German, 59 years old, living in Germany and have been watching / following Russel Brand as well as Joe Rogan only for last 3 years. I believe there are not so many people left in the spectrum who are able to give orientation/ direction since many got censored. I have been traveling to Nepal, China, India, Thailand, Marokko, Indonesia at least twice a year last 20 years to buy handicraft items…. I talk to local people in these countries and seen how things have developed / or not developed during these years. I believe that this planet is going to change radically…and we better watch these 2 guys …and consider their thoughts - rather than the directed narrative of mass media..
I do not know how it would feel in other parts of the world, but as for someone to have been homeless, in Europe, for some time period - All I can say, it affected the way I saw world and life and it was definitely a life changing experience! To My big surprise, I actually enjoyed that time a lot! I was amazed by, how much kindness and understanding I saw, when I had nothing and nobody in My life - just open skies and endless options.
My friend owed a hotel and used to get asked to house homeless people by the local council often. After a year of theft, smashed up rooms, needles under beds, antisocial behaviour etc etc he now says no. Somewhere fine but you just can’t risk that kinda thing when you have paying guests and children in the house. Not to mention the cleaners who have to deal with the aftermath.
I love what you said about the woman with a baby on her back that’s working in a cobalt mine so we can have devices and cars. I just think that both of you guys are amazing. Very thankful for you. I’m so glad that censorship hasn’t gotten so bad that I can’t even see you guys talk.
@@jpPID starting to think Rogan and Russell Brand are in on it. Nobody ever talks about the real issues with the fractional reserve banks , occurred to me that they’re just part of it too, the Man is phishing, and even though the things they say are true they’re not really trying to get to the bottom of anything. in the meanwhile, in the comments, the Man gets to adapt and learn how to be even more cruel and vicious by hearing in real time what the people are saying, probably just trying to create the most evil AI bot that ever existed. Never once has Joe Rogan or Russell Brand mention fractional reserve banking. And that, at the very least is the root of all of the worlds problems, especially in the United States.
Two of my most favourite public figures, we enjoy both of these gentlemen’s shows, and to have them together is a treat! The full version of this on Spotify will absolutely be my Friday night with a neat shot of bourbon :D 🥃 Can’t wait!
Go back and watch the other episodes of JRE where Russell was on. All of them are really good, he's one of my favorite guests that isn't on JRE enough =)
I watched all of those things Russell did. It was funny in a really sad way. When I watched them he was already clean and sober. I’ve seen Russell’s stand up live, I read his first book. I’m so glad that he is where he is in life now. ❤
Seeing how that podcast on cobalt mining had really affect Joe really shows the kind of man he is and we're is heart is and the responsibility he feels to the world to leave it a better place than he found it.
In fla, the hotels accepted govt. vouchers from the homeless. One I used to frequent, a small indie hotel, said he had to to stay alive, with no vacationers around. they absolutely decimated the hotel. Tweakers everywhere, people who ran out of vouchers sleeping on the sidewalk out from with piles of their stuff everywhere, drug dealers all over the hotel, etc. At that point all the vacationers went elsewhere due to all the rifraf. I stayed, but was approached several times about meth while there. Now he has to start all over again, building his reputation and renovating his hotel. They really turned a nice, basic hotel into a total 3rd world shithole. He knows now he would have been better off shutting the doors or at least not accepting the "bum vouchers".
He would have went bankrupt and wouldn't have a business lol... Sure he was covered for any damage.. I mean anyone is that rents out a day or more, why not this, except the govt foots the bill
Truly two honest men having a respectful discussion. We need more of this in our communities. And we definitely need more of this from our so-called leaders or we are finished in the West.
I used to hang out and have beers with homeless ppl mostly in LA but also in Florida. It’s totally true that there is an addiction some have to being “on the road”. Other than mental health, the most ppl i met were like either young sorta musician vagabonds or more importantly, straight up homeless ppl that wanted to stay homeless. they had disconnected and wanted to stay that way.
What Russel said about the modern version of the hunter gatherer is so true. We really have to help those less fortunate than us. So need more love in this world.
Everybody has choices. I was raised 1 step above being homeless. Missed half of my kindergarten and first grade years due to a mom strung out on crack hiding me all over in the 1990s. Everybody has choices. My past didn't define me. When opportunity comes knocking you better be prepared for it. And if you're not preparing yourself for any opportunity to come, you'll never notice when the opportunity actually does stare you in the face
You're right. I came from a good family but we didn't have all the latest and greatest stuff. I learned that it's extremely important to just say YES to every opportunity that comes your way. Do not hesitate if someone is willing to help you get a step up. But here's the thing. You better put your full effort into any job or opportunity you are given. If you don't, you will lose it, and you will be worse off than if you did hesitate. Every opportunity is a one time gift.
And sometimes a serious of terrible events happen and we end up on the streets. Have done homeless outreach for years and have talked to plenty of successful and educated people who got unlucky and were unable to make it back up.
I can relate to this. Homelessness is a complete culture. My dad is homeless and he chooses it. He prefers the freedom, the escape from daily grind, work, and bills and the 'normalcy'. The life itself is its own grimy and homeless grind, but he prefers it to being housed.
There are times that that lifestyle (when chosen) makes a lot of sense. We spend our lives clocking in at a desk job in the concrete jungle only to pay insane interest on a mortgage, fund the government, and worship retirement funds which might crash by the time we retire anyway. Modern living has just turned us into working rats…..sacrificing everything to have a comfortable jail cell.
I knew a woman that worked and worked for the government for more than forty years. She did it to have a great pension when she retired. She retired however her health had been destroyed by constant stress from work. She only enjoyed about 3 years of retirement when she died from the health problems from working herself to death. The moral is I understand how many people rather just escape the daily grind,
In Sweden we used to call them Luffare back in the days. It basically translates to Vagabond. Yeah they are weird to some people but its really not that complicated (unless they have mental issues witch ofc some of them have). Some off them just hate having daily chores and responsibilities so much they'd rather leave 😅
As odd as it may sound some people have lifestyles that gravitate towards homelessness. They're either unable or unwilling to live in their own place due to any number of reasons.
A brilliant podcast this. Thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. Was a great recap and observation on how society is properly insane these days. Like... really strange.
I like how when he learns something in another episode, he finds a way to incorporate it into later episodes. Most people hear something interesting, say "that's interesting", and move on.
I’ve taken care of a few homeless people before. Some are hard out on there luck, most have severe mental issues ❤ prayers for all the people with mental health issues that have been forgotten about on the streets, homeless everywhere ❤❤❤
It's only in the past few hundred years we have became highly advanced. They say the apocalypse is here but life on this planet has always been harsh, brutal and unforgiving. When I hear of evil or pain I most of the time just put it down to being human. Yet life is still so beautiful.
I put in 2 years working in a homeless ministry after experiencing it myself and even documenting the experience on CZcams to 0 fanfare. Anyways this was an incredibly informative and on point discussion. Thank you for having him on for this
I once knew a homeless man in Tucson, AZ. He was a Vietnam veteran and had his full benefits. I asked him why he was homeless if he received enough money for an apartment, let alone the VA housing (or whatever it was) that had recently been built. He said, "The things I saw and did in Vietnam really messed me up. I can't live with or around other people. So, I choose to be homeless. It's not so bad for me. I have my daily routine and my campsite and enough money to get what I need every month." I once offered him my old bicycle, I had just bought a new one, and he refused it. He told me that it was one more thing to lug around and worry about someone stealing. He shared some of his war stories with me... they were pretty bad. I still think of that man from time to time, and I always wonder how he is and if he is well. If not, well, I'm sure he lived his life the best way he could and went out on his own terms. That man was a warrior whose battles haunted him in ways unimaginable to most of us. All homeless people have had some dire thing happen in their life that put them there. Some are from making bad decisions, others are forced in a variety of ways, and some of them are just lost or forgotten by our collective society. I'm not trying to "preach" anything here, just sharing an observation I've made in my trek through life.
I work in an overnight shelter that is open only on a grant until March 21st. After that, the 50+ souls we have provided a warm clean place to sleep over the winter are back out on the streets. It is tearing my heart out that my community doesn't recognize the problem in our small town. We have individuals who are dying of a serious illness and soon to be living outside. Horrific yes!
Veronica Snider, that's horrifying. Our society is being torn apart. I hope you guys find the money somewhere/somehow. You judge a society by how it treats its least privileged....
This is all a very interesting topic. It shows how he opened his mind to different outlooks in life through experimentation and just interacting with people outside the norm. How he went about it may seem bizarre and strange to others but he seemed open to not be affected by such things that would be considered barriers to some people’s personal boundaries. An interesting individual with a very open mindset to explore the world of what it is like to some
Richard Brandt is one down to earth dude. Everyone thinks he's lame or annoying but I think he's smart as hell and very great to listen to. I was a drug addict too, mainly heroin/fentanyl, so I get what he's saying. But to alot of people it's super taboo and "frowned upon".
Part of the problem is that some people like being homeless it’s a life style most of us don’t understand it’s a hard life style but can be rewarding there’s problems with every lifestyle if u want or need there’s sacrifices in choices
This is true. During the Plandem, I worked in housing homeless veterans. People just need a place to stay, to get back on their feet. Most of my clients were not drug users, but rather unhoused veterans, with children, and spouses. It taught me a lot about the psyche of humans
I became homeless when my daughter was 10 months because my daughters mother stole every last dollar I had and ran off with another guy without saying a single and never to be heard from again. She absolutely did not think twice or care what kind of position that put me in but I literally have no parents or family to help watch my daughter and she took all my money so I couldn’t pay for day care. Ended up losing my job. No job, no help, and still no idea what to do I ended up losing my home. Luckily I was quickly able to get into a family homeless shelter and I was there for a total of 5 weeks and without them I’m not sure what I would have done. They helped pay for day care up front for the first week so I could start a new job amd helped me with resources and etc. oh yeah I’m also a veteran but the VA wouldn’t help with anything but yeah you never know why people are homeless sometimes it can be like my situation where it’s literally not their fault at all
I purposely spent two weeks of the downtown Streets of Ottawa and learned alot Iv also been to Rwanda,Africa , and i felt and heard many differences and similarities, it was one of the hardest but best experiences in my life
They also did that in Canada. In Scarborough, Ontario, the community centers near me were homeless shelters, but have reverted back to regular community centers as the restrictions have been lifted. Funny how they kicked them out just before the cold fall weather set in.
Canada has so many resources for these people that they don't use. many of them are happy panhandling during the day and getting totally blitzed during the night... at some point you have to cut them off.
Well spoken Joe on the Congo situation on forced/child labor..this is nothing new it's been going on for decades...I wish it would be talked about more...they are forced into this.
I've been homeless and I don't fit into the stereotype people see on the streets. I didn't have an addiction problem and I am a graduate. Folks need food, water and shelter to survive. Take away one of those and you find yourself in mortal danger. The experience very nearly meant my end and it was like a wrecking ball tearing through my life. What I'll never forget is the way people sneered at me and looked down upon me as I tried to get a bit of a sleep on a part bench. I was fortunate to get some help and support from an amazing charity who got me back on my feet. Without them I simply wouldn't be here and many others I met along the way are no longer with us.
Yes. It's hard to thrive when nearly everything is poisoned & pay walled.
Good job pal, and thx to this charity.
I'm in the u s. And I'm homeless. The housing industry jacked the prices to unaffordable prices and are still high it's prob gov ejecting poor ppl
Apocalypse hasn't happened yet. We are heading into it.
It sounds exactly like an addict. What do you mean some people didn't make it. Like they starved? Overdosed? How did a college graduate become homeless? I was a heroin addict n being a heroin addict is very difficult to hold a job which is what made me homeless. Methadone n a landscaping job on Craigslist with the help of my parents is what got me out but you gotta say screw it I gotta help myself before someone else will get that burden.
I shared a house with a homeless man for a short while. I learned how very lucky I was not to be an addict and the importance of looking after myself because no one else was going to..
If a homeless man is sharing a house, how is he still homeless?
@Marcus E houses can be very homeless. It's a very cold world
@@marcuse9030 a house isn’t a home just a place to stay
And you cant make a hoe a house wife
@@TheSaintBigFoot Do words have definitions?
I was homeless in Detroit and Flint from 2012-2016...it was the Darkest time of my life by far...last week I moved my family into our new home ..this June will be 5 years clean off dope..im so grateful every day because I made the choice to get my life back..but I'll admit there are times I miss being homeless..it was dark, cold, violent all that stuff but livin'with no responsibility and surviving off your instincts alone has a certain charm to it that I can't quite put into words..I guess it trained me to read ppl better, but one thing I can easily do now is tell which guys flying a sign or pan handling are faking or are actually homeless.. something about the fake homeless guys makes my skin crawl..being homeless is looked down upon enough and it's not always the person's fault, but pretending to be homeless with your lil sweater dog, trying to get money to score is even grimier than the actual bums
Thanks for sharing and congrats man.
Agreed. Same here. It brings out primeval instincts...and true freedom if you do it properly
I miss being homeless, or another way to put it is I miss being BILL FREE apart from my cell bill. I slept in my storage unit, Was super easy than paying 1k for a 1 bed room now, before I was able to invest in my small business and my health since I was working full time. It got extremely hard to be homeless in the N.Y winter I was homeless for 9 or 10 months every check I got when towards something meaningful, bills don't feel meaningful for some reason. But I'm not even 30 yet, no kids I live alone, work 39 hours a week as a truck driver helper (I sleep a lot on the clock) making 750-$800 per week. 20 an hour.. I think I'd be happier and more successful if I was homeless or BILL FREE. I had a lot of financial freedom being BILL FREE
Congratulations on turning your life around!!! 4 years is a long time to be on the streets. That is not an easy task to accomplish especially living in very difficult areas of the nation. Hang in there and keep goals and a vision to continue to make your life better for yourself and your family. Yeah, the charm you experienced is probably the freedom you feel from all of the financial pressures we have just to exist everyday in this world. Its tough. I do dumpster diving at Aldi and foodbanks to help supplement costs in my family. Sad isn't it?
Your family was homeless, too?
Brand is so intriguing, intellectual and imaginative.. much respect for his overcoming such challenges as drug addiction and sticking around to share his thoughtful insights
He kind of reminds of the Dennis Hopper character from Apocalypse Now
@@zepptar You can't land on a fraction man!!! These are all his children man...
Never forget he sold his soul and promised to bring more to his master and has to do so for the rest of his life.
@@matthewlirot2743 time to take your Abilify
@@debmalouin9880 I've prayed for Russell Brand, but to no effect. This man is not what you think he is. He's an elitist Hollywood freemason.
I live in the Netherlands and we basically fixed the homeless people problem. Adam Curry once told about it on your show. It always feels weird and uncomfortable for a Dutch person when being abroad and seeing all those homeless people. In the Netherlands it was fixed by creating shelter places that require a minimal payment (like 4 euros a day or something). This incentivizes people to go out and do something. A great way to facilitate in this is the ‘homeless-paper’, which they go a sell to make money. This enables people to do something productive and make a few bucks. I think most importantly, it creates a form of stability and meaning that is required to get your live back on track, to the degree in which this is possible for the individual. Often these homeless shelters are ran with help of volunteers, so it will require a willingness from local communities as well. I hope some day other countries will adopt this from us.
Edit: amazed by so many positive responses! Many thanks to all!
To people saying ‘scale is an issue’ or ‘the US has 20 times more people’, i’d like to respond. The Netherlands is a very densely populated country. Why can’t you build 20 times as many homeless shelters? You’re rightfully proud of saying you put a man on the moon, but building enough homeless shelters is somehow an impossible challenge?
Please post the websites that are connected tothese, I will make sure the CA poli-tician-theives are shown that model and will someohow force these greedy, connivers CA politicans (of all stripes ) to prototype them.
These places are all over the US. Some have excellent programs as well. People choose not to use them.
@@reptilehuntressNo.
The only issue whereby I diagree is that I beleieve this isn't a homeless problem in America , or even in the UK, it's a drug problem, not a homeless problem. Sure, they are tied together, but the main issue is drug addiction
The homeless problem in the USA is because of substance abuse and insanity not lack of available housing
Russell has a wonderful soul. He's seen the highs and lows of society and doesn't judge. Great guy.
Everyone judges.
@@temet0nosce True, but he makes an effort not to.. gotta acknowledge the attempt.
@@temet0noscejudgement is a choice. you can choose not to judge
He just said he jacked a man off into a toilet and bathed a hobo! He can't judge anyone
@@agoodnight1050 let him without sin cast the first stone. He acknowledges his past.
I started really seeing homelessness in Seattle around 2017. The problem has grown SUBSTANTIALLY in volume and territory. There is quite a bit of drug addiction and darkness, alienation and hardship. Awful. Sad. Wasteful.
Opposite opinions but pure respect. This is how conversations should be. Trying to understand not undermine
I have a long term friend on the left and we can still manage that, it's genuinely nice. We often correct each other on misinformation from either side that we didn't realise we'd fallen for.
It's actually the bare minimum. But we are living in times when even being respectful is a big plus point at the moment.
You commented this one minute after his clip released then after actually watching it, put out a second comment
@@HonestBottom I genuinely applaud that. That's how the world SHOULD be. Doing it the adult way! 🥰👌
Tell Ben Shapiro that lol, oh and that COVID guy that lied about Joe for no reason and then doubled down, don't remember his name though.
This was one of the best episodes in a long time. Two very important voices collide. Russell has blossomed since his last appearance. 🤙
@@beverlyweaver1280 don’t kill the messengers, just absorb the useful wisdom … human team evolves as one & the universe speaks through everyone ☮️🙏🌍💕🌈✌🏾🛸
Gee Russel I can't understand why the homeless man left after you exploited him and traumatized him by requiring he bathe with you just so you could make a few quid on your show.
Years later someone likely asked him "have you ever tried living indoors?"
"Yeah, I tried, but the guy made me bathe with him, I ain't doing that anymore."
As to Cobalt miners, you mean like the Appalachian people who lived in abject poverty while working the mines for JP. Morgan, Carnegie, the Rockefellers et al?? Unregulated Capitalism and no unions will always lead to that.
@@jtjones4081 rich white guy entitlement is a helluva drug 🤢🤮🤑
Important? LOL
@@jtjones4081 Well Joe used to support Bernie Sanders and now has a man-crush on Ron DeSantis so I don’t think that kind of talk will be allowed on the show very often sorry. And this is primarily a right-wing audience so…
Russell Brand a true journalist reporting on topics that mainstream media brushes under the rug. He informs people in a most sincere and simple way.
I don't know if he's that simple.
It's a shame mainstream media give so little of a crap about homeless. Imagine how nice it would be if the media had a large focus on community effort to care for each other, homeless and homed alike, rather than focusing on some useless grammy nomination.
No his not at all what you described. He's a freaking clown! Getting paid way more than has worth!
No, he's not. He's an elitist Hollywood freemason.
The video went from an advert of Katie Perry singing a theme for a take out delivery service to Russel talking about the exact opposite.
Russell has came very far and is in a small minority of influential people that actually speak out and stand up for the poorest and most sidelined people in our society without an agenda or for personal gain. Money doesn't seem to drive him and it looks like he gets more from loving and caring about others which is very rare and a beautiful thing these days.
He owes me 10 bucks still for a dime baggy of weed and fentanyl from the last time he pretended to be homeless in Hollywood Damnit anyhow 😡🤬!!!
I used to work at a hotel where the church would pay for homeless people to stay over the winter time, and don't get me wrong there where a couple people that treated it with respect. But the other 90% completely trashed those rooms and I found countless needles and other disgusting things in those rooms. If you're getting your housing paid for, and you treat it like that, you don't deserve outside help, figure it out yourself
Treating the problem of homeless needs to be addressed at different angles. Housing is good but they also need medical assistance and therapy because going through what they go through is traumatic.
Most of these people don’t need a place to live. They have lost their mind, and it’s tragic because the only way you get through that is with other people helping you through it. Everyone wants to throw money at these people, but they need other kinds of help.
@@Zhicano I typed basically this same thing at the same time lmao
Amen. That's the problem. You only receive help when YOU want it.
They will look for help when they need it.
Quit trying to help the unwilling, all y'all is doing is enabling the lifestyle.
If they'd just freeze to death people would try really fking hard.
@unkdunk the problem is they won't do those things. Have you ever tried hiring a homeless person to come do yardwork for $20 an hour? They'll tell you to piss off.
It's a huge issue. They don't want to work. They don't want to earn Healthcare. They don't want to get therapy. They either want everything free and paid for, and to also be able to do drugs, or they want nothing.
I remember watching that show where Russell lived with a homeless man, it’s called Re-Brand and is still available on CZcams. I’d have never thought at the time watching it that this man would turn out to be such an insightful voice in this lost generation we are currently in
Exactly. And a sexual predator
To be honest, I haven't heard Russell Brand say anything insightful.
@@tayzk5929 what did you have to say about the decades long problem of homelessness being fixed in one night by hotel housing?
@@ProjectMaccabee Capitalism found its way back.
@@tayzk5929 then you haven't watched enough.
I live in Orlando FL. Through the pandemic we did this too. We got two huge hotels in the city area and housed homeless during the pandemic. A lot of people don’t even know that. I work for the fire department, what ended up happening is we started running 4-6 overdoses a day to these hotels and other terrible calls. The hotels were also vandalized and some of the rooms were completely destroyed. They lost a lot of money. It was nice to see that many people off of the street and with a bed to sleep in. But sadly it’s just not sustainable. It was a terrible situation.
All paid for by the government ( the taxpayers)...includimg the repairs for the vandalism. In UK. The hotels made a fortune!
Now the same places are making even more money taking "refugees" by the boatload
They can't help themselves. The fact is that they need to be physically removed from the street replaced in a mandatory rehab center or jail if you would like. Everyone that says "but that's their freedom you can't do that let them live their lives". The same people that can't offer any solutions. Trust me they're not lives that they want to live. They simply just can't help themselves. They need somebody to help them therefore if you don't have a better solution don't complain about the one that's going to work. you should just keep your mouth shut. They have tried this program over in Rhode Island it had a 67% success rate... There were many once homeless drug addicted people grateful for the program they said it saved their lives. The fact is is that everybody wants to stand up for human rights in this and that but these people cannot help themselves. It's really that simple. I saw that homeless guy last year and he didn't have any shoes or socks on outside of the 7-Eleven. I had a pair of shoes in my trunk. As I was walking in the store I offered him the shoes, he said no I don't want them. I came out of the store and I offered him $1 he gladly took that $1. It's nonsensical. The shoes alone he could have got $10-$30 or he could have kept his feet warm but instead he chose to take the $1 to add to whatever cash he had swindled out of people earlier to collect and stack his next injection. People want to tiptoe around stuff, there's no reason to now. The homeless epidemic has got over hundreds of thousands now and it's only going to multiply from here with inflation of the constant rising of prices. At the end of the day if you are not a constructive person in society, you don't pay your taxes, you litter, you loiter, you steal, you perform acts of violence. Then your freedom will be taken from you. You will be placed in a rehab center or jail until you have been rehabilitated. That seems fair for the rest of us considering we are not stealing, loitering, littering, assaulting, shooting up in front of other people leading needles at schools. And for those who are they deserve the same "help". Or should we just keep walking by them and driving by them like they don't exist? Is that really a better alternative? I mean, isn't trying to fix something better than just watching it collapse?
Drug addiction is the most common side effect of being homeless. It would have been a better option if the hotels had said to the welfare system and the C.D.C that they would not accept addicts,even with the pandemic, because they are, especially Ice addicts,very destructive in how they live their lives, so why would they have any respect for the owners of the property or abide by their rules. The only people who should have been given rooms etc, were the ones who were homeless because of losing their job and then their home, not because they chose to be idiots and over indulge in drugs to the point where they lost everything,but, in most cases, they don't accept any responsibility for their own actions, they bitch about how hard it is living on the streets but it was their own fault that they ended up there anyway. And before all the bleeding hearts start, unless you were forced, IT IS YOUR FAULT ,and broken homes are a cop out too because there are plenty of successful people who came from the poverty line. It is only when a sexual crime against a child has done its damage that the broken home has credence, but it is up to the individual to decide how he or she will live their lives Always has been that way.
@Geoffrey Bennett Not always a side-effect. Usually, homelessness is a side-effect of drug use. At least in the USA.
And the unfortunate side effect of wanting to do a good deed is it almost always results in tragedy. Something good like that is done and how are you repaid? With vandalism and a mess they don't have to clean up and when good people go through that they lose all sympathy and don't want to help people ever again.
These two men I will listen to endlessly. Spear heading truth and exposing corruption.
When I was homeless in San Francisco, many people would rather stay outside rather than use the shelters. I had no issues with the shelters myself. I also noticed that a lot of people got their social security checks the first of the month, went and partied, and by the end of the week they were back in the shelter. Most of the people I met were addicts. Some had severe mental illness. Others just wanted to live freely outside the system. Recently I have been working homeless and found many people even in the suburbs living in their cars. I currently make 50k a year and barely qualified for a decent apartment in my area (Mid Atlantic USA). It's only gonna get worse.
sjhudon, thanks for chiming in. That experience is pretty classic, especially in the Bay Area. Meanwhile, most folks have no idea how common working homeless is these days. Good for you getting your shit together.
Dont give up bro, work harder .. stay strong 🫡💯
how does a homeless person get their SS check? you need an address.
Yeah I stayed in shelters and got tired of it then started sleeping in a tent n my friend n his girlfriend had a tent and it was great but when winter hit my brother let me move in. He said I could but no drinking so I prefered the tent until it got to cold and I moved in and now three months sober. Sometimes it just takes a helping hand to save someone.
What do you mean it's only gonna get worse? Seems as though you've already improved your situation significantly. Life is tough but keep improving and keep moving up. Don't be hard on yourself
I own a business in Los Angeles. Gower St which Russel referenced in this video is downtown, which is about 20 mins from me. There is one homeless man I've known for over 10 years. I generally don't allow panhandlers to open doors or loiter around the property. I made an exception for this guy because he was always sober, sound of mind, and made customers laugh, and he kept the crazy/violent homeless people away. He didn't ask for money but instead offered to wash their windows. Always had his squeegee and spray bottle with him. He had a large gregarious personality but not in a loud obnoxious way. Sadly I watched him deteriorate over the years to the point I had to get a restraining order against him. Drugs and alcohol completely took over his life. His personality and even his face are completely different now. He's assaulted my staff numerous times, causing them to quit, and I've had him arrested over a dozen times. A cop told me his rap sheet has over 100 arrests. One of my customers owns an apartment building nearby and offered to put him up, but he always refused.
The homeless crisis is mostly a drug abuse and mental health crisis. More housing isn't going to solve this. The money we throw at homelessness has exploded exponentially yet the problem gets worse. A lot of these politicians are involved in non-profits and it's all corrupt. The only one who was trying to do anything about it was Sheriff Villanueva, and the dirty politicians put a stop to it because it was going to effect their pockets. He was ousted by the Board of Supervisors. This city has NO intention of solving this problem. They're getting rich off of it. In fact Sheriff Villanueva would be a great guest on this show. He has a unique perspective being on the inside dealing with all the corruption.
It's not surprising to me that one of the most logical and articulate comments, that I've seen anyway, has very few likes by comparison to some of the most hardened opinions expressed here. Thank you for understanding this for what it is. This issue has affected my life in ways that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Not even on the ones that are willfully ignorant and making and making equally ignorant comments. People that are addicted don't get that way because they don't give a f*** ..... It always starts with an underlying cause. Usually in the way of mental illness. In my case, I gave a f**". I tried. I tried hard to maintain a life. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder made it impossible for me to function for very long at a time. Two, of my five older brothers, (I was far younger and the only girl) molested me regularly. My my earliest memory is when I was about 3 1/2 or 4 and my oldest brother being on top of me. That's a reoccurring theme for the next 7 years. Eventually, another brother raped me. I was 11. This was my entire childhood. It was inevitable, I'm certain of that, that I would end up addicted, in and out of prison, and eventually homeless. So thank you for having a clear understanding of the issue. It helps.
@Golden Child Not trying to attack what happened in your life but all you're pretty much saying is there was a 'excuse' to jump to drugs/alcohol simply because reality is to hard for some? We all battle our own personal demons but no body is pushing you to ruin your life with addictions except yourself.
So nice, I listened to the entire podcast twice... As always when listening to these 2, I come away with knowledge and a sense of thoughtfulness. I love it. WONDERFUL CONVERSATION!
I think the biggest draw is speaking from experiences.
I don't get the feeling of being talked down to. Nor the feeling of being talked at.
Completely no bs. Conversations
2 of my favourite people to listen too and get news from world events. You can trust these guys to say what they see and give an honest opinion.
I am one of those people that was housed in a hotel during the pandemic in Virginia. It quite frankly save my life, and I don't care what anybody thinks about it. I was grateful to all of those people.
If it was in Tidewater...God Bless you...
so you are or where homdless and now you spend time on jre clips hmmmmmm i smell something
@@erickhernandez-xz2od damn bro how sad is ur life
@@fucgooooogke im tied with you
@@erickhernandez-xz2odThe guy was grateful for it and is obviously doing a bit better off if we go based on your statement.
This was by far one of the best serious style podcasts we’ve had in a while
You've gotta respect Russels openness and honesty about his life and things he's done that everyone else is frowned upon for.
Fantastic to hear these stories, and the both of you in your openess, willingness to listen, to understand each other. Thank you Joe and Russel.
Edgar Hoover is Disney ed penner and Rudolph hoess Judy Garland is Helga Goebbels Roy Patti Disney is Magda Joseph Goebbels. Erwin Rommel desert fox is Disneys hams luske Walt Disney is Kermit Roosevelt Walter Cronkite Adolph Hitler Elon musk is Werner von Braun son .buy Orion bush connection sabotage hw. Hw is Joe Kennedy Jr Quentin Roosevelt is Joe Kennedy sr. Erin Rommel SS desert fox is Disneys hams luske Joseph mengele had seven Romanian Jewish dwarfs of auswitch no snow white just white angel of death Heinrich Himmler was inspiration for Goofy
Bro, Joe consistently says awful shit about homeless people in LA.
@my name is jeeeyf I recall Joe jokingly saying if nothing else, we could just shoot them, but he insisted he was being sarcastic but his guest nodded and said, "sounds good to me"
@@johnsmith-wk2tb For all of Russel's flaws, no one can say he isn't compassionate - something Joe lacks. Something most people lack until they're a homeless drug user. I am not a Russel fanboy but always enjoy his empathy.
Russel is a beacon for every addict.
Kudos to him for changing his life around and became so successful.
Happy to see Russ back on
He's wonderful. Not just a good guest.
**doggie nose boop**
@@Level.2.Gigapod hahahaha thank you
Hearing Russel talk about his experiences of humbleness and challenging the mind in such a bold way, off of his show, is pretty interesting I gotta say.
Joe and Russell is a podcast everyone can listen too, absolutely Awesome.
I had an uncle who despite our best efforts, free loving home, food, clothing and spending money but he enjoyed the streets more because he wanted the booze and drugs in an environment where he felt he can do these things without judgement. He felt he didn’t belong in a functional environment despite our best
efforts to convince him otherwise. He would often just disappear and we would find him passed out, half naked on the street in the dead of winter. We found out later he would trade his new coat, hat, gloves and boots for booze or drugs and sometimes they were outright stolen from him while passed out. Sadly the streets eventually claimed his life but you just have to understand, they’ll take your handouts all day long but you’ll never get them off the streets. They love that freedom without judgment to just stay high.
Wonder what happened to your uncle as a child?? Maybe he was always the black sheep and eventually internalized it. 🙁 Without those "hand outs" he might not have made it at all. I wouldn't look at your efforts in vain, maybe he chose freedom over pity and resentment ... Just a thought... For the people who give "handouts". Resentment is a strong force you can rarely hide under clean dry socks.
@@InnerAwakeningsAstrology Who cares what happened? He is doing this currently daily and because he loves pleasure rather then his family.
You don’t sound like the kind of person that a hurt person could do better around, so it’s not too surprising
This is a very romanticized point of view. "They love that freedom without judgment to just stay high." That's not freedom friend, they're fully held captive my their addictions, they're the opposite of free.
sounds like the dad from shameless
Russell is so open about his life he just bares all.
Someone that reveals all has nothing to hide...
Unfortunately
He also has a very eloquent way of speaking and getting his point across. You can tell he is very smart and thinks in deeper ways than the average person.
All baring all gotten him
Purpose adulation and around 50 million….you’d have to be Russell brand to this system
These 2 are always a great episode
The hardest part is the way people treat you. I had some money, was an honorable veteran, was not looking to do anything or anyone wrong...I was just homeless. It made me hate and judge all the other homeless here in FL for being bad and making everyone hate us.
I understand your comment about the way regular society treats the homeless, as I experienced it first-hand. However, it made me see the underworld of the homeless community in a different, gentle light, despite some shortcomings. Instead, I had intense anger, probably hate, towards society for their trivial complaints and ugly souls. That was four years ago... it feels like a different life. I have struggled with the reality that I was able to move on with my life whilst the majority I met are still suffering in their own minds, continuing the cycle of street living. Part of me has feared that if I recover from my "trauma" of being homeless then I will forget about the friends I made back in 2018. But, with that being said, it feels good to be able to interact in this comment section and reflect on my own life without becoming emotional. The journey of healing, whatever our own personal experiences, is a continuous road. I feel blessed to be here, with access to my own laptop, to watch CZcams in my downtime and read people's views. :)
The homeless people were shoved into personally owned businesses aka those hotels. Imagine being told that your business has to host 100s of homeless people because the government said so. Imagine those people trashed your business and literally scared paying customers away. They didn't figure homelessness out. They foisted their man made problem on to personal owned business and said " hey you have to deal with our mess".
Facts
Fascists gonna fascism. If the limeys kept their guns and told the government to fuck off, these problems wouldn't exist.
I wonder if a maid comes to their rooms to clean up daily.
How much they charge, again? Seems criminal to me but, the poor are profitable, non?
Idk which country your talking about but they weren't forced in most. It was either have no one in your hotel due to covid or get paid by the government to put homeless in your accom. Same thing was used for covid isolation hotels. This actually kept businesses afloat otherwise they would have made zilch. But I agree if it were my business then as soon as its over you'd want to go back to tourists etc.. But it wasnt forced or not paid for most hotels were trying to become an iso or shelter
Joe and Russell never disappoint. I was excited to see they did another podcast together.💜
Top Ten guest of all time Joe, Russell you are a living legend and God bless your empathy and honesty!
I just wanna thank you both for creating a space in which I can grow and learn and feel loved by you both. Thank You from my full heart.
Calm down
@@kash18141like what😂
Nah not gonna calm down these guys are changing the world man
While working with some homeless in my area (the ones that didn't strike me as very dangerous) I noticed the whole "gravity" thing as well. They genuinely wanted to be off the street, but every time we found a place for them to stay, they would inadvertently "run-away" back to the streets. They had gotten so used to their homeless way of life that, from what it seems, they didn't know how not to be homeless. It was tragic to witness and a very stark lesson for me to do everything in my power to avoid becoming like that myself.
It's like institutionalised prisoners that can't handle being let free, except the total inverse. They are so used to the way of life that their mind has molded itself to fit in that situation. To the point where, unless you're handed something on a plate, you can't overcome the motivation threshold to actually make progress.
Self hatred ?
If your homeless...your part of the homeless community and you are having face to face human contact all day long....give that person a home/apartment/studio and what happens ?....the person is home alone, lonely, isolated, bored and not getting much human interaction and conversation
@@suzanneblaylock9598 No, more deep-rooted. Like a completely different way of life that has become so engrained into them for the sake of survival that they can't escape it. This is for those who have been homeless for a long time though, I imagine ones who have only done it for a couple years wouldn't have too much a problem readjusting back to a more normal way of life.
A couple of nights ago, my wife and I were watching a Netflix show called New Amsterdam. The episode we watched had a homeless man who was in the emergency room but he had run up a million dollar bill and the medical director, Max, came up with an idea to literally prescribe the man an apartment for him to live in. In the episode, that man was seen almost immediately back in the e.r. for yet another issue. It seemed to me that the guy was just lonely and was somehow searching for some company. Then, some fast-food delivery guy came in asking for some person in one of the medical departments and the lonely guy rattled off the direction to the department. Then, Max, seeing that came up with an idea to get this man a position working in the information booth to help visiting patients and their families and friends. Some people feeling that gravity to go back out into the streets needs to find a purpose and belonging besides the basic needs of the individual.
I went from homelessness to getting straight, getting all my kids back and eventually, years later... married to a beautiful woman. We have the most wonderful blended family and you wouldn't know that unless i told you ..I still have to remind myself almost daily ..how lucky I am. How blessed I am. I give it all to Him. Praise God 🙏❤️💯 I still have trouble praying for their mother, as she is still active..but I'm working on it ! Love yall
💪
God bless you bro!
jeRm, I know several formerly homeless guys (and gals) who now have somewhat stable lives for the same reason you do. I learned a lot from these people but the thing that surprised me the most was they tell me that there's a kind of psychology in the homeless "community" (Yeah, I know, I hate that word too) that like being homeless and don't actually WANT to "come in". It's like a sort of freedom. A lot of the homeless we met in NYC would tell us that it stops being "fun" around the age of 30 but by then they now lack the talents necessary to function in society and they are way behind the eight-ball making it even more difficult to "rehabilitate" them. It's a serious, serious problem and there really is no answer besides the one that your post alludes to.
My hat is off to you Brother, kudos to you for never giving up.
So have I but never beat my back red patting myself there....... it's people like you who kinda inspire me in some small way so stop screaming about how God did this and that it was you and the self-righteousness disgusts me as a sober person
I saw your segment with James on rebrand around 2010. I gave my speech just last week about that segment and how it changed my attitude forever when he spoke about how he’d rather be spit on or yelled at, that it’s the ignoring that makes you feel sub-human. I’m a new mom and I can’t imagine being that lonely. Loved rebrand even addict Russ is full of heart. Hated to see you hurting never hurt like that again!
Russell Brand speaks like he's about to break into a spoken word poem at any moment
That’s just his British accent
My sons had a percussionist music teacher that was homeless. He had only one red backpack and one bag of drum sticks.They were about twelve, right after Ike destroyed their house on the coast here in Galveston, when he started to teach them at the house we evacuated to on the mainland and 13-14 when they realized he was homeless living in downtown Houston. They looked at U-Tube videos to learn how to build and my young 14 year old sons built a home for him on a piece of property I had with all this cool hand made furniture and very cool corrugated metal walls with a secret door to escape from if he needed to as he was worried sometimes.They surprised him one day with a key to his own place, rent free. He eventually drummed with them for ten years in their band until they were 22, he schooled my sons and was the band shaman. His name was Gerri and his house was bigger than yours or mine and he died in the home they built for him, not on the streets, still with one red bag and one bag of sticks. His funeral was surreal, a drum circle lasting 5 hours and when we stopped drumming, I got up to say words as I had written him a poem, with my two sons at my side and I choked on the words and so did my sons, we burst into tears, all I could say was, "Gerri opened the window."...All the heavy duty rasta men from different bands at the funeral, about 100 people all burst into tears at that moment, grown tough men, all reggae men busting for the doors choking on their tears running so no-one would see them cry. We did a paddle out next on surfboards, when we spread the ashes and turned to paddle away in a sun pattern, dolphins stood up on their tails in the center of the circle of boards, smak dab in his ashes...Ocean Roots Band, ORB is golden light! Oh and did I mention Gerri was Yoruban, the exact area of Africa populated with the Dogon people via Cuba and the sugercane slave trade and these tribes, believe in men or Gods called Nommos, half dolphin, half human that brought them to earth...yeah....those dolphins came to his funeral...try that one on for size...I still have the red bag and the sticks. We never opened the bag.
Awesome
@@spacey_jones beautiful story ,im a drummer that brought me to tears ,thanks for sharing
Open the bag
Awesome story, bot
Thanks for sharing
I'm an Independent Latino. Thank you Rogan!! One of the BEST episode!!! One KING to other KING!!
Two of the great hosts!! Thank you
Spotify needs to add comments and real-time comments to their platform. I only watch these on CZcams to read people's comments.
30% of the comments on here now are all bots and scammers. You can keep your comments.
Amen to that. The CZcams comment section is it’s biggest asset. It’s one of the things what makes CZcams so special.
My sister worked at a homeless shelter. She always said about 20% of the people just fell on hard times and needed help to get back on their feet(which they did). The other 80% were content to live as homeless, it was just a way of life. They wouldn’t even pay to wash their clothes because they knew they could get more free clothes and save their money for drugs and booze.
Liar
struggle to be broke or accept it.
i think your advice to them would be stupid and horrible for them, Joyce.
just guessing.
@@donHooligan Nah dude, alot of them are lazy cracked out bums who have no interest in turning their life around... not sure what to say, but you can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink
@@Teh_Random_Canadian you may not believe it, but there really are victims in this society.
to judge someone who gives up....even to the point of suicide, is outlandishly arrogant.
"Hell has no pain like these i leave." -Cervantes
@@donHooligan I understand most have had trauma in their lives, but unless they are willing to help themselves they are never getting off the streets no matter what you do
This conservation was great.
I am German, 59 years old, living in Germany and have been watching / following Russel Brand as well as Joe Rogan only for last 3 years.
I believe there are not so many people left in the spectrum who are able to give orientation/ direction since many got censored.
I have been traveling to Nepal, China, India, Thailand, Marokko, Indonesia at least twice a year last 20 years to buy handicraft items….
I talk to local people in these countries and seen how things have developed / or not developed during these years.
I believe that this planet is going to change radically…and we better watch these 2 guys …and consider their thoughts - rather than the directed narrative of mass media..
I do not know how it would feel in other parts of the world, but as for someone to have been homeless, in Europe, for some time period - All I can say, it affected the way I saw world and life and it was definitely a life changing experience! To My big surprise, I actually enjoyed that time a lot! I was amazed by, how much kindness and understanding I saw, when I had nothing and nobody in My life - just open skies and endless options.
i wish full episodes were still on youtube
If i saw russel brand on the street corner with another homeless man, i would probably give them both money and not realize it was Russ
@@KAT-dg6el
It was a fucking joke. Chill the fuck out
I like Russel’s honesty. He comes across as a man that will tell his truth and not care what you think.
Great way to have a dialogue.
Can't wait to see this in full!
My friend owed a hotel and used to get asked to house homeless people by the local council often. After a year of theft, smashed up rooms, needles under beds, antisocial behaviour etc etc he now says no. Somewhere fine but you just can’t risk that kinda thing when you have paying guests and children in the house. Not to mention the cleaners who have to deal with the aftermath.
I love what you said about the woman with a baby on her back that’s working in a cobalt mine so we can have devices and cars. I just think that both of you guys are amazing. Very thankful for you. I’m so glad that censorship hasn’t gotten so bad that I can’t even see you guys talk.
It's only gonna get worse my brother.
Joe Rogan was already targetted recently, I'm sure it will happen again.
@@jpPID starting to think Rogan and Russell Brand are in on it. Nobody ever talks about the real issues with the fractional reserve banks , occurred to me that they’re just part of it too, the Man is phishing, and even though the things they say are true they’re not really trying to get to the bottom of anything. in the meanwhile, in the comments, the Man gets to adapt and learn how to be even more cruel and vicious by hearing in real time what the people are saying, probably just trying to create the most evil AI bot that ever existed. Never once has Joe Rogan or Russell Brand mention fractional reserve banking. And that, at the very least is the root of all of the worlds problems, especially in the United States.
This was just a stunning exchange of thoughts this podcast. I loved it
“Maybe we are living the Apocalypse now!” Wow the was deep Russell. He’s right, it is now.
Two of my most favourite public figures, we enjoy both of these gentlemen’s shows, and to have them together is a treat! The full version of this on Spotify will absolutely be my Friday night with a neat shot of bourbon :D 🥃 Can’t wait!
Go back and watch the other episodes of JRE where Russell was on. All of them are really good, he's one of my favorite guests that isn't on JRE enough =)
Not many jokes though, did you notice?
How about in the full version?
The weight of money, influence and power perhaps?
Maybe some guilt too
@@orsoncart1547 huh?
@@wrath231 they're comedians by trade aren't they?
This is not funny
@@orsoncart1547 This episode started Heavyyy|!! Hope it gets easier later on lol Some comedic relief is expected from professional comedians.
Some homeless folks remind me of those soldiers that keep reenlisting to return to a war zone, if they are at home, they feel out of their skin.
I watched all of those things Russell did. It was funny in a really sad way. When I watched them he was already clean and sober. I’ve seen Russell’s stand up live, I read his first book. I’m so glad that he is where he is in life now. ❤
Seeing how that podcast on cobalt mining had really affect Joe really shows the kind of man he is and we're is heart is and the responsibility he feels to the world to leave it a better place than he found it.
In fla, the hotels accepted govt. vouchers from the homeless. One I used to frequent, a small indie hotel, said he had to to stay alive, with no vacationers around. they absolutely decimated the hotel. Tweakers everywhere, people who ran out of vouchers sleeping on the sidewalk out from with piles of their stuff everywhere, drug dealers all over the hotel, etc. At that point all the vacationers went elsewhere due to all the rifraf. I stayed, but was approached several times about meth while there. Now he has to start all over again, building his reputation and renovating his hotel. They really turned a nice, basic hotel into a total 3rd world shithole. He knows now he would have been better off shutting the doors or at least not accepting the "bum vouchers".
Wtf is a fla
@@Isnotreal42 Florida
He would have went bankrupt and wouldn't have a business lol... Sure he was covered for any damage.. I mean anyone is that rents out a day or more, why not this, except the govt foots the bill
@@softjones3128 there are multiple shorthands for things and Fla. is one for Florida...and why would someone lie about abbreviations???
Truly two honest men having a respectful discussion. We need more of this in our communities. And we definitely need more of this from our so-called leaders or we are finished in the West.
STFU you moscow bitch clone. As if you weren't obvious enough. Slava Ukrani
Russel talking about his time using Heroin make me think of the movie Trainspotting
Where are the full podcasts?
I used to hang out and have beers with homeless ppl mostly in LA but also in Florida. It’s totally true that there is an addiction some have to being “on the road”. Other than mental health, the most ppl i met were like either young sorta musician vagabonds or more importantly, straight up homeless ppl that wanted to stay homeless. they had disconnected and wanted to stay that way.
What Russel said about the modern version of the hunter gatherer is so true. We really have to help those less fortunate than us. So need more love in this world.
The help for the homeless should be…throwing them overboard on an ocean going vessel!!!!
@@drjojo5551 attention seeker.
You rock Aldous Snow when is the next infant sorrow concert?❤
when he talks it feels like hes never not speaking love itt
Everybody has choices. I was raised 1 step above being homeless. Missed half of my kindergarten and first grade years due to a mom strung out on crack hiding me all over in the 1990s.
Everybody has choices. My past didn't define me. When opportunity comes knocking you better be prepared for it. And if you're not preparing yourself for any opportunity to come, you'll never notice when the opportunity actually does stare you in the face
God Bless you and Amen.
Heed these words, this person speaks pure wisdom
Dr Beechas your past still kinda defines you because if you had a better past it's vastly more likely you'd be in an even better place now.
You're right. I came from a good family but we didn't have all the latest and greatest stuff. I learned that it's extremely important to just say YES to every opportunity that comes your way. Do not hesitate if someone is willing to help you get a step up. But here's the thing. You better put your full effort into any job or opportunity you are given. If you don't, you will lose it, and you will be worse off than if you did hesitate. Every opportunity is a one time gift.
And sometimes a serious of terrible events happen and we end up on the streets. Have done homeless outreach for years and have talked to plenty of successful and educated people who got unlucky and were unable to make it back up.
Poor little crack baby
Great seeing you both together!! Joe - pass along this deeply needed app Share the Meal that helps kids!!
EXCELLENT DISCUSSION!!!!!!
Russell Brand is such a wild dude. The contrast between him and Joe is super interesting.
I can relate to this. Homelessness is a complete culture. My dad is homeless and he chooses it. He prefers the freedom, the escape from daily grind, work, and bills and the 'normalcy'. The life itself is its own grimy and homeless grind, but he prefers it to being housed.
Good way to put it, homeless grind
There are times that that lifestyle (when chosen) makes a lot of sense. We spend our lives clocking in at a desk job in the concrete jungle only to pay insane interest on a mortgage, fund the government, and worship retirement funds which might crash by the time we retire anyway. Modern living has just turned us into working rats…..sacrificing everything to have a comfortable jail cell.
I knew a woman that worked and worked for the government for more than forty years. She did it to have a great
pension when she retired. She retired however her health had been destroyed by constant stress from work.
She only enjoyed about 3 years of retirement when she died from the health problems from working herself to death.
The moral is I understand how many people rather just escape the daily grind,
In Sweden we used to call them Luffare back in the days. It basically translates to Vagabond. Yeah they are weird to some people but its really not that complicated (unless they have mental issues witch ofc some of them have). Some off them just hate having daily chores and responsibilities so much they'd rather leave 😅
@@adrian42727 absolutely 💯
As odd as it may sound some people have lifestyles that gravitate towards homelessness. They're either unable or unwilling to live in their own place due to any number of reasons.
Where do I listen to this podcast? It doesn't come up on my podcast app
A brilliant podcast this. Thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. Was a great recap and observation on how society is properly insane these days. Like... really strange.
I like how when he learns something in another episode, he finds a way to incorporate it into later episodes. Most people hear something interesting, say "that's interesting", and move on.
I’ve taken care of a few homeless people before. Some are hard out on there luck, most have severe mental issues ❤ prayers for all the people with mental health issues that have been forgotten about on the streets, homeless everywhere ❤❤❤
Great interview
Russell is really a fantastic person love listening to him
It's only in the past few hundred years we have became highly advanced. They say the apocalypse is here but life on this planet has always been harsh, brutal and unforgiving. When I hear of evil or pain I most of the time just put it down to being human. Yet life is still so beautiful.
I put in 2 years working in a homeless ministry after experiencing it myself and even documenting the experience on CZcams to 0 fanfare. Anyways this was an incredibly informative and on point discussion. Thank you for having him on for this
Got a link ?
Love you both - great conversation
I once knew a homeless man in Tucson, AZ. He was a Vietnam veteran and had his full benefits. I asked him why he was homeless if he received enough money for an apartment, let alone the VA housing (or whatever it was) that had recently been built. He said, "The things I saw and did in Vietnam really messed me up. I can't live with or around other people. So, I choose to be homeless. It's not so bad for me. I have my daily routine and my campsite and enough money to get what I need every month." I once offered him my old bicycle, I had just bought a new one, and he refused it. He told me that it was one more thing to lug around and worry about someone stealing. He shared some of his war stories with me... they were pretty bad. I still think of that man from time to time, and I always wonder how he is and if he is well. If not, well, I'm sure he lived his life the best way he could and went out on his own terms. That man was a warrior whose battles haunted him in ways unimaginable to most of us.
All homeless people have had some dire thing happen in their life that put them there. Some are from making bad decisions, others are forced in a variety of ways, and some of them are just lost or forgotten by our collective society. I'm not trying to "preach" anything here, just sharing an observation I've made in my trek through life.
I work in an overnight shelter that is open only on a grant until March 21st. After that, the 50+ souls we have provided a warm clean place to sleep over the winter are back out on the streets. It is tearing my heart out that my community doesn't recognize the problem in our small town. We have individuals who are dying of a serious illness and soon to be living outside. Horrific yes!
Thanx for helping, yes a lot are physically or mentally sick and they decent people right
Thank you for doing the work, it is humbling and inspiring.
Veronica Snider, that's horrifying. Our society is being torn apart. I hope you guys find the money somewhere/somehow. You judge a society by how it treats its least privileged....
That's good, hopefully they freeze then tax dollars aren't going to druggies.
Who should pay for their care?
Russell has such a magnificent mind. He can think so quickly. Can be hard to keep up, he's so energetic.
We need more people like Russel Brand who aren't afraid to chakek the establishment.
Russell could pass as a homeless person at first glance
@@Elite_Employee He talks nonsense just like a homeless person too
Well done Gerard, hope he gets Notifications on all your vids!
This is all a very interesting topic. It shows how he opened his mind to different outlooks in life through experimentation and just interacting with people outside the norm. How he went about it may seem bizarre and strange to others but he seemed open to not be affected by such things that would be considered barriers to some people’s personal boundaries. An interesting individual with a very open mindset to explore the world of what it is like to some
fantastic
"There was a sort of....gravity that was pulling him out onto the streets."
Yeah, addiction
Richard Brandt is one down to earth dude. Everyone thinks he's lame or annoying but I think he's smart as hell and very great to listen to. I was a drug addict too, mainly heroin/fentanyl, so I get what he's saying. But to alot of people it's super taboo and "frowned upon".
A brief part of a 3 hour conversation that took me several days to digest fully.
When Russel starts talking he just can't stop.
Part of the problem is that some people like being homeless it’s a life style most of us don’t understand it’s a hard life style but can be rewarding there’s problems with every lifestyle if u want or need there’s sacrifices in choices
I am glad Joe keep mentioning that cobalt mine. People need to open their eyes.
They are always wide open 👐
This is true. During the Plandem, I worked in housing homeless veterans. People just need a place to stay, to get back on their feet. Most of my clients were not drug users, but rather unhoused veterans, with children, and spouses.
It taught me a lot about the psyche of humans
I became homeless when my daughter was 10 months because my daughters mother stole every last dollar I had and ran off with another guy without saying a single and never to be heard from again. She absolutely did not think twice or care what kind of position that put me in but I literally have no parents or family to help watch my daughter and she took all my money so I couldn’t pay for day care. Ended up losing my job. No job, no help, and still no idea what to do I ended up losing my home. Luckily I was quickly able to get into a family homeless shelter and I was there for a total of 5 weeks and without them I’m not sure what I would have done. They helped pay for day care up front for the first week so I could start a new job amd helped me with resources and etc. oh yeah I’m also a veteran but the VA wouldn’t help with anything but yeah you never know why people are homeless sometimes it can be like my situation where it’s literally not their fault at all
I purposely spent two weeks of the downtown Streets of Ottawa and learned alot
Iv also been to Rwanda,Africa , and i felt and heard many differences and similarities, it was one of the hardest but best experiences in my life
They also did that in Canada. In Scarborough, Ontario, the community centers near me were homeless shelters, but have reverted back to regular community centers as the restrictions have been lifted. Funny how they kicked them out just before the cold fall weather set in.
Canada has so many resources for these people that they don't use. many of them are happy panhandling during the day and getting totally blitzed during the night... at some point you have to cut them off.
Ontario is balls
Proof the govts anywhere don't ACTUALLY want To solve Fix or help anything
@@jaywalshmusicandsong1736 from Ontario, I agree
Russell Brand is a class act man. love this guy
Well spoken Joe on the Congo situation on forced/child labor..this is nothing new it's been going on for decades...I wish it would be talked about more...they are forced into this.
Loved this podcast, Russel Brand is so great to listen to