Do Hobos in your city suddenly have serious back problems

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good thing they deal well with bikes.

It's my impression many homeless in SA are illegal immigrants. I don't think they'd find the bush very friendly. In a big city there will at least be churches and other aid organizations who might occasionally bring them some food. Plus many languages and cultures so easier for an illegal to blend in.

I was in SA years ago. I wouldn't consider most parts to be favorable for foraging for food. It's my impression that people there sometimes walk extremely long distances in sparsely inhabited areas to get from one place to another, but those people are on the move. North America is probably a much better environment for a homeless person to survive in a rural area. I haven't seen the Eastern Cape though, so perhaps there are agricultural areas where a person might be able to get food from sympathetic farm workers, even if they don't speak the same language. Can't imagine doing it in Gauteng.

I'm pretty sure it would indeed be easier to "take to the road" in the US. Yes there many people on the streets of our cities here and many would be illegal immigrants from other sub-Saharan countries. White transients/bums tend to hang out more in suburban areas or beach towns such as Jeffreys Bay or Knysna. I imagine it helps to have some forms of regular support, such as a church or soup kitchen, as you pointed out. I think there would be potential for homeless folk to live on farms and do farm jobs in return for some meals and a place to sleep.

There's been a cave outside Wilderness, adjoining a disused railway track and tunnel and just off the beach, which transient artists call home for shortish periods. It makes a most interesting visit to see how they've developed it into a really livable art-style place. I am not sure whether the Transnet rail authority will ever have the funds to restore the Outeniqua Choo-Choo since the line was washed out by rain years ago, so the art commune is likely to remain.

I don't want to claim to know more than I do about SA, but I believe that line was actually used for passenger service and was so ridiculously slow you might have gotten where you were going faster by walking. Somewhat related to the narrow gauge. I agree it will probably remain a thing of the past.

Having already admitted to having visited SA many years ago, I thought I might mention how one thing that truly surprised me was the large number of white panhandlers I encountered. So in the US (and I imagine most of the Western world) the impression we got was that white people were more or less shielded from poverty because any halfway-decent job was legally reserved for whites, so this was a real surprise. Not sure how relevant this is to today's South Africa insofar as I doubt your economy is anything to write home about (but I haven't bothered Googling any numbers). I can imagine many poor whites might try to emigrate but then if you're over a certain age and the only language you're confident speaking is Afrikaans then perhaps that's not an option.

It's a popular hiking trail now and a chance to cross some beautiful bridges on foot. When I visited my Knysna friends we drove to Wilderness and took the dogs walking as far as Victoria Bay. Yes the train was a slow one but was just a tourism thing.

The railway bridge across the lagoon is quite an adventure to cross, and the first time I crossed all the way on foot to get to Brenton-on-Sea it was a mental challenge for me when about halfway. The railway side has all these spaces, while the walkway side only has a very flimsy rail which might as well not be there at all.

There definitely has been an increase in White panhandlers as well as White (mostly Afrikaans) squatter camps and homeless shelters (I was in one for a good while few years before being diagnosed) in some cities. I don't think emigration is an option for some, as they don't have the unique skills that most nations would be looking for. I haven't done extensive research on this however.

I've often thought it could be interesting to live in a really remote spot such as Tristan da Cunha (nearby Gough Island is part of SA). But the enforced isolation would get to me after a while. At least if my bf was with me, that would make a huge difference.

So anyway I don't think anybody understood the real point of what the OP was saying. Or am I reading something in to it that's not there?

Hard to tell ... the OP seems to have some difficulty being clear.

---

It Seems Clear to me...

In Canada At Least
And Considering the
Op Has Said Recently He
Lives in A Shelter Experiencing
The Issue up Close and Personal As Such...

He Sees More Folks Stooped Over When they
Walk and Is Wondering if Anyone Else Has

Noticed And If It may Be Related

To MORE And More Varied Drug

Abuse;

Of course,

Not everyone

Here Lives in a Shelter
In Canada And Would Notice...

Yet Perhaps Someone Here Does
Considering That Some Issues Will Result
in More Challenges in Life That Lose
A 'Normal' Ability to Do Society...

As If to Say
Society

As it is
Rearranged
From Our Natural
Evolution Now Makes
A Bit of God Dam Sense...

WHICH IT DOES NOT; IT DOES NOT...

At Least Not From A Natural Evolutionary Perspective...

i've Met Homeless Folks, Yes, Under Beach Bridges Who Were
Happier Than All the So-Called 'Rich' And 'Intelligent Folks' i've met in my Life...

They were
Simply

Nature

'Pissing Free' in the Wind...

Actually, i've Never Met a Stooped
Over Homeless Person, Perhaps they
Died Alone in the Woods Before they Got to the Beach...

i really don't know... It Can Get Really Hot and Thirsty
Here without a drink of water...

And of Course
Even More

Dangerous

In Freezing
Lands of Canada....

Yes, Shelter Becomes a necessity at least...

Yet It's True Many Folks Suffer Through Life
Well Sheltered Yet As Poor in Soul as Humans

Have ever been...

So What's
A Home Now...

Inside or an OutHouse same...

What About Empathy and Compassion...

i Surely Saw it in the Eyes of the Homeless

Where Human Was Enough Under Beach Bridges... THEY NEEDED EACH

OTHER They Were Practically 'Jesus' For Real And No Myth in A Fairy Tale Book...

And They Didn't Have a Bit of God Damned Problems Seeing Nature is God For Real...

Through

All the

DarK and LiGHT

Through All the

Pains and Pleasures

of A Human(s) Who Really

Cares Naked And Not So Far under Ocean
Free Life Drowning in Guise of CuLTuRaL Clothes...

---

there is an explosion of hobos iin your city who are hunched over and crooked with serious back problems or there isnt.

I have lived in the dtes Vancouver about half the time since 1992, and it is obvious to me it is an explosion, and others mention it too.

I think replacing opium derived down with synthetic is the key suspect why.

Is it the drugs that's causing the injuries/posture, Or, are the injuries that led to such posture what led to their hardcore opiate use?

Serious chicken/egg question, as I know that Many DTES opiate users are so because they were involved in MVA's or workplace accidents that resulted in serious injuries, which they were then prescribed opiates for to treat pain/chronic pain.. and then got severely addicted and the rest is history - especially when Doctors deem them addicts/med seekers and kick them off of prescription drugs.. then many have tended to turn to street supplies.

So, are street drugs doing this to their bodies? Or were their bodies injured in other ways and then they've turned to street drugs to treat the pain/sustain the depths of their now severe addictions?

they all must be getting injured at the same place or something, if thats it.

they get hit by heavy objects falling diagonally, leaving them stooped over and crooked.

Maybe they are failed road runner eaters?