Speaking as someone who's been homeless when I was younger due to circumstances that were out of my control I think some of the comments here are very offensive.
I'd have given anything for someone to offer me a job like this at the time as long as they treated me with humanity and respect.
In a business which I once owned that involved physical labour, I used "homeless" people almost exclusively and paid them just like anyone else.
I also made certain that my people were fed, as I bought breakfast, lunch and dinner if we worked late.
If we worked really late, I bought the beer and that happened more than once.
One winter when I had an apartment that I'd built in a 25,000 ft warehouse and the warehouse portion was unheated, we put in four or five double barrel woodstoves and picked up all the scrap wooden pallets in town for fuel and the guys would stay in the warehouse if we got back after the shelter closed.
They ended up eschewing the shelter in favour of the warehouse as it was really pretty cool!
The place got to be like a big gypsy camp and eventually the local law suggested that we discontinue but I was able to get the local Sally to put in a plug and we ran it for almost a year and a half that way!
If I've written anything which you might have found offensive it's not meant to be that way; only because I understand and have a sort of bizarre sense of humour.
Someone who lives in a rented apartment is always between three and thirty days of being "homeless"; lease or not.
All of the variable rate mortgages are going to create a ton of "homeless" people as well.
I'm lucky as after the Big Debacle of A Few Years Back, I had "the old home place" to fall back on!
A few of the guys who worked with me were able to get back into the system and become what white people call "real people"; that is, people with houses, cars and "real" jobs and the work that my company provided gave them the chance so I feel pretty good about that but take no credit as they did it themselves.
