When I find myself becoming irked by someone offering help I don’t need, it helps me to think of things in terms of people who slip through the gaps: the system that the social worker is a part of strives to help those who need it, and you not needing that help makes you a false positive. You were likely flagged because sometimes when someone is living in their vehicle, this is a symptom (and reinforcing factor) of their life being in disarray. That is to say that some people who superficially look a lot like you are in need of support, and not catching these people would be false negatives. Bonus complication is that many people who do need this help may also be resistant to support (for a variety of reasons).
Given that no system is perfect, and the error rate will always be greater than zero, we can ask the hypothetical “is it better to have fewer false positives and more false negatives, or more false positives and fewer false negatives?”. Put a different way, when you’re bothered, that’s you slipping through the gaps in a system that has opted for more false positives with the goal of helping as many people who need it as possible.
Unrelated to everything else I said, I’m glad you’ve been able to find a way of living that you’re happy in — it is a challenge when the life that is best suited for us is one that society considers “abnormal”, so I’m happy to hear about anyone who has broken into what works.
gdog05@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Oh yeah, I totally get the lifestyle. Done enough overloading to really appreciate the lifestyle. But I’m trying to explain things from their point of view. Even if now, you are in control and everything is going according to your plans, they see trouble in months if not years when those plans abruptly change. They know how most people got from point A to point B and are now sleeping in shelters or dark corners of “civilization”.
Kintarian@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I guess from this perspective I can see that point. The last one I talked to was actually arguing with me about it and was upset when she left, I don’t understand that. I wasn’t confrontational with her. I just simply said I’m fine I don’t really need any help have a nice day. I thought I was pretty calm. I guess it was probably just her.
gdog05@lemmy.world 1 week ago
She was probably a bit overzealous I’m thinking, yeah. But that is a thankless job with low pay and little success. I give social workers a ton of latitude. I’m glad you stayed calm in the face of things.
Kintarian@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I know I sure couldn’t do it
xtr0n@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Out of curiosity, what were her arguments?
If you have enough resources to weather any (literal or metaphorical) storms, then you might be OK but that is not the typical situation.
Kintarian@lemmy.world 1 week ago
For instance, she showed me a piece of paper where she put little yellow stars on all of the different resources. One of which was for $700 a month. I said that I don’t want to pay money for rent and utilities. She then said okay well here’s this place where you can live with a roommate. I said I’m not really a people person, I don’t want to live with a roommate and she said well you might make a new friend. And it kind of went on like that for a while.