Ok LR brains, North America has a homeless problem. Yes, North America. Including our communist nation to your North. So this isn’t just another Canucklehead calling out ‘murica for its foibles. We foible too!
Let’s put aside the usual talk of “Reagan is to blame!â€, or “Leftist tax policy is to blame!â€
Let’s talk solutions.
How do you make the homeless problem less bad? I think we can acknowledge that you aren’t going to fix it.
How do you mitigate the damages that the homelessness problem cause? (ie: trash, sewage, trespassing, property damage)
Any talk of blame for the current situation will result in a sound beating.
My partial answer to part 2 is to make sure that municipalities provide services like bathrooms and trash pickup to areas that have large populations of homelessness. The idea that we let things go to the point where a homeless person has to shit on the street is crazy making. Expensive? Well, less expensive than cleaning up afterwards. Will public bathrooms get vandalized? Yep. But people shit. And most businesses won’t let people shit in their bathrooms without being a client. So if I am homeless, where do I go? Give them a goddam bathroom already. And a dumpster. Maybe they will clean up their trash. Maybe not. But if there is no trash can, and they just ate their meagre dinner, where will the trash go?
Part 1 I have no specific recommendations other than looking outside the box. Finland has “solved†the homeless problem by giving everyone homes. Seems remarkably simplistic and anti-American (and Canadian to a lesser extent) Not sure how I feel about that idea. Seems as though places that have just given people places to live have seen higher engagement in support services and addiction treatment. The question is always if this is the cheapest, most effective solution, will people get over their natural antipathy towards “entitlements�
Just spitballin’ here, but maybe establish a new civilian’s conservation corps and employ and house them along our northern (sorry dude) and southern borders, where they can build the walls and guard them like the Night’s Watch. Want free room and board? Take the Black. Provides them with a sense of purpose, brotherhood, the dignity of work, lodging, and most importantly, solves the problem of keeping out the Canucklings from the north and the Dothraxicans from the south. Also, they get to wear sweet uniforms with leather and iron and shit.
What makes the issue complex is that the majority are homeless by choice. Give them a place to sleep and they’ll still live on the streets. The majority are mentally ill and/or drug addicts. Those who are in a temporary financial crisis are easier to deal with.
So, first you have to sort them by issue. Provide mandatory mental health services/meds to those who need them and drug rehab for those addicted. Financial aid and housing to those who are financially displaced but not mentally ill or drug addicted.
I’d say turn various campgrounds into homeless shelters. They have bathrooms and shower facilities and the homeless seem to love their tents. Also keeps them farther out of the population centers. I don’t know whether or not you actively police inside or outside but the drug/mental health services can be brought to them in a caravan or similar.
Locally, a judge required the city to provide temporary housing for some percentage (I think 60%) before tearing down their illegal encampments. Once the city proved to the judge they made arrangements the city was cleared to make the housing offer and tear down the encampment. Less that 10% accepted the accommodations and just moved to another location.
I interact often with homeless people and have for a long time.
I’ve lived in my car on two separate occasions.
One local lady who is batshit crazy is someone I’ve been helping and keeping watch on, giving her food when I see her and making sure she’s doing “okâ€. 15 years ago I offered here a place to live but she just can’t get herself to go inside.
Other than a very few that are like her (totally nuts yet harmless) the homeless that I’ve interacted with have absolutely no redeeming qualities.
Over the years on my morning runs I’ve been cussed at, stepped in human shit, prevented 2 rapes and have witnessed several violent attacks.
We have a few public parks here that the public who pays for them can’t even use them. They’re filled junkies and gutter punks and violent people with violent pit bulls. The city does nothing.
This is when we see a new spot becoming a hangout for the dregs we nip it in the bud right away. Once they get a foot hold at a park or beach it’s over. It becomes a place that the productive people who foot the bill can no longer enjoy. Like every fucking bench on state street.
Hate on me all you want but the vast vast majority of homeless people are worthless debris.
There are sufficient beds to almost eliminate homelessness in Chicago. A good portion go unused because you’re required to not use drugs or booze in the facility, there’s a curfew, and you have to help out i.e. do dishes or sweep etc.
Hate on me all you want but the vast vast majority of homeless people are worthwhile people who have mental health issues
Fixed that for you.
Tell you what. You come to work with me in LA and you’ll see just how wrong you are.
Are some of mentally ill? Of course and those should institutionalized. It’s much more humane than letting them live in squalor, self medicating with booze and drugs and dying horrible death from disease, starvation and violence.
But a large majority are simply irredeemable pieces of shit, grifters, scammers, criminals and violent.
First I would make it illegal to be homeless.
Those who break the law would be sent to work camps. In those work camps we would provide mental health counselors doctors dentists
psychologist and psychiatrist along with vocational training and access to GED classes college classes Etc via the Internet
Those deemed mentally ill would get help and would not be allowed to leave camp until a doctor certifies they’re okay to work.
Employers would be given tax credits for hiring those in work camps.
I would also raise the enlistment age in the armed forces to allow people who are 50 years old or younger to enlist provided they could get through basic training like everyone else.
Has this gotten worse or is it more concentrated? I have an ex-brother-in-law who has been in and out of tent cities for over a decade now. He is exactly what you describe and everyone he associated with was the same way.
I interact often with homeless people and have for a long time.
I’ve lived in my car on two separate occasions.
One local lady who is batshit crazy is someone I’ve been helping and keeping watch on, giving her food when I see her and making sure she’s doing “okâ€. 15 years ago I offered here a place to live but she just can’t get herself to go inside.
Other than a very few that are like her (totally nuts yet harmless) the homeless that I’ve interacted with have absolutely no redeeming qualities.
Over the years on my morning runs I’ve been cussed at, stepped in human shit, prevented 2 rapes and have witnessed several violent attacks.
We have a few public parks here that the public who pays for them can’t even use them. They’re filled junkies and gutter punks and violent people with violent pit bulls. The city does nothing.
This is when we see a new spot becoming a hangout for the dregs we nip it in the bud right away. Once they get a foot hold at a park or beach it’s over. It becomes a place that the productive people who foot the bill can no longer enjoy. Like every fucking bench on state street.
Hate on me all you want but the vast vast majority of homeless people are worthless debris.
Having worked with the homeless for over nine years now, I agree with much of this. People pay taxes for things they cannot enjoy and have to watch over their shoulders constantly. Shelters can be built all day long but are only good to a few who are wanting and willing to get their feet back on the ground. Many of them are built in the same areas that have much temptation that there is no incentive to do right The government should cut off welfare benefits to many of these people so that they have no ‘free’ money to buy and do their shit. No more General Relief after one year of no progress.
I don’t think being homeless should be illegal but to feed (with food and money) panhandlers, definitely. Feeding panhandlers allows for people to stay on the streets and possibly can kill them with enough money for last hit of drugs or drink of booze. It should also be illegal to urban camp wherever one fancies and only on city run campsites.
Has this gotten worse or is it more concentrated? I have an ex-brother-in-law who has been in and out of tent cities for over a decade now. He is exactly what you describe and everyone he associated with was the same way.
I don’t think that it’s gotten worse on a national level. It’s gotten exponentially worse in communities that tolerate it or encourage it by providing “servicesâ€.
Down on Venice Blvd. there’s a huge sidewalk encampment on the city of LA side and nothing on the Culver City side. Why? Culver City don’t play that.
Look, every town that’s worth a damn needs a few local derelicts to keep things interesting but when you huge masses of people setting up camp in public it’s a problem.
Just on a simple basic level, our city installed benches on our main shopping street. It’s a place where people park somewhere, walk a lot and shop and the city figured it would be nice for folks to have a place to sit and rest for a bit. The benches aren’t free so city money, my money, paid for it. Fine. I can chill on a bench while the wife is shopping for whatever the hell it is shops for.
Well the benches are occupied ALL DAY by bums. I never get to use the benches.
One such seating area was roped off but the owners of an adjacent business because it was affecting sales. City took down the ropes and fined the business.
So “someone†jackhammered the fucker out one night.
I don’t think homelessness should be illegal either but I guarantee you if I dropped a deuce on the sidewalk in downtown Santa Barbara that cop who saw me do it sure isn’t going to just look the other way.
I’m not being snarky, but, Finland’s personal income tax rate is 51.6%. If the US and Canada had that tax rate, I am pretty certain both countries could stamp out homelessness.
I’m not sure government housing is the answer. We have seen “the projects” in major cities and it isn’t pretty.
One of the biggest issues in the US is that homelessness surges in the big cities, where, even if it could fiscally be done, mass housing is going to get ugly (see, e.g., the projects).
I acknowledge the tremendous problem. I also acknowledge I am not smart enough to come up with the solution. Another big problem is the correlation between homelessness and mental illness. There are countless cases of the homeless being sheltered only to return to the streets, in large part because mental illness drives them to do so.
I don’t think homelessness should be illegal either but I guarantee you if I dropped a deuce on the sidewalk in downtown Santa Barbara that cop who saw me do it sure isn’t going to just look the other way.
Same would happen here. In some cases, of this problem has to do with residents. People are afraid to stand up for their property and expect the police to do everything they are uncomfortable with. Homeless found their way up the street from my house months ago. I called the homeless outreach hotline under several telephone number and had my friends do so. I even went down to talk to the head of the camp and told him to clean up. Within a week the trash was removed and the homeless gone. If the homeless leave chairs and foam pads on the street during the day, break the legs and toss the shit in the trash and don’t put your trash out early and cut up anything that can used to make something a crafty homeless person would sell or use, is what I tell my neighbors.
