That is quite an article wtf
Yeah I’ve had this theory for a while that one way the fascist death camps could start in the U.S. is with homeless people. Well there you go.
FWIW I don’t think we should be enabling the homeless as much as some of these super-liberal cities seem to. I think we should separate them into the people who legitimately want to get back on their feet and the people who are just working the system and getting high, and treat them accordingly. And of course no one knows what to do with the mentally ill. And I don’t like how homeless advocates give zero consideration to the people who actually have to live in these neighborhoods, who are usually working class. (this is where goofy would usually come in to argue with me)
But absolutely no fucking way on camps. So beyond the pale.
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I’ve never really seen a plan for the second group that goes beyond “shoo them out of our jurisdiction and make them someone else’s problem”. In theory the Sunbreak Ranch idea seems like a better solution (even though it’s the same “get 'em away from us” idea) but it will inevitably devolve from a “one-of-a-kind location featuring 35-plus amenities and benefits” designed to “welcome all homeless persons, each of whom may come and go as they please” into someplace to trap the “system workers” and maybe allow people trying to get back on their feet to do so.
Yea I don’t think those two groups are that separate tbh. Probably lots of overlap between people who would love to get back on their feet and people who struggle with drugs.
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Who makes this call?
The courts.
The plan is you need programs that push them into treatment, and if they don’t show any willingness to get clean you stop giving them stipends and free places to stay and safe spaces do drugs (which lol at the idea of doing that with meth or crack - only works for heroin and fentanyl where they nod off). I still think you need to give them food and free needles.
I’m not saying I personally know the exact details on how these plans should work. But I know there’s a big debate on this issue.
On one side you have policy makers who want a more balanced policy like I described. On the other side you have the homeless advocates who think any kind of condition attached to aid is an affront to dignity, and liberals who live way out in the burbs who just want to keep throwing money at the problem and washing their hands of it, with no consideration for the people who actually live in the neighborhoods.
I’ll be bowing out of this thread very soon. Anyone who’s interested could read this article, which I think encapsulates what I’m talking about pretty well.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/rescuing-jessica-san-francisco-fentanyl-addiction/
Non paywall: https://archive.ph/wnTq6
I follow the community advocate in this story. He actually lives in the neighborhood and does more to help these people than any of the policies that keep failing imo. I take his opinion over people who are nowhere near the problem and want to solve it with first principles (which always just means throwing money).
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considering that so many displaced want to live in their RV, i don’t see a problem with public supported RV parks with utility hookups and other services around. there’s a way to run that at some nominal cost to the public per such a person who needs help. such parks should be kept to reasonably practical sizes (not giant zones) and spread out to allow people stay connected to their hometowns. in a similar fashion as tiny home settlements should be worked into communities, as much as subsidized apartment projects are supposed to be.
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Yeah we basically have these all over CA. They work pretty well from what I can see.
But of course they’re quasi-legal and every now and then the city decides to fuck with them.
The big thing that no homeless policy ever seems to take into account is that in cities like SF, Portland, Seattle, LA, SD - even if you got every homeless person housed somehow, a new batch would appear the next day.
Kids, drug addicts and the mentally ill seem to migrate to these cities because of the weather, ease of finding drugs, the community, the permissive attitude, maybe other reasons. I’ve personally met kids on Ocean Beach in SF who said they’d rather be homeless in SF than living in an apartment in Cleveland.
They show up in SF and get hooked on drugs, just like the woman in the story. On some level it’s fun for them. The last thing they want is to pay rent and get a job. Which wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t make the community miserable to live in.
It sounds like these people can only survive as homeless in dense urban areas, so trying to move them out somewhere else, like the Sunbreak Ranch idea, seems destined to fail. It also seems like there are people who can’t or won’t be helped with even the most idealistic plan. 100% efficiency is never a realistic goal. And there’s no political will to fund an idealistic plan, so we’re stuck with maybe a half-assed plan. That requires a triage mentality, identifying cases with the best chance of success and accepting failure with the rest.
It absolutely will fail. Anyone who wants to live like that is already living in Slab City, and without govt supervision.
If you force people to stay it becomes a concentration camp.
Giving them money and services might still be the best solution if you take into account the money that is saved on emergency services, medical care, damages from criminal behavior, the cost of policing and incarceration etc.
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That, and if you give conservatives an inch on “those people don’t deserve help” then they’ll take a mile and then some.
I think you meant “definitely will be”
Maybe there should be more Slab Citys.
Half of homless youth are queer and trans
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Someone tell me I’m missing the joke or just havent been paying attention but: suzzer’s take is just straight otherizing under privileged?
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Why would I listen to these ideas
Are you 70 yo?
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They aren’t great takes for sure