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Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

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Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#21

Post by twblalock »

cheriot wrote: post #19
twblalock wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This should be a solvable problem in my opinion we are a rich country and we can afford to feed and shelter everyone. The problem is figuring out what to do about the homeless people who refuse to accept shelter and other forms of government assistance. What are you going to do, arrest them? That's been tried in San Francisco and it went badly. If you force them to move they will set up camp somewhere else, so that…

> The problem is figuring out what to do about the homeless people who refuse to accept shelter and other forms of government assistance. Does San Francisco have shelter beds that are sitting empty? We just don't have that problem yet. The people refusing shelter are refusing to throw away all of their remaining possessions for the promise of a few nights inside and then getting kicked out.

> The people refusing shelter are refusing to throw away all of their remaining possessions for the promise of a few nights inside and then getting kicked out.

That's true for some. But there are many who would not accept a guaranteed permanent shelter bed because they prefer the freedom of living on their own. If you won't accept the reality of that, you'll never solve the problem.

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#23

Post by newnewpdro »

Fellshard wrote: post #20
newnewpdro wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just rich assholes, a surprising majority of the population want all evidence of poverty out of sight in their lives. Santa Cruz made it illegal just to sleep visibly in public in an attempt to criminalize homelessness so they could hide the problem.

We should not hide the problem, and we also should not elevate it to 'a valid lifestyle'. Surely we can try to find other options between those two.

I get the impression some people see criminalization and housing the homeless in jails as more than just hiding the problem.

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#24

Post by syshum »

sidesentists wrote: post #4

This sort of thing is why I've started to wonder if employment rate is really all that meaningful as a general socioeconomic index. It is what it is, of course, but I'm not sure it's use as a proxy for well-being is really justified.

Unemployment rate has only been a part of the factor, and the U3 number is a VERY VERY bad indicator or economic health which is the number the news reports

U6 is much more comprehensive but even it has its limits, you have to contrast it with Workforce Participation numbers which is still at a Decade low number though it on on the rise

2009 (peak of economic rescission and unemployment BTW): 65.7% of people where in the workforce

2018: 62.7% of people where in the workforce

U6 Unemployment sits at almost 7.3% where U3 is 3.8%

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#25

Post by syshum »

jlangenauer wrote: post #22

If, in the Soviet Union, people had to live in tents while working, most sensible people would blame the economic system in place. Yet in capitalist America...?

I would blame are current economic system, which is pretty damn far from Free market Capitalism as over the last 80 or so years we have instituted a wide range of socialist inspired programs and regulations that have largely stopped and in some cases rescinded the gains against poverty that a actual free market system brings.

if you look at any economic data you will see Poverty rates where Plummeting until the "War on poverty" began and the government started trying to "solve" the problem.

Government: If you think society has problems, wait until you see our solutions

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#26

Post by [deleted] »

cheriot wrote: post #19
twblalock wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This should be a solvable problem in my opinion we are a rich country and we can afford to feed and shelter everyone. The problem is figuring out what to do about the homeless people who refuse to accept shelter and other forms of government assistance. What are you going to do, arrest them? That's been tried in San Francisco and it went badly. If you force them to move they will set up camp somewhere else, so that…

> The problem is figuring out what to do about the homeless people who refuse to accept shelter and other forms of government assistance. Does San Francisco have shelter beds that are sitting empty? We just don't have that problem yet. The people refusing shelter are refusing to throw away all of their remaining possessions for the promise of a few nights inside and then getting kicked out.

[deleted]

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#27

Post by Retric »

ng12 wrote: post #16
cronix wrote: post #7

KOMO TV in Seattle recently (last Sunday) did a big report on this called "Seattle is Dying." Down south in Portland, it's the same thing. Down in San Francisco...same thing. Down further, same thing. This is spreading quite quickly, all over in the big cities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b53uiRFq4Ds

Yeah, of course. We sold out the last vestiges of small-town America but are not socially prepared for a world where the entire economy is focused around a select few cities.

In 1930 5.9% of all Americans where living in NYC. The importance of cities has seen minimal changes, the issue is we stopped building enough housing and transportation infrastructure.

Many US issues come from where we place the borders of our local governments. Local was more meaningful before the car, but with increased mobility that’s no longer the case.

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#28

Post by i_am_proteus »

These are my personal observations:

When I first moved to the SF Bay area, I was surprised by the amount of visible homelessness and by the number of service economy workers who drove nearly two hours to and from work.

I also had my first experiences with the "campuses" of major technology companies, where money was made hand-over-fist. I think the recent widening income gap is a natural consequence of the technology we have invented. A relatively small number of people are able to generate a relatively large amount of profit; this is the nature of the software industry.

But that relatively small number is still enough to dominate the economy of a major metropolitan area, and so it has, and the demand for labor routinely outstrips the supply of housing for those laborers (artificially constricted, but also geographically constrained), and so those who work in software and electrical engineering and cetera can afford to live in the area. Those who do not, can not.

I look at the cities where this is an issue and I see similar threads: industries where money from everywhere flows to a relative few. Technology skims off the top in San Francisco. Finance skims off the top in New York. Government skims off the top in Washington, DC.

So the rise in visible homelessness is perhaps the expected result. Cities are economic systems, and it is easy and myopic to cater only to the demands of the prime mover. But the prime mover has auxiliaries it needs to function, without which the system will collapse.

And my experience with collapses is that they are not gradual, but rather, they are sudden.

Last night, a fire raged through abandoned vehicles parked under Interstate 280. Black smoke poured out from under the freeway and choked Portrero Hill. I watched fire crews advance on the flames and extinguish them. What will happen when the people we rely on to extinguish our flames cannot afford to live in our cities?

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#29

Post by throwawaysea »

egypturnash wrote: post #15
cronix wrote: post #7

KOMO TV in Seattle recently (last Sunday) did a big report on this called "Seattle is Dying." Down south in Portland, it's the same thing. Down in San Francisco...same thing. Down further, same thing. This is spreading quite quickly, all over in the big cities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b53uiRFq4Ds

FWIW KOMO is now owned by Sinclair, and is increasingly rabidly right-wing. What to do about the homeless situation in Seattle is a big topic of discussion currently; we had an attempt to tax big companies to get some money to deal with this get shouted down by all the folks in Amazon's pockets.

I feel like KOMO being owned by Sinclair is not relevant. This documentary was really well done and on the whole, realistic. Mentioning that KOMO is owned by Sinclair or claiming they are increasingly "rabidly" right-wing (which I've not observed thus far) will only serve to keep people from watching the documentary and making up their own mind, since they will 'pre-judge' it. I don't feel that's what this video deserves given that it is bringing light to a problem Seattle residents have seen right in front of their eyes, building up over the last 10 years.

If anything, local publications like The Stranger are skewed towards the far-left and keep playing up a misplaced "compassion" angle that serves to stifle any pragmatic counter-arguments through a vague moral argument. And of course, the city council (literally all its current members) is completely inept and has been gas-lighting residents this entire time, as if we can't see the trash, the drug abuse, the usurping of public spaces by transient campers, the rise of crime, etc.

Lastly, claiming that folks in Amazon's pockets shouted down the head tax is not a balanced evaluation. My read of discussions online were that many people were against it, from all walks of life, from all parts of the political spectrum except perhaps the far-left. Construction workers, who don't have the easiest or the most well-compensated job, were the ones shouting down Kshama Sawant's head tax (see their counter-protest at https://youtu.be/ycEa1l01_A0). And it's not just the Amazon ecosystem - over 100 businesses signed a letter to the council against the head tax (https://www.seattlebusinessmag.com/policy/more-100-seattle-b...).

Re: Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness

#30

Post by syshum »

twblalock wrote: post #14
scottlegrand2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all homeless people are alike. The left only seems to see victims and the right only sees cheaters looking for a free ride. The truth IMO is a continuous distribution between those two extremes. And as long as the proposed solutions only target one tail or another, no progress will be made because of the other tail being ignored. This should be a solvable problem in my opinion we are a rich country and we can aff…

> This should be a solvable problem in my opinion we are a rich country and we can afford to feed and shelter everyone. The problem is figuring out what to do about the homeless people who refuse to accept shelter and other forms of government assistance. What are you going to do, arrest them? That's been tried in San Francisco and it went badly. If you force them to move they will set up camp somewhere else, so that…

It is not a matter of "refusing shelter" it is a matter of refusing the strings that come with the Shelter.

Like the story says most shelters have a litany of rules that most reasonable people would find objectionable. Some even require you to attend religious services, or preform some other act.

Then you have the one that refuse pets (homeless people will not and should not have to give up their pets)

then you have a Single Sex only shelters where couples would be split

Then you have the fact that in many cities there is an extreme lack of Men's shelters as most of the funding goes to Women and Children shelters.

I could probably list a dozen or more other facts more than "the damn homeless just refuse help"

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