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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

#101

Post by dade_ »

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

A symptom of drug use, that is a symptom of a sickness spreading through our society. It isn't a US problem. Across the border, Vancouver is famous for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6-1oo-b3Ds It is spreading to colder climates as well. Tiny in comparison, but it has recently turned into a problem in Toronto. The encampments are already growing again: https://globalnews.ca/tag/gardiner-expressway-homeless-encam...

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

#102

Post by sqrt17 »

yonran wrote: post #53
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A relatively small number of people are able to generate a relatively large amount of profit; this is the nature of the software industry. This makes sense, but does it explain the issues? You mentioned yourself that people working in software are a "relatively small number of people". Can they have such a big impact on everyone else?

It’s not the inequality of capital ownership that is the problem. It’s the inequality of land ownership (specifically zoned housing capacity). A few thousand hundred-millionaires hardly hurt people any more than a few thousand millionaires. But a few million middle-class homeowners hurts when they are not allowed to share their land with the landless. So the most worrysome inequality is the numbers of landed vs. land…

> when they are not allowed to share their land with the landless.

this seems to be aggravated by zoning laws and NIMBYism in the US where localities will not tolerate high-density housing that is an eyesore but provides little homes to people who'd otherwise not have one (or have to pay higher prices than they otherwise would)

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

#103

Post by [deleted] »

n00bdude wrote: post #91
mxstbr wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is fascinating, can you share more of your experience? How does living on the streets work, how did you end up in this situation?

It started w/ an Aladdin story & dream-chasing .. but to cut to it, @ present, I basically operate in / out of a storage unit. The routine basically goes: Wake up, run / shower @ gym (some days, meditate in tanning booth), go to cafe & write for ~3-4 hours, Citi Bike to day-job, work it & once finished, go to sleep on soho-streets @ night. I ended up in this situation because I put myself into it so as to be in New Y…

[deleted]

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

#104

Post by stagger87 »

paganel wrote: post #83
angarg12 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the rise in visible homelessness is perhaps the expected result. But this happens in the US disproportionally more than, say, many countries in Europe.

Because the social safety net in the US is almost totally absent. As an European that is one of the main things that keeps me away from ever wanting to work in the States, down there it looks like you're either a successful person, meaning you have a house on which you can afford to pay mortgage, which in turn means that you have a successful job which allows you to navigate the inevitable recessions, or you're alway…

I'm not sure what you're on about. The US does have social safety nets, and most people in America work okay'ish jobs and live okay'ish lives without constant nightmares.

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

#106

Post by jdavis703 »

justboxing wrote: post #87
berberous wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the last bit, that was all over the news for a while. CA and NV had a big fight over it: http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-reaches-400k-settlement-proposa...

Correct. This was literally nuts. Nevada bused in and dumped over 50 mentally ill patients onto the streets of San Francisco, and the consequence was that you couldn't walk in downtown San Francisco without encountering 1 of these patients acting crazy on the streets. It's somewhat lame that the City settled for a measly compensation of 400K. They should've all been rounded up and send back to Nevada, to the hospital…

Sorry, but rounding up American citizens who didn’t commit any crime and shipping them somewhere else seems extremely un-American. This is the kind of thinking that has lead to some of the worst human rights abuses in the 20th century in countries like Germany with concentration camps, and in the US with internment camps.

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

#107

Post by CydeWeys »

trimbo wrote: post #70
i_am_proteus wrote: post #28

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…

> But that relatively small number is still enough to dominate the economy of a major metropolitan area... So the rise in visible homelessness is perhaps the expected result I'd imagine the expected result is that prices increase to support higher wages for service workers... which they actually have. Just one example: a take-out salad for lunch now costs $15 in San Francisco. The place I'm thinking of has huge line…

One major factor is simply that housing is too expensive. Yes, an employee at the $15 salad place is probably making more than minimum wage, but it's still not enough to comfortably afford the high rents in the city.

SF has, and has had for awhile, some of the most restrictive construction and zoning laws in the country, and as a result demand has far outstripped supply. A decent number of people in SF become homeless for the most obvious reason that they just can't afford housing.

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

#108

Post by [deleted] »

n00bdude wrote: post #91
mxstbr wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is fascinating, can you share more of your experience? How does living on the streets work, how did you end up in this situation?

It started w/ an Aladdin story & dream-chasing .. but to cut to it, @ present, I basically operate in / out of a storage unit. The routine basically goes: Wake up, run / shower @ gym (some days, meditate in tanning booth), go to cafe & write for ~3-4 hours, Citi Bike to day-job, work it & once finished, go to sleep on soho-streets @ night. I ended up in this situation because I put myself into it so as to be in New Y…

[deleted]

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

#109

Post by trashcan »

chillwaves wrote: post #89
Fellshard wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the primary example, yes. This in addition to curbing police enforcement of actual drug use and possession, from what I've heard in reporting and from officers themselves. One anecdote I've heard through my brother, who has been in law enforcement and monitors things in our old home region. He told me an officer he knew left the force because those types of restrictions were becoming untenable to deal with. Se…

What is the advantage in cycling addicts in and out of prison?

Did you watch the video? Removing access to drugs and providing them with I assume subsidized medication that is used to treat addiction.

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

#110

Post by cokelee »

paganel wrote: post #83
angarg12 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the rise in visible homelessness is perhaps the expected result. But this happens in the US disproportionally more than, say, many countries in Europe.

Because the social safety net in the US is almost totally absent. As an European that is one of the main things that keeps me away from ever wanting to work in the States, down there it looks like you're either a successful person, meaning you have a house on which you can afford to pay mortgage, which in turn means that you have a successful job which allows you to navigate the inevitable recessions, or you're alway…

Not sure why that would keep you away. By your definition a huge percentage of the population is successful.
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