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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

#161

Post by spicymaki »

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

I am center-left (recovering socialist) and I thought the documentary was fair (harsh and judgmental but fair). It seems like the residents are not happy with what is going on, and the city government is not providing satisfactory results. Clearly arresting and returning drug addicts and the mentally ill back to streets next day is a bad idea. I wish they spent a little more time digging into why they are just returning offenders back to the street. Suppose the cost of incarceration is a factor for the city's budget, would they be able to institute and sustain a comprehensive rehab program? The documentary seems to have presented guaranteed solution (comprehensive rehab) at the end, but they might be masking complexity.

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

#162

Post by simonsarris »

ip26 wrote: post #133
closeparen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich got by for thousands of years without cooking, doing laundry, or running affordable housing programs. The service sector lived on its customers’ estates, often as part of their households. I expect this is where we’re headed. Several people I know who work on poverty wages in the arts industry here pay their room and board in elder- or child-care for a homeowner. We often hear that terms like “feudalism” and…

Considering what childcare costs, room & board sounds like a heck of a deal. As a parent, it actually doesn't sound like a bad arrangement.

Well the idea of an au pair never ever went away. A friend went to do this in Paris. There are lots of sites for arranging one.

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

#163

Post by justboxing »

dTal wrote: post #155
jdavis703 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not that two wrongs make a right, but isn't that what happened to begin with? Or did they go to SF voluntarily? In any case, the legal argument was that Nevada had a duty of care. It's not about "rounding them up", it's about the state of Nevada providing them with shelter and psychiatric care. Which presumably, they would do in Nevada.

> but isn't that what happened to begin with? Or did they go to SF voluntarily?

Correct. They didn't come to SF voluntarily. Since they had mental issues, most (if not all) didn't even know what was happening to them.

It's the most cruel thing to do.

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

#164

Post by justboxing »

rboyd wrote: post #96
justboxing wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How do you determine what hospitals (or city) they belonged to? Just that they were checked in there first? That they had legal residence in some city at some time?

You may inspect the "case-by-case nevada patient dumping" document[1] on the SF City Attorney's site to get your answers.

[1] sfcityattorney.org - Nevada Patient Dumping => https://www.sfcityattorney.org/category/news/nevada-patient-...

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

#165

Post by throwaway2048 »

yonran wrote: post #132
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...?

> Yet in capitalist America...? Restrictive zoning is the prohibition of creating housing capital, so it’s ironic and incorrect to blame capitalism for the housing shortages in restrictive metros such as the Bay Area. Landlordism or rentierism might be better words for the capital repression.

Its still an economic system in place, whatever you wish to call it that causes these issues.

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

#166

Post by i_am_proteus »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #145
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…

I agree with the post, but firefighters in the Bay Area are probably not the best example. There are many millionaire, early retired FF in California. Some in my old neighborhood that I knew personally even that were much wealthier than I am as a SE (I have since relocated to the southeast). Compensation is quite high, especially when considering total pay, often 250k+ and as high as 500k+ is possible. Source: https:…

Thanks for pointing this out. I don't know any FFs personally; I do know plenty of teachers, social workers, and people in service jobs who are either making long commutes, living in shared arrangements more cramped than intended, or have left for places where compensation for those jobs compared to cost of living equals a better quality of life.

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

#167

Post by ams6110 »

kakarot wrote: post #149
robocat wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Several people I know who work on poverty wages in the arts industry I don't have much sympathy for anyone who chooses to work in the arts... One must see the risks taken, and that the rewards are unpredictable. > elder- or child-care for a homeowner Are you talking about the very wealthy here? The upper income? The middle or even low income earners that made good financial choices? Looking after children and elder…

> I don't have much sympathy for anyone who chooses to work in the arts... One must see the risks taken, and that the rewards are unpredictable. You have different goals in life than other people. Please try to be aware that the path you've chosen is not the only right one. Some people have different goals. Some people even have the cognitive ability to regard the goal of fulfillment in life and creativity as more im…

You can have whatever goals you like, but that doesn't entitle you to live in an area you can't afford.

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

#168

Post by joe_the_user »

sodiumjoe wrote: post #117
dgzl wrote: post #67

I'm from a small town in Oregon that sees a lot of nomadic traveling folk, either homeless or lifestyle (the PCT comes through the area, for instance), and the town is generally pretty receptive of these people. Growing up I would hang out and spend time with them, just chatting and playing music and enjoying the area. I carried that to adulthood and I now live in Portland, where the homeless problem is quite severe.…

Portlander here, I used to work right by the food carts downtown on 10th and Alder. The hospital bracelet guy is one of regulars, he's been running that schtick for literally years. There's a cast off characters like him who are fixtures there. I'm not against compassion for the homeless, but after running into a few of these repeatedly, I tend to refrain from supporting them directly and give to local charities inst…

I have seen many scams over the years - the "ran out of gas" scam used to be common but it's finished now, etc.

As many people (even the Pope!) say, the best thing is still to give directly to homeless people but to never give more based on a story. The people with stories have a job, of sorts and I'll let them collect from their "employers". I just give a dollar here and there to those who ask.

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

#169

Post by patcon »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #114
dgzl wrote: post #67

I'm from a small town in Oregon that sees a lot of nomadic traveling folk, either homeless or lifestyle (the PCT comes through the area, for instance), and the town is generally pretty receptive of these people. Growing up I would hang out and spend time with them, just chatting and playing music and enjoying the area. I carried that to adulthood and I now live in Portland, where the homeless problem is quite severe.…

When I was homeless in San Francisco and applying for services, they made sure to mention I could get a one way bus ticket to pretty much anywhere I wanted to go.

Not sure if you're saying this is good or bad, but fwiw: Personal social support networks are important :) This is a great offering. If someone can get to family or a place where they have a supportive network of folks, that is a billion times better than the system on its own trying to take care of them with only institutional compassion

I say this as a socialist, not a libertarian or whatever :)

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

#170

Post by simonsarris »

mcguire wrote: post #146
mynameishere wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the people we rely on to extinguish our flames cannot afford What a strange example for you to use. First, firefighters in most urban areas make muchos , muchos dollars. Second, firefighter jobs are extremely desirable, for that reason and many others ("heroism", firefighter groupies, extreme lengths of downtime, early pensions, etc) Third, in poorer areas, volunteers are all-too happy to be firefighters. As I said,…

California ( https://www.businessinsider.com/firefighter-salary-every-us-... ): Firefighters Median annual salary: $35,440 10th percentile salary: $20,520 90th percentile salary: $57,060 First-Line Supervisors of Fire Fighting and Prevention Workers Median annual salary: $53,180 10th percentile salary: $28,270 90th percentile salary: $78,740 (Firefighters in Alabama make more than in California?!?!)

He said in urban areas. Here's a job posting for SF:

https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=CCT&R2=...

Entry Level (H-2) Firefighter

$78,676.00 - $121,420.00/year

Entry level and before any overtime. If you look at individual salaries you see things like one fire fighter making 220K in overtime alone(!). Other make less, but lots and lots are making 300-400K:

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-fra...

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