An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
city-journal.org
An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
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Re: An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
#2Maybe I missed it in the article. What percentage of homeless in these cities are or were recent drug users?
Re: An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
#3Maybe I missed it in the article. What percentage of homeless in these cities are or were recent drug users?
>In Seattle, prosecutors and law enforcement recently estimated that the majority of the region’s homeless population is hooked on opioids, including heroin and fentanyl.... For the unsheltered population inhabiting tents, cars, and RVs, the opioid-addiction percentages are even higher—the City of Seattle’s homeless-outreach team estimates that 80 percent of the unsheltered population has a substance-abuse disorder. Officers must clean up used needles in almost all the homeless encampments.
No word on methodologies though.
Re: An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
#4Unclear to me if they're homeless because of addiction, or became addicted after becoming homeless. This distinction would seem crucial to me.
Re: An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
#5For anyone interested in how drugs became such a crisis in America, I highly recommend History Channel's "America's War on Drugs" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7026882/) - it's free with a trial on Prime Video. It is a fascinating story involving the CIA, fear of communism and, of course, the bottomless guile of corporate greed.
Re: An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
#6I appreciate the author identifying what is really going on with homeless on the West Coast. Any visit to Portland, Seattle, SF, LA corroborates this. We need to crack down on those that are perpetuating and benefiting from this crisis.. the dealers, cartels, and yes, the pharmaceutical companies.
Re: An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
#7Unclear to me if they're homeless because of addiction, or became addicted after becoming homeless. This distinction would seem crucial to me.
From what I have seen for most people addiction or other bad live events ( bad divorce, job loss, health problems) comes first and then homelessness. Only a few people become homeless without some kind of crisis before. Once you are homeless you are in dysfunctional environment where it’s easy to get into other kinds of trouble .
Re: An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
#8Unclear to me if they're homeless because of addiction, or became addicted after becoming homeless. This distinction would seem crucial to me.
According to [1] it's both, but it makes the problem worse for people that fall into it.
[1]: https://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/addiction.pdf
Re: An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
#9For anyone interested in how drugs became such a crisis in America, I highly recommend History Channel's "America's War on Drugs" ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7026882/ ) - it's free with a trial on Prime Video. It is a fascinating story involving the CIA, fear of communism and, of course, the bottomless guile of corporate greed.
Also check out The History Channel's 'Ancient Aliens' and 'Ice Road Truckers'
The history channel is bullshit. Primary sources or gtfo
Re: An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis
#10Unclear to me if they're homeless because of addiction, or became addicted after becoming homeless. This distinction would seem crucial to me.
Almost everyone has some kind of support network, whether it's extended family or friends, that would offer a spare bed or a couch. Sure, they won't let you stay forever, but it will keep you off the street until you can get yourself together.
People who are living on the street, for the most part, have burned through all the support their family and friends are willing to give. Their addiction or mental illness (or combination) have resulted in their support network turning their back on them. Sure, there are exceptions, but this is true of a significant majority of people living on the street (this is easy to verify if you search for studies of people living on the street and addiction/mental illness).
It's not a coincidence that a large majority of people living on the street are addicted to drugs or suffering from mental illness (and in fact that the majority are suffering from both or self medicating with street drugs).
If you are homeless, but you have no mental illness and no addiction problem there are so many people and services standing by to help. The homelessness crisis is almost entirely a mental health crisis. People aren't living on the street because they can't find a job or affordable housing. Look at undocumented immigrants, they somehow find jobs and housing despite prejudice, language issues and low wages, and still find ways to send money home despite being completely ineligible for public assistance. If millions of people who are still learning the language can find housing and work and save money, then the otherwise physically healthy people living on the street can't be explained by 'income inequality' or 'housing prices', and in fact studies show that addiction and major mental health issues are nearly universal for people living on the street.