California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’ • Hacker News Board

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#11

Post by ausjke » Sun, Aug 18, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #4

pjc50 wrote: post #2

> Without wishing to return to the Elizabethan Poor Laws, we ought to consider what was lost when the courts discouraged Americans from thinking of “homelessness” in light of the old laws against vagrancy. Ah, so we're back to imprisoning the homeless (at huge expense) rather than providing, say, public toilets or shelter facilities. Not only is the WSJ not learning from history, they don't want to learn from history…

We need better mental health care, and cheaper housing.

by doing that too much you drag down a city to rat's hole, more homeless coming, working people move out, economy slows down, less money left to help those in need, similar to what socialism does: great on paper, horrible in practice. should we not care for those homeless? NO, should we always put them first? NO. it's a balance of arts, going in any direction a little too far will break it.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#12

Post by madengr » Sun, Aug 18, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

Reminds me of the Southpark where Cartman is traversing San Francisco in a moon suite.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#13

Post by bitcurious » Sun, Aug 18, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #2

> Without wishing to return to the Elizabethan Poor Laws, we ought to consider what was lost when the courts discouraged Americans from thinking of “homelessness” in light of the old laws against vagrancy. Ah, so we're back to imprisoning the homeless (at huge expense) rather than providing, say, public toilets or shelter facilities. Not only is the WSJ not learning from history, they don't want to learn from history…

>Ah, so we're back to imprisoning the homeless (at huge expense) rather than providing, say, public toilets or shelter facilities.

It's weird to frame it as a "rather" when in fact you need both. You need to have public bathrooms and come down hard on shitting on the street.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#14

Post by weeksie » Sun, Aug 18, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

Build. More. Homeless. Shelters. California is so damned NIMBY'd up that they refuse to build shelters and act surprised when homeless people sleep outside. Then they throw their hands up in the air like "uh, it must be the weather"

It's stupid. In New York we have more homeless per capita and in absolute numbers but we have nothing like the street issues that west coast cities have. It's because we actually house the damned homeless. And for fuck's sake, it's not the weather. Our parks aren't by any means pristine but we don't suddenly sprout tent cities every summer.

The whole CA homeless crisis is a self-inflicted wound. For reference, an article in SF Gate: "67 percent of Bay Area homeless are unsheltered. In New York, it's 5%"

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-homeless-uns...

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#15

Post by ajross » Sun, Aug 18, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

> The triple scourges of drug abuse, mental illness and family breakdown have produced anomie and derangements far deeper than those seen in the 1930s

Completely unsourced nonsense. As if there were no homeless families or mental illness in the great depression. Even drug abuse isn't a modern thing, though the chemicals have changed.

I mean it doesn't even pass the basic (heh) smell test of "would you rather walk the streets of San Francisco in 1931 or 2019? I mean, come on.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#16

Post by realplayer6 » Sun, Aug 18, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

The homeless need to learn to code and stop using plastic.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#17

Post by babuskov » Sun, Aug 18, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #6

empath75 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need better mental health care, and cheaper housing.

Dr. Drew was on Scott Adam's podcast recently talking about this. Apparently even free housing is insufficient because most of the people relevant to this discussion will not accept even free housing. Nor will they accept mental healthcare even when provided for free. The only way to get them into the mental healthcare situations is to compel them by force, and that is not something people are interested in. Correcti…

> Dr. Drew was on Rogan recently talking about this.

I'm trying to find that episode on YouTube, but no luck. Google searches show that they don't like each other much. Got a link?

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#18

Post by ravenstine » Sun, Aug 18, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #2

> Without wishing to return to the Elizabethan Poor Laws, we ought to consider what was lost when the courts discouraged Americans from thinking of “homelessness” in light of the old laws against vagrancy. Ah, so we're back to imprisoning the homeless (at huge expense) rather than providing, say, public toilets or shelter facilities. Not only is the WSJ not learning from history, they don't want to learn from history…

There are public toilets in some of these cities. San Francisco has had self-cleaning public toilets for a long time, but probably has the worst feces problem of any first world country. On Google maps, it appears there are at least 20 public bathrooms in SF within a few miles radius. That's way more than I see when searching for the same thing in Santa Monica, another homeless mecca that doesn't have anywhere near the same problem with defecation. I'm skeptical that these toilets have much of an effect. Don't get me wrong, I do think there should be public toilets, and perhaps more of them. But if the homeless were that easy to reason with, perhaps we wouldn't have so many on the streets in the first place.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#19

Post by akiselev » Sun, Aug 18, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

jswizzy wrote: post #9

pjc50 wrote: post #2

> Without wishing to return to the Elizabethan Poor Laws, we ought to consider what was lost when the courts discouraged Americans from thinking of “homelessness” in light of the old laws against vagrancy. Ah, so we're back to imprisoning the homeless (at huge expense) rather than providing, say, public toilets or shelter facilities. Not only is the WSJ not learning from history, they don't want to learn from history…

Maybe in a Utopia the homeless would use shelters but many refuse to for very reasons.

How many exactly? Do you have concrete data?

My understanding is that the vast majority of the homeless in NYC do sleep in shelters because... well, NYC has plenty of shelters.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#20

Post by ajross » Sun, Aug 18, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

archaea_hao wrote: post #7

empath75 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need better mental health care, and cheaper housing.

Mental healthcare may be relevant to this issue. But the cost of housing is not. These people cannot hold jobs because they are mentally ill. They need state provided institutional care, otherwise they will remain on the streets.

That's a caricature. In fact there are a near infinite variety of reasons for being homeless, and many homeless folks not only can hold jobs, but work them already. Yet they're on the streets anyway because of financial pressure, look like the "these people" you want to lock up, and would probably get picked up under the same ordinance.