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California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

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

#111

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Spooky23 wrote: post #52
weeksie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't used to build shelters. There was an entire riot in the 80s when the cops removed a homeless encampment that had entirely taken over Tomkins Sq Park in the East Village. I don't know when we started building them (I'm a transplant, circa 2008) but I know there was a qualitative difference from when I'd been to the city in the early 00s versus when I moved so I assume Bloomberg was responsible for building m…

There was a Federal lawsuit and consent decree that forced NYC to house homeless people. It had a lot of negative impact on poor people in general. Mentally ill homeless people skipped the line for subsidized housing and had an outsized impact on crime and quality of life issues in public housing. Recent policies to guarantee housing has made NYC something of a magnet. If you live upstate, you may need to wait a year…

> It had a lot of negative impact on poor people in general. Mentally ill homeless people skipped the line for subsidized housing and had an outsized impact on crime and quality of life issues in public housing.

I don't know much about this but there's got to be more to that story. Personally, I'm more than okay with policies that attract some additional homeless people to our city if it means that (1) those people get to sleep in a bed each night and (2) there are fewer people sleeping on NYC streets in general.

What I legitimately don't understand is why there are still so many people sleeping on the street...

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

#112

Post by tpowell »

holycrapwhodat wrote: post #63
weeksie wrote: post #14

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 th…

> In New York we have more homeless per capita... At least based on latest 2018 numbers I found for both cities, that's not true. NYC 78676 homeless with 8398748 residents. SF 9784 homeless with 870877 residents. 106 residents per homeless individual in NYC. Only 89 residents per homeless individual in SF. > And for fuck's sake, it's not the weather. Our parks aren't by any means pristine but we don't suddenly sprout…

I’m listening to a collection of Malcolm Gladwell essays and was somewhat blown over by one about power-law distribution of homelessness[1]. Basically a small, stubborn minority of the homeless population are financially worth housing (by far). “That is what is so perplexing about power-law homeless policy. From an economic perspective the approach makes perfect sense. But from a moral perspective it doesn’t seem fair.” [1] http://dpbh.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/A%20MillionDollarMurray.pdf

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

#113

Post by reggieband »

krustyburger wrote: post #28
Consultant32452 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

People aren’t interested in compelling the allegedly mentally ill by force, unless they pose a threat to themselves or others, because it is unconstitutional and contrary to the values of a free society. A given citizen disregarding the norms of society does not give society permission to use force against that citizen, or to subject them to forced medical treatments. Again, if the person poses an active threat that…

> ... allegedly mentally ill ... ... disregarding the norms of society ... seemingly mentally ill

I think you are giving yourself too much leeway with your weasel words here. I lived in San Francisco and saw first hand the homeless problem. These are not a group of free-spirits, bucking the norms of society and living an honest drifter lifestyle. Maybe you would like to call to mind the counter-culture described by beat poets like Jack Kerouac. Or maybe you want to warn against the kind of authoritarian cruelty fictionalized in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

However, it is my experience that the people living on the streets in the Tenderloin aren't down on their luck Woody Guthrie types, pining for a pre-technology, more social friendly USA that valued simple folk.

I think we need to avoid painting ourselves into corners with false dichotomies. It isn't like the only options are to round them up and lock them away in a mental hospital or to leave them completely free on the streets. And like it or not, the middle ground may require some intervention that is forceful.

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

#114

Post by dragonwriter »

jquery wrote: post #72
weeksie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, I miss Bloomberg.

I feel like a lot of cities in America are suffering from applying national politics to their local elections. Electing a Republican or conservative/centrist Democrat every now and then wouldn't be a bad thing, Democrats do not have a monopoly on solving local issues in a compassionate yet effective manner, in fact I'd claim that the increasing ease with which the Democrat candidate wins elections in major American c…

> . Electing a Republican or conservative/centrist Democrat every now and then wouldn't be a bad thing, Democrats do not have a monopoly on solving local issues in a compassionate yet effective manner, in fact I'd claim that the increasing ease with which the Democrat candidate wins elections in major American cities contributes to the lack of urgency and a sense of complacency with the status quo.

In California cities there is no one “Democratic candidate”; mayor's offices are nonpartisan elections and in a city like San Francisco there will be multiple competitive cabdidates, who might all notionally be Demcorats, some of whom will have a local government approach that is indistinguishable from what one might, based on party alignment on similar national issues, expect from a Republican.

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

#115

Post by 01100011 »

throwawaybdb25 wrote: post #79
weeksie wrote: post #14

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 th…

> Our parks aren't by any means pristine but we don't suddenly sprout tent cities every summer. Come for a walk with me. There are tents and makeshift shelters in the north end of Central Park (west side, north of 96th) and in the parks along both rivers if you know where to look.

Well, I'm guessing the shelters don't let you shoot up, so...tent cities form.

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

#116

Post by ausjke »

masklinn wrote: post #37
ausjke wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Bay Area is currently doing very little except complain about homeless folks. NYC has more homelessness per capita, but they've both built shelters and had a strong policy of sheltering homeless folks. As a result, ~95% of NYC homeless people (>63000 people)…

can you provide source for the percentages? thanks.

CA is leading the path towards socialism, i'm surprised it's lagging behind to take care of the homeless there, which should be a core action item for that ideology. Maybe they're just good at talk the talk, as always.

Seattle seems no better as far as homeless is concerned. Austin is becoming a favorite destination city for homeless nowadays too, tents up everywhere in hot summer.

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

#117

Post by rabbitonrails »

ajross wrote: post #15

> 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…

It's an opinion piece.

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

#118

Post by gshdg »

sbhn wrote: post #83

The defecation crisis is see is the eagerness of law fearing citizens to put a substance that decomposes back into nature in about a week, into a plastic bag that will still have its contents nicely stored, and brewing, ready to be freed, for years to come.

Riiight... have you ever read about what’s happened in places with high concentrations of humans that tried to return their bodily wastes to nature? See also London’s Great Stink.

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

#120

Post by adrr »

gamblor956 wrote: post #91
masklinn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also what a comment above notes, quoting an SFBay article[0]: 67% of Bay Area homeless are unsheltered, 5% in NYC. So there might be a small number of homeless folks who can't / won't live in shelters, but that's what it is: a small minority. [0] https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-homeless-uns...

Hundreds of shelter beds go empty every night in LA because many of the homeless would rather stay high/drunk than be sooner for a night. They used to be a small portion of the population but now comprise the bulk of LAs skid row population.

Could criminalize sleeping on the streets if beds are available at a local shelter.
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