Governments in California are immune from liability for failure to enact or enforce any law, so good luck.
“It is a desperate man who engages his own government in a legal dispute.”
-Unknown
Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk
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Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk
#82Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk
#83As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…
In the US, that job may not offer the person any net quality-of-life improvements. Flipping that burger for 30 hours a week does not give them enough money to find housing. Now they're still broke but they're also tired, smelly, and angry.
What kind of life you can get by just flipping burger for 30 hours a week in Europe? Honest question.
Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I seriously don't know what the solution is. Enlighten us?
This is just a personal take but * House the ones that are functional/capable of taking care of themselves to an extent * Mandatory rehab for the ones are strung out pm debilitating opiates * Asylum for the ones are mentally disabled.
> * Mandatory rehab for the ones are strung out pm debilitating opiates
> * Asylum for the ones are mentally disabled.
Wow. You've got some opinions about homeless people, don't you?
Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk
#85As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…
That's a good question, and I'm born and raised in the US! Perhaps it's due to the difference between CoL and working wages in a given city. Even if someone who is homeless does start working, that doesn't mean they can afford rent in the city. That also doesn't mean they'll get healthcare or other necessary benefits for their continued survival. You also have close to no protections in the US, so you don't really ha…
You should look into this more because although you have some info, you're misinformed too. For example when you are severely mentally ill you often have 2 choices:
1. Take daily medication that makes you so lethargic or nauseated (or both) that you certainly can't work.
2. Don't take medication and deal with delusions or hallucinations, or both, which again prevents you from working. When you're talking out loud to voices only you can hear, no one wants to work with you.
Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US, that job may not offer the person any net quality-of-life improvements. Flipping that burger for 30 hours a week does not give them enough money to find housing. Now they're still broke but they're also tired, smelly, and angry.
>Flipping that burger for 30 hours a week does not give them enough money to find housing. Now they're still broke but they're also tired, smelly, and angry. But now they still have $420 (based on CA's minimum wage of $14) more in their pocket?
Closer to $280 once tax and social security is taken out.
Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk
#87As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…
The base issue is usually mental illness worsened by substance abuse, without a strong social net and with readily available street drugs these people are pretty much unfit for any kind of work.
There's a difference between chronic homelessness (which is probably caused by mental illness or drug abuse), and "typical" homelessness.
"Typical" people are homeless for only a few days before someone in their social circle rescues them (and its not a happy story either: it could be that they tried living on the streets but ultimately decided that living with their alcoholic and abusive husband is superior to living on the streets). A lot of effort should probably be made at helping these individuals and providing support here.
We shouldn't give up on Chronic homelessness either. Not everyone is mentally sick or a druggie. But a substantial number of them are clearly sick. And even if they are mentally sick, a pathway should be figured out to try to find a way to make them productive members of society.
Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Flipping that burger for 30 hours a week does not give them enough money to find housing. Now they're still broke but they're also tired, smelly, and angry. But now they still have $420 (based on CA's minimum wage of $14) more in their pocket?
Yeah, but they're still homeless, and unless you can find a place eventually you'll get fired. It may also be that you can get more than 400$/week panhandling. That's only 57$/day.
>It may also be that you can get more than 400$/week panhandling. That's only 57$/day.
Are we comparing the upper end of what you can earn via pan-handling with the lower end of what you can earn via a minimum wage job here? That might be responsible for the apparent disparity. Apparently LA has around 65k homeless people. I'm skeptical that even half of that (32.5k) can all earn an average income of $400/week panhandling.
Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk
#89As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…
First please note that America has fewer homeless people than many European nations or Canada. Per 10K: Germany......79 UK...........46 Sweden.......36 Canada.......36 Netherlands..23 France.......21 USA..........17 (via Wikipedia, stats for differing years unfortunately but gives a sense of magnitude) It's mostly that the US homeless population concentrates in very few areas. > How do you reconcile that with the fac…
> First please note that America has fewer homeless people than many European nations or Canada
Wow that's a real reality check right there. I would have never guessed that Sweden had 2x the homeless of the US. Thank you.
Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk
#90As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…
If you take the problem in good-faith. That is, that even if these people wanted to engage in pro-social behavior, it's essentially nihilist at this point to assume anyone in this position can achieve this without years of support. I think a lot of it comes from policies that have in America that have effectively destroyed the housing supply. This goes triple for California.
For folks living on the street, you absolutely cannot earn enough from a minimum wage to house yourself. At best, you could barely get by sharing housing with a few folks. Assuming you have addiction issues that lead to anti-social behavior, you will have difficulty maintaining relationships in share living spaces and maintaining your employment.
I think we would have a dramatically different situation with our homeless, if someone could reasonably afford a small one-bedroom or studio apartment at 25%-40% of the prevailing minimum wage. As it stands, in Los Angeles, median one-bedroom seems to be about $2,362/month, and a minimum wage job there, before taxes only pays $2,462 per month.
Thus, a minimum wage job, even if the person magically paid nothing in taxes cannot even come close to covering the median unit, by a factor of 2-4. In addition, that median unit likely requires further assets like a vehicle in order for a person to be able to access employment.
Because of this American development pattern, it is nearly impossible for people to even begin to earn enough money to maintain any sense of private living space.