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Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

latimes.com

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Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#131

Post by neom »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As 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…

This is a good book: https://www.amazon.ca/2-00-Day-Living-Nothing-America/dp/054...

From my spending time with homeless people in the US (I lived on the streets for a while) it's a combination of mental health/checked out/drugs, or more often, a feeling that being on the bottom of the social totem pole is no better/actually worse than taking part in "the system" (per the book I recommended).

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#133

Post by leesalminen »

dcolkitt wrote: post #93
SrslyJosh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck getting and keeping a job when you have nowhere to shower and may be forced to relocate at any time. Oh, and the cops may come and smash or steal all of your belongings.

Gym memberships can be had for $20/month or less, and provide a full bathroom facility for showering and grooming. I'm not trying to be pedantic. I'm just pointing this out for anybody reading this who may find themself in a situation like this in the future.

When I was 21, our house of 4 was evicted because 1 didn’t pay rent and lied about it until we got notice to vacate. Luckily it was summer in Colorado so we decided to camp for a while. Unfortunately, I had just gotten a new (awesome) job and couldn’t go into the office smelling like campfires so I got a membership at the gym and showered there every morning. Never ended up exercising there though, ha.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#134

Post by Swizec »

simonsarris wrote: post #75
dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As 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…

How are "homeless" defined in different countries? There was an eye-opening 99pi series of podcasts around homelessness in USA where I learned that the definition is ridiculously strict.

Something like "If you slept anywhere other than the street last night, you do not qualify as homeless". I can't remember if tents count, but sleeping on a friend's couch, squatting a derelict building, or staying in your car disqualifies you from the definition of homeless.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#135

Post by jdavis703 »

kazinator wrote: post #41
dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As 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…

One factor is that employers don't want some scruffy, stinking homeless person anywhere near their business. Basically, it's a problem of hygiene and grooming. To apply for just about any job, a given homeless person would have to take several baths, get a haircut, shave, and get into clean clothes. Somehow, that is an insoluble problem. Secondly, some of these jobs pay so shitty that if you've figured out how to liv…

I would urge you to do some volunteer work with homeless people. Most aren’t scruffy and stinky. I think what’s happening is the scruffy and stinky people are the ones that get your attention while the homeless security guard or homeless Uber driver escapes your attention.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#136

Post by bwship »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #118
simonsarris wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'll point out that the situation is different too. I've lived in Australia and the USA. Australia has more homeless but you will never see 3 miles of tents on major roads or encampments under bridges. Other countries count them as homeless but often they will be cared for and have shelter. The USA is lacking there.

These tent camps are quite new in the US. About 5 years ago, there started to be a tent camp in Seattle, but when I moved to LA there was not tents anywhere (except maybe a few on Skid Row), flash forward to about 2 years ago, and there are now literally miles and miles of tent camps all over Los Angeles. It is one of those things that once it is allowed at all, it quickly becomes overwhelming.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#137

Post by gruez »

edoceo wrote: post #80
gruez wrote: post #50

Earlier 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?

"net quality-of-life improvements" from the parent. You are counting Gross. IE: its not worth it.

There's a lot of quality-of-life improvements you can buy with $420. food, access to a gym, a better tent, PO box/locker to store your stuff, etc. Multiply that by 4 weeks, and you get $1680, which seems almost enough to rent a unit with roommates.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#138

Post by mlinsey »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As 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…

Mental health is a large part of the issue, but sometimes cause and effect can be murky.

It's important to note that even the very large visible encampments in cities like SF and LA are the tip of the homelessness iceberg, there's a much larger group of people who are living on friends/relatives couches, in their cars, or in shelters. A lot of these people have some level of employment, but housing affordability (a result of ~50 years of very restrictive land-use policies making it hard to build new housing) means that this level of employment can't afford them their own permanent home. For example, prior to 1970 it was much more common to see "boarding houses" where you'd share a room or share a bathroom, and especially unmarried low-wage workers would live there, but these are illegal to build in most cities these days.

Most of this homeless-but-not-on-the-street population is transient - it is common eg to be temporarily living in your car after a job disruption or sudden emergency expense, then to find another job and find a place to live after some time. In other words, they will do exactly what you are suggesting and lock down a new job quickly. And this group is a majority of the group of people who spend any time homeless in a given year.

But a portion of of this transiently-homeless population doesn't solve their job situation quickly, will wear out their welcome with friends, or will lose their car for a variety of reasons -- and end up falling into street homelessness. Once you are homeless and living on the street, you are at extremely high risk for developing a mental health and/or substance abuse problem even if you didn't start out with one. It also becomes much harder for you to get one of those available jobs, for a number of reasons, some as basic as not having transportation to work or not being able to present yourself well for an interview.

In short: land-use policies cause homelessness, the majority of the people who experience any amount of homelessness do get a job quickly, the street-homeless you see are the small fraction (of the frighteningly-large homeless population) that got stuck for some reason, and their situation is a feedback loop making them even more stuck.

(also: the 'we will hire you on the spot!' thing is a weird 2021 artifact of the pandemic, it taking time to ramp back up, and the super-generous unemployment benefits program that will be expiring very soon. the hiring market won't be like that next year)

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#139

Post by leesalminen »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #122
dcolkitt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gym memberships can be had for $20/month or less, and provide a full bathroom facility for showering and grooming. I'm not trying to be pedantic. I'm just pointing this out for anybody reading this who may find themself in a situation like this in the future.

good luck getting a gym membership without an address, cell phone, credit card or sizeable deposit - forget about the fact that you look & smell terrible.

I did it in Boulder , CO for a few months. I didn’t have an address but I did have a cell phone and debit (not credit) card. I did look and smell like a campfire. I’ve never heard of a deposit for a gym- those must be some fancy gymnasiums.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#140

Post by AngryData »

api wrote: post #95
goshx wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been what I've seen personally volunteering at a homeless outreach. Mental illness seems to be the major factor.

AFAIK the homeless problem exploded when the US shut down its institutional mental health system in the 1980s. The shutdown wasn't just to cut costs. Many institutions had terrible records that included abusive treatment of patients. But we pulled the plug on that system with no replacement, so major cities became open air psychiatric wards.

Yeah the system was terrible at the time, what they did however is sort of like seeing a bad performing school and closing it down permanently and then just leaving people completely uneducated. And then people complaining about how many illiterate people we got running around.
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