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S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

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Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#211

Post by munk-a »

twblalock wrote: post #55
Bud wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Long-term public support for the entire population, even the inconveniently vulnerable and expensive part of the population, is the only solution. Ok, what will you do about the people who actively refuse to accept that support? We are talking about non-rational, mentally ill, addicted people. You can't just offer support. If that worked, this problem would not exist.

When shelter is offered without any strings attached it is almost never refused by homeless persons. Some people have developed serious trust issues with government authorities after decades of abuses but if the housing is presented as a thing they control it is almost universally accepted.

The problem is that shelter is always offered with strings attached - you need to be actively seeking employment, you need to listen to our sermons, you can't use if you accept the housing, you can only sleep here for three nights then we need the bed for someone else.

If SF built some new high-rises and offered every homeless person a condo free of charge that they will personally own after some amount of occupancy you'd pretty much solve homelessness and put a significant dent in mental health issues overnight.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#212

Post by jelliclesfarm »

notch656a wrote: post #194
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. But you are claiming that the number of years having domicile in a location is an entitlement despite not being able to afford cost of living. How is that relevant/not irrelevant?

I'm unsure of the reasoning, but one plausible reasoning is that if one has been paying taxes to the most local unit (state/local) for the past 10 years or whatever by working at whole foods and buying things with his productive labor, that means that both he may have paid in enough society can help him and still break even, as well as provide some historical basis to presume the investment to help him get housed wil…

This person has enough money for a year’s rent in the bank and is still sleeping on the streets. That was my read. I have to confess that I am a little confused.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#213

Post by notch656a »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #212
notch656a wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure of the reasoning, but one plausible reasoning is that if one has been paying taxes to the most local unit (state/local) for the past 10 years or whatever by working at whole foods and buying things with his productive labor, that means that both he may have paid in enough society can help him and still break even, as well as provide some historical basis to presume the investment to help him get housed wil…

This person has enough money for a year’s rent in the bank and is still sleeping on the streets. That was my read. I have to confess that I am a little confused.

I confess I am also still a little confused as to how one can involuntarily be on the streets with a year's rent in the bank. In most cities that in connection with employment is at least enough to buy and maintain a van or something that runs well enough to not run afoul of the 72 hour street parking rules. I presume there are either ideological factors or some unique unusual personal situation at play. One wild idea is perhaps ideological opposition to landlords and belief that the automobile is bad for the earth, but that's completely speculative.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#214

Post by bergenty »

dirtmerchant wrote: post #12
bergenty wrote: post #4

Screw that, clean the homeless up. Can’t believe we have let the problem get so bad.

Please enlighten us. What do you mean by "clean up"? Keep in mind, we're all engineers here, so details matter. I'll wait.

Get them off the street. Move them to workhouses or sanitariums.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#215

Post by TaylorAlexander »

twblalock wrote: post #206
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of what you have suggested has been tried, and has failed People love to say this while ignoring the fact that universal health care and social housing absolutely work in other parts of the world. Whatever parts of this strategy you think have been tried, it’s clear there are ways to make it work. You’d rather abandon those people you consider lesser because of mental illness or addiction, but we can in fact su…

America is not Germany. We have different people, and different problems. We have a uniquely violent and psychotic homeless population. You have probably not seen anything like it.

Let’s say that you’re correct, and the homeless population in the USA is more psychotic than the homeless population in Germany. Can you possibly imagine any reasons why the German population, who has universal healthcare and a variety of other social services, would have better mental health than the US population? Could it possibly be that social spending absolutely does work?

Like, you want to spend $60k/year or whatever throwing these people in prison for struggling to make it in the current system, and I’m here saying “spend that money on services, like Germany does”, and you say “no our people are way worse off than the German population” and you cannot seem to connect the dots that German social spending is exactly the reason Germany doesn’t have these problems… social spending works!

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#216

Post by jlbbellefeuille »

twblalock wrote: post #143
cpuguy83 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely appalling. Considering we've historically incarcerated these people and it didn't fix anything, I don't see how you can blame "progressive" attempts to solve the crisis. Do more people come to these cities that have such policies? Probably... but that's not an indictment of the policy. We have a national crisis. We have some cities/states who literally pay for 1-way bus tickets out (as an alternati…

> This solves nothing. Having more people in jail solves nothing. Yes it does. It gets them off the streets. It is the only thing that will do it. The problem in the past is that we only incarcerated homeless people overnight. Jail was a revolving door, and people went right back onto the streets after being released, over and over again. The problem is that we released them before they had recovered from the problem…

I’m sure the prison industry won’t attempt to lengthen their stay due to financial incentives… /s

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#217

Post by pandaman »

munk-a wrote: post #211
twblalock wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long-term public support for the entire population, even the inconveniently vulnerable and expensive part of the population, is the only solution. Ok, what will you do about the people who actively refuse to accept that support? We are talking about non-rational, mentally ill, addicted people. You can't just offer support. If that worked, this problem would not exist.

When shelter is offered without any strings attached it is almost never refused by homeless persons. Some people have developed serious trust issues with government authorities after decades of abuses but if the housing is presented as a thing they control it is almost universally accepted. The problem is that shelter is always offered with strings attached - you need to be actively seeking employment, you need to li…

>If SF built some new high-rises and offered every homeless person a condo free of charge that they will personally own after some amount of occupancy you'd pretty much solve homelessness and put a significant dent in mental health issues overnight.

And if that does not happen you can always say that some strings were attached after all: the requirement to pay utility bills, the requirement to dispose of trash, the requirement not to have open fire and/or chemical labs inside, the requirement not to assault neighbors and passersby etc. etc. After all there are always some "strings" required to live in the society and even more of those when you require that the society provides you with everything you need for nothing in return.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#218

Post by olivermarks »

notch656a wrote: post #213
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This person has enough money for a year’s rent in the bank and is still sleeping on the streets. That was my read. I have to confess that I am a little confused.

I confess I am also still a little confused as to how one can involuntarily be on the streets with a year's rent in the bank. In most cities that in connection with employment is at least enough to buy and maintain a van or something that runs well enough to not run afoul of the 72 hour street parking rules. I presume there are either ideological factors or some unique unusual personal situation at play. One wild ide…

1/ There are no rooms to rent 2/ He doesn't drive and doesn't want to live in a vehicle 3/ He is not 100% mentally I suspect, and I would hate to see this functioning adult deteriorate on the streets

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#219

Post by jelliclesfarm »

olivermarks wrote: post #218
notch656a wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I confess I am also still a little confused as to how one can involuntarily be on the streets with a year's rent in the bank. In most cities that in connection with employment is at least enough to buy and maintain a van or something that runs well enough to not run afoul of the 72 hour street parking rules. I presume there are either ideological factors or some unique unusual personal situation at play. One wild ide…

1/ There are no rooms to rent 2/ He doesn't drive and doesn't want to live in a vehicle 3/ He is not 100% mentally I suspect, and I would hate to see this functioning adult deteriorate on the streets

It’s a difficult situation for sure. Fwiw, anything that requires compassion and understanding, I am loathe to rely on state/govt for it. Here is where community needs to come together to find creative solutions.

Some suggestions:

1. Move to north bay or another area where it is more affordable. Whole Foods probably will allow transfers. 2. Can he upskill? Certificate courses or some such? 3. Can he get or can someone pitch in to get him a gym membership? 4. Will he be able to rent a room? 5. Room mate situation with someone? 6. Can he take driving lessons and obtain a license?

Perhaps you can help him get a license or a gym membership? If he has the money, it’s a small amount. Stability and community is very crucial for housing vulnerable folks.

There can be other jobs like house sitting or caretaking or pet sitting. There are many jobs online that also pay these days.

Best of luck to your friend.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#220

Post by readthenotes1 »

pandaman wrote: post #196
jwlstn wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single one of the cities with large homeless populations have absurdly high housing costs. All the people in this thread are refusing to acknowledge that may play some causal factor because the solution might involve slightly lowering their property values.

Martha's Vineyard, Malibu, both Hamptons etc have even higher housing costs yet no homeless. It appears you've found a correlation without causation.

I think we saw recently why Martha's Vinyard has little or no homeless
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