We won't stop homelessness until the current economic and ownership system is replaced by a non capitalistic one
Why can't we stop homelessness? why there's no end in sight
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Re: Why can't we stop homelessness? why there's no end in sight
#12Lack of universal healthcare and lack of laws requiring drug users and mentally ill to get treatment or go to jail. Most democratic run states have just given up enforcing drug laws or decriminalized drugs. If you are mentally ill or addicted to a substance, no one can really force you to get treatment. As a result, most never get better and just get worse and worse. There is also just less housing overall, so if som…
What about families? What about husbands and wives who stay together? What about extended family knowing one another beyond Thanksgiving dinners? Why can't families find a place in their homes for their own kin? Why do family members abuse their children until they run away, get abortions, commit suicide?
Re: Why can't we stop homelessness? why there's no end in sight
#13What I find strange is how someone doesn't have a mother, father, brother, grandparents, aunts, cousins to help a little when in need. I mean they must have been born somewhere, doesn't anyone in the family tree own a place to live?
Re: Why can't we stop homelessness? why there's no end in sight
#14This is an important topic, but why post it here on HN? More and more posts are general news now. There are so many places for these discussions other than a technology oriented message board.
Please name a relevant board that takes as little data, and I'm there!
Re: Why can't we stop homelessness? why there's no end in sight
#15But again, the overriding problem, they say, is the dire lack of places low-income people can afford to live.
"There's really no way to solve homelessness without seriously addressing this," says Kushel, the UCSF researcher. "Otherwise, we're going to be compelled to continue to spend huge amounts of money managing an increasingly out of control crisis."
Judging from the comments so far, there seems to be a lot of emotion involved in them. I haven't read the first work by Marx, but my sense is his work had a thread of anger running through it.
In Plato's Republic, the tripartite soul(Greek "psyche") consists of the appetitive part (compared to a multi-headed beast), a spirited, honor-loving part associated with the emotion of anger (compared to a lion), and the rational part (compared to a human being). It depicts the soul dominated by the appetitive part being like an ape or monkey. To use the same line of thought, I think Marx's soul may have been dominated by the spirited part, which could be compared to a manticore (a beast with the body of a lion and the face of a human). Capitalism, on the other hand, is dominated by the appetitive part.
Also it's pointed out in the Republic that unlimited acquisition of wealth results in wars (due to needing more land/resources) and health problems (due to overindulgence).
I could say more, and I know my comment is somewhat unfocused, but if you keep ignoring the foundations of these issues, you're not going to be able to fix the problem.
Remember in A Christmas Carol (yes, I know Charles Dickens didn't "walk on water"), how the Spirit of Christmas Present showed Scrooge the two children, Want and Ignorance? I see a generation of un- or under-educated children coming up that has been given a bill they never could have or would have agreed to. How do you think they must feel? What should they do?
Re: Why can't we stop homelessness? why there's no end in sight
#16What I find strange is how someone doesn't have a mother, father, brother, grandparents, aunts, cousins to help a little when in need. I mean they must have been born somewhere, doesn't anyone in the family tree own a place to live?
Orphans are a thing, you know. Not everyone has family members able and willing to let them live with them.
Re: Why can't we stop homelessness? why there's no end in sight
#17Aside from drugs and mental issues, it seems like letting people live in the streets invites others to the lifestyle. Locally we had a man build a home on the sidewalk and brag about what a great job he had done. He thought that the public sidewalk was a place where he could build as he pleased. Some people believe that it's ok to do whatever they want in the common areas of out cities. There's also the constant prob…
You sure do seem anxious to make "hard decisions" for people used to them.
How about some "hard decisions" for people who aren't, e.g. people who can, all by themselves, afford thousands of private homes forever?
Re: Why can't we stop homelessness? why there's no end in sight
#18Our economy has taken a hit and made things worse for sure. I’d be in rough shape if I didn’t have my pre inflation house mortgage. But it seems like a decent subset of people simply don’t want help if it means needing to take any responsibility themselves. Mental illness plays a role in some, others I’m not sure. It’s almost a shift of thinking leading towards entitlement. Offered someone a bottle of water around he…
It rarely is - only 1/4th of homeless adults in LA suffer from a severe mental illness [1]. The sad reality is that the difference between the folks you pass by on the street and you is often just a little bit of bad luck and no support system. Go listen to interviews with the folks that live in the sewers in Vegas, most of them want to work but can't get a government ID because they've had their old Ids and birth ce…
Listen to people in prison, all of them innocent.
Listen to men who beat their wives, all of them had it coming.
People say what they think you want to hear. Don't take it at face value.
Specifically for this case: Whenever someone tells you how many jobs they work vs how many hours it's because it isn't that many hours.
Re: Why can't we stop homelessness? why there's no end in sight
#19What I find strange is how someone doesn't have a mother, father, brother, grandparents, aunts, cousins to help a little when in need. I mean they must have been born somewhere, doesn't anyone in the family tree own a place to live?
They have experienced a family member with addiction and know that "helping" them in any way (money, food, even housing) just helps them get high and makes the problem worse.
Re: Why can't we stop homelessness? why there's no end in sight
#20But again, the overriding problem, they say, is the dire lack of places low-income people can afford to live. "There's really no way to solve homelessness without seriously addressing this," says Kushel, the UCSF researcher. "Otherwise, we're going to be compelled to continue to spend huge amounts of money managing an increasingly out of control crisis." Judging from the comments so far, there seems to be a lot of em…
To clarify, in the Republic the spirited part of the soul that is dominated by the appetitive part is compared to an ape or monkey (perhaps in allusion to a sort of buffoon). Similarly I was comparing the spirited part of Marx's (or Marxism's) soul to a manticore.