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The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

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Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#141

Post by seanmcdirmid »

omegaworks wrote: post #128
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These studies always sound dubious, just like the misrepresentations that you are pointing out. First, they are just surveying a population that is incredibly difficult to survey. Second, they don't look into what they meant by having a home, was it just crashing at a friend's house? Were they ever employed at all in the city? Where were they born, where did they grow up? Cities act as a catchment for the rural areas…

>These studies always sound dubious, just like the misrepresentations that you are pointing out. So are you suggesting we base our understanding of this problem on anecdotes? The problem I have with that is that the anecdotes that you present are constructed to support the idea that there is nothing to be done, that we must simply accept that homelessness is too big a problem to be solved or even quantified. I refuse…

I get it, dodgy surveys trump anecdotes. However, these surveys turn in a reality that is so far divorced to what people are experiencing that they are hard to take seriously, check out:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-coun...

> The records show that more than 8,000 clients listed their last ZIP code as 98104, which covers Pioneer Square and downtown. That’s about 25 percent of all clients who gave King County ZIP codes. Putnam says clients sometimes list ZIP codes for the shelters where they last stayed or the neighborhood where they’d been seeking services.

Ya, the data is really noisy.

And do you really think the big cities can solve this problem on their own without regional support? Its like saying they can solve healthcare on their own, or any other country-wide problem.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#142

Post by prostoalex »

spookthesunset wrote: post #107
InclinedPlane wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some merit to this but I'd say it's still a little off the mark. Homelessness is a condition, how people got there is one thing, the main tools to "fix it" are fairly straightforward: give people housing. Dealing with everything else (mental health issues, drug addiction, etc.) can be dealt with separately, and will be vastly easier without having the fundamental problem of homelessness.

> give people housing Except now you'll just attract homeless folks from outside of your region. The city with the best homeless program will attract the most homeless folks--all paid for by that city's taxpayers. This is why I maintain the only way to address the problem is at the federal levelm. They should at least be the ones who bankroll the whole operation. It shouldn't be the city's responsibility to fund the…

At the federal level the housing supply is excessive to the point of Detroit house prices being close to negative, some counties in Kansas and Oklahoma providing free land if only people move there, dying coal towns in Appalachians having an oversupply if available housing and Mississippi delta towns being relatively cheap to place people in manufactured housing?

Sure, that doesn’t solve the problem of everyone who’s homeless in LA or SF, but then where do you draw a line on people’s preferences vs reasonable availability?

If a million new homeless people decide they would rather move to LA and not Kansas, should the federal government accommodate accordingly? What if then they say they’d really prefer Santa Monica to East LA? What if within Santa Monica most express the preference for proximity to the ocean and walking distance to downtown amenities?

Where does the federal government then draw a line on providing essential services vs catering to someone’s lifestyle preferences?

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#143

Post by pastor_elm »

For most of industrialized history in the West, poor people lived crammed in tenements and multi-family apartments where they didn't get much beyond a room. This is still the case in much of the developing world.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that spacious living spaces for everyone in every city simply isn't tenable? It worked for a couple decades, but that was a different time and these cities were different places.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#144

Post by blancheneige »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #103
blancheneige wrote: post #52

homelessness is the societal manifestation of the lower end of the bell curve. period. anyone who's interacted with homeless people knows this. yes there are exceptions, and no they do not make up the bulk of the distribution. putting your hand in the sand and blaming "slow wage growth" or some other secondary factor instead of pointing out the obvious is a disservice to those people. and before you call me harsh, kn…

being a serf is the societal manifestation of the lower end of the bell curve. period. anyone who's interacted with peasants knows this. yes there are serfs who fell out of wealthy families, and no they do not make up the bulk of the distribution. putting your hand in the sand and blaming "aggressive royal taxation" or some other secondary factor instead of pointing out the obvious is a disservice to the peasantry. a…

not sure what point you where trying to make with this analogy. hierarchies are an emergent property of every self-assembling structure -- we all started from the same unicellular organisms after all.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#145

Post by 2RTZZSro »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #64
jbob2000 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houston is also in Texas, which has habitable land area greater than most countries. Toronto is kind of stuck at the moment because if we want to build more housing, we have to bulldoze the Oak Ridges Moraine, which we can’t do because it’s critical to our water supply (though conservative governments often try). So our only option, like many cities, is to build up. Which is expensive and requires expensive maintenan…

Houston also doesn't have zoning laws, though having lots of land helps with that.

Houston has deed restrictions, which effectively work the same as zoning.

There is zero land available for you to live in a safe neighborhood near downtown. All new housing is located in dangerous areas. You ABSOLUTELY MUST use a car to get around unless you want to risk being assaulted, robbed, or worse.

The homeless population in Houston is out of control and has gotten worse in parts of town.

Vehicle break-ins, burglary, rapes, and armed robbery are completely out of control. The only actually safe places in the entire city are Jewish neighborhoods such as Rice Village. The police are absolutely useless and crime is VASTLY under-reported. Police hung up on me multiple times and lost my reports each time after I was a victim of a hit-and-run, burglarized vehicle three times, my apartment door was kicked in, and my apartment was burglarized. My neighbor's guns were stolen from his truck and his apartment was burglarized. He was a Houston police officer at the time. Everywhere I lived the same things happened REGULARLY. My neighbor was a wheelchair bound young woman and her door was kicked in around noon, 6 feet across the hallway from the leasing office. All of these places I mention are in gated communities. I lived in three apartments less than a mile off the tram red line over three years.

Houston is a living hell for law abiding citizens. Not only is it incredibly criminal, ALL infrastructure is CRUMBLING and there is trash literally everywhere aside from Rice Village and River Oaks. Utterly disgusting.

Police and landlords have told me: "It's just a big city, crime happens. We can't do anything about it, just have insurance." (i.e., socialize the cost of having criminals around while doing NOTHING to reduce criminality). People who think like this deserve everything they get when it backfires on them. Maybe they enjoy being repeatedly raped like a form of Stockholm Syndrome. I, for one, do not enjoy being raped of my hard work and time by criminals or living under the constant threat of my hard work, time, and life being robbed from me. If you live in Houston and don't constantly carry a fully loaded handgun, you are taking your life in your hands.

Screw that. I don't want to live in a literal hell. Such is life in Houston.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyMY2JnVUDE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj3XO3HopsM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0diH5fNLYmU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gctMJhFezE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZQDwXT71_E

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#146

Post by baroffoos »

timb07 wrote: post #18
DanHulton wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I think you're missing a key factor here: politicians require money to be elected. The poor (the folks most affected by these issues) don't have the money to donate. The rich (the ones you propose taxing) do. Thus, the only ones who can get elected are catering to an audience that does not want this problems solved in this way (and indeed, one could argue, does not care to have it solved at all). Until the pr…

In a properly-operating democracy, politicians require votes to be elected; money helps, but isn't sufficient. The 1% may have 50% (or more) of the money, but they only have 1% of the votes. The 99% (or rather, those members of the 99% who vote as if they're in the 1%) need to exert their power at the polling booth.

Money can pay for marketing and shills to flood online forums to trick peoples voting.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#147

Post by paxys »

The only way to fix the housing crisis is to build more houses. It isn't rocket science, but every conversation or debate about this issue seems to go on and on in every direction without people actually facing this fact. The same people who vote to increase taxes to fix homelessness will simultaneously vote down every new housing project. Just seems so bizarre to me.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#148

Post by gdix »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #116
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the other problem is that the more one city spends to "fix" its homeless problems, the more other areas ship their homeless to these cities with more resources. It's certainly the case in Texas, where many smaller cities and rural areas give homeless people a one-way bus ticket to Austin, Dallas or San Antonio.

Why is it a problem when poor people want to move in but not rich people? Does some homeless dude from Boise degrade Austin any more or less than some programmer from SF? Both are seeking what they think is a going to be a better life. Both are ever so slightly changing the character of their destination by showing up.

Why is it a problem when a stranger breaks into your house and raids your fridge but not when you invite a close friend over for a meal?

Both are seeking what they think is a going to be a meal. Both are ever so slightly changing the character of their destination by showing up.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#149

Post by partisan »

I was walking through Manhattan on Sunday along Broadway north of Union Square Park and I saw at least 2-3 homeless or panhandlers _per block_ along the way. I was directly asked for money a few times as well.

I grew up in NYC. I spent high school and college in Manhattan. This is the worst I have seen it. There is no cushion for people living on the margins of society anymore. Not here, at least. When I was a kid, my mother was able to raise three of us on her one paltry salary. Good luck doing that on several salaries now.

And as someone with a good income and two earner household, I can’t help but feel that I am one recession away from struggle. I don’t have a home my parents will leave to me in flyover country that I can retreat to if shit hits the fan.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#150

Post by jimbobimbo »

md224 wrote: post #118
Alex63 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear how homelessness can be meaningfully addressed in a humane way by the federal government (especially if it is constitutional).

Noah Smith's perspective on the necessity of a federal approach to homelessness: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-05-21/ending... Key graf: > About 3.5 million Americans will experience homelessness at some point in time, but only about a half-million are homeless at any given time, and roughly 87,000 of these are chronically homeless. By some estimates, housing a homeless person and providing them wit…

How federal involvement will help? Article doesn't detail what powers exactly federal govt possesses that would help, aside from moving spending from local to fed level.

I'd also argue, that having feds in this business would even worsen the situation: now locals could be taken completely out of the loop for decisions like where to place shelters. Like, "oh you don't like shelter in this neighborhood? take a walk - it's a federal decision, live with it."

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