L.A. to declare 'state of emergency' on homelessness

These cities create the homeless problem by enabling the lifestyle. It's a taboo thing to say but spend enough time in different locations and you learn very quickly that the homeless are shameless opportunists who go wherever they can most leech off society. My entire childhood growing up I never saw a single homeless person despite growing up in an impoverished rural area. It was viciously cold outside in the winter and people were very quick to take advantage of local services and get themselves back to a position where they could afford shelter.

These days I live in Ann Arbor and we have a fairly serious homeless problem (I get harassed on the street nearly every time I walk downtown). The city itself offers excellent resources for the homeless to both survive and "get back on their feet", a situation that has not gone unnoticed by surrounding districts which have literally loaded up vans with homeless people and driven them 40 miles to dump them in Ann Arbor.

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/11/ann_ar...

The homeless are absolutely a problem, but you're naive if you think anything done to address the problem on a per city basis is going to fix anything. This is a national issue that calls for expanded mental services, more rehabilitation, and strict policing. Anything done on a smaller level will just encourage migration of homeless to take advantage.

EDIT: I'm fine with downvoting, but I do ask that you give me solid factual and evidence based arguments for why my point is wrong. Implying I lack compassion is neither accurate or a useful discussion of how to address this problem, and that's where my interest lies when I make a comment like this.

Rates of mental illness are higher in the homeless population than the general population. But it's important to recognise that most homeless or vulnerably housed people do not have a mental illness; and that sometimes it's the homelessness that has caused the mental health problem.

I totally agree that the solution is not "just build more homes", but needs to include better access to debt management; better access to drug and alcohol rehab; better access to work; and better access to MH treatment.

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pd...

> According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some form of severe mental illness. In comparison, only 6% of Americans are severely mentally ill (National Institute of Mental Health, 2009). In a 2008 survey performed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, 25 cities were asked for the three largest causes of homelessness in their communities. Mental illness was the third largest cause of homelessness for single adults (mentioned by 48% of cities). For homeless families, mental illness was mentioned by 12% of cities as one of the top 3 causes of homelessness

> My entire childhood growing up I never saw a single homeless person despite growing up in an impoverished rural area

You didn't look hard enough.

Here's an article about homeless people in Ulan Bator, where temperatures reach -40.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/underground-and-off...

http://visura.co/user/MikeA/view/40-96

You'd do very well not to try not to hold this opinion in your mind:

    "the homeless are shameless opportunists who go wherever they can most leech off society"

You've basically tarred a whole class of (often vulnerable) humans with your predisposed judgements. It's a dangerous thing to do.

I'm in a privileged position, and in all honesty, I don't know enough about homelessness to make particularly informed comments on the subject. You need to start with compassion and an attempt at understanding otherwise you won't get anywhere.

Look at the situation in Europe right now, there are literally millions of refugees that will become part of the homeless class. "shameless opportunists"? I think not.

What about the kids born into it?