221–230 of 270 posts
This article is completely ignorant of the actual situation. These comments by most of you really show your true colors. If you truly believe "mental issues" are "causing homelessness" You are blinded by privilege, deaf by choice, and dumb by default. Greed is causing homlessness and these numbers are ridiculous. We're at 16% homelessness here in Atlanta. There are solutions, but not a one of you has the intellectual…
This article is completely ignorant of the actual situation. These comments by most of you really show your true colors. If you truly believe "mental issues" are "causing homelessness" You are blinded by privilege, deaf by choice, and dumb by default. Greed is causing homlessness and these numbers are ridiculous. We're at 16% homelessness here in Atlanta. There are solutions, but not a one of you has the intellectual…
Care to share any of your solutions then?
At the bottom of the pecking order are the lowest and not only do they get less, but are actively hated by everyone in a higher position.
Homeless basically get nothing, but look what has happened over the last two years for everyone else - money galore for those who have not been working because of covid. Four trillion dollars so far for unemployment.
The USA has always had enough to help the homeless. But the people - that's you - hate them and not only do you want them not to have money and resources, you want them to be ground down and make things worse for them, if possible.
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> And just like building bigger highways induces demand so will building more shelters in SF. "Induced demand" is a fallacy. The demand isn't induced, it was there the whole time and being suppressed by high prices (or, in case of highways, congestion). If there is very high demand, the amount of supply needed to satisfy it is equally high, but that is by no means the same as being infinite and impossible to do. Ther…
Induced demand is not a fallacy. And we’re not building housing here we’re building shelters.
It is a fallacy. The demand is there either way. It's just a regular supply and demand curve, where there is more demand at a lower price (and "price" includes the time cost of sitting in traffic congestion).
The heart of the fallacy is the assumption that the demand is infinite and it's impossible to ever satisfy it. It's not. It's just non-linear.
> And we’re not building housing here we’re building shelters.
Shelters are housing. But also, why aren't we building housing? Build a lot more housing and fewer people will be homeless or need "shelters" because housing will cost less.
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I'm confused by your post. You appear to be aware that this caricature of a homeless person that you've invented is wrong, based on: > The definition of "mentally ill homeless" is surely nuanced and varied, but in the rest of the post you appear to be discussing this strawman as if it is the primary concern.
It's not a caricature. These people are easy to find in many cities. They're not uncommon sights, even if they don't resemble the average homeless person. The question was about the "severely mentally ill". If the counterpoint is that it's rude to acknowledge the people who seem to be utterly insane, well I think that's kind of shit. If it's that these aren't the people we're referring to when we say "severely mental…
Rent effectively doubled from 2009 to 2019. You can ether stay in Mayor Garcetti's fun house or leave. Factor in even if your able to starve off homelessness yourself, your still wasting money that's better saved. I'm happy to know America is full of functional cities where it's still possible to make it. No this doesn't mean you can afford a 2 bdrm on minimum wage, but you can find a room.
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Honestly, I don't know exactly. I haven't thought this through in detail. I just think that living without being involved with a building and such is valid, and I'd like to see it recognized. I believe in harmonious co-existence, so I guess I see it as "anywhere it's not in someone's way", which is what I've practiced for lack of a better option, though I usually don't use a tent in the city. I think it is legitimate…
> I see it as "anywhere it's not in someone's way" I think that's a reasonable take. I don't think that living in a public park is a valid lifestyle choice. Those places can't serve their purpose as public areas for recreation if they are also someone's home. I understand that people do it now because they are desperate. We should provide them with better options. Or at least acceptable options that allow the rest of…
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California had a lot of success with Project Home Key that acquired existing hotels and converts them to supportive housing. It worked well because it was quick and often required only one vote by local authorities. In contrast, building new shelters is too easy to drag out and kill with a thousand paper cuts. Some SF Supervisors have spent years saying they want a homeless shelter in their district, but just can't f…
Being a resident of Seattle I'm not thrilled about the state of Washington making decisions about what happens in my city. I can get behind something like gating funding based on results but I'm not thrilled about the state dictating how the city spends money. I could also get behind the idea of a state-owned-and-operated shelter network which happens to have locations in cities. But in general I have a preference to…
If it were not for the state promising heavy financial consequences for cities failing to plan appropriately for growth, the cities wouldn’t be doing squat about the problem, and things would continue to get worse. How do we know? Because that’s exactly how the last couple of cycles have gone.
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> Make it legal to build homes where people live (looking at you California, specifically LA, SF, SV) Sorry this is BS. Better solution is move people to where the homes are. Lots of cheap empty houses in America, just not on California beaches. Yeah I'd rather live in a tent on Venice beach than a run down house in Ohio too, but homeless dont have a right to live anywhere.
Housing needs to be where the economic opportunity is. That's why there's empty homes in Detroit and a rent burdened population in coastal cities.
You’re assuming homeless who want to live in homes don’t know how to find cheaper housing and must be able to walk to work or that they can commute to work.
Not everyone that works in NYC lives there, and you haven’t been to Detroit recently, you’re very unfair to its recent astronomical changes, it’s a lot more expensive than you’re probably inferring from decades old movies.
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> It is relevant when we are talking about building more housing. Why build something if people won't use it? If the shelters are full, it's clear people are using them. If we start seeing vacancies in shelters, then we can worry about this.
I don’t doubt we need more space now. Vacancies in shelters would suggest we created too much supply, which would be a waste of resources. I prefer to take the approach of understanding the current needs and working to address all of those needs.
Having been homeless, the needs are best served with a reliable friend network, an emergency place you can stay at that is a step above a shelter/church I never been to a woman’s only shelter, I heard they suck too though.
I prefer staying with friends but hidden spots are fine like hammock in a park, storage units, amenities like showers at the gym, or houses, and a feeling of purpose, growth and not failure. Brahmins take an oath of poverty and are respected, as are monks who beg for food. If you can, understand the needs from dogfooding.