271–280 of 515 posts
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San Francisco has a $156M annual budget to address homelessness. That's not a small amount of money. First let's make sure that it's being spend efficiently.
Most of which is spent on rent, so it ends up in the pockets of the landowners. And it doesn't go as far as it needs, thanks to the crazy high rents. It's a vicious circle.
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Where I live, it is more the opposite. People come here with irrational dreams, get on the street, fall into bad things, and then through dehydration, stress and living on the street, they become more irrational, and eventually permanently changed.
That's a good point, but if you're talking about addiction, mental illness is a precursor to addictive behavior. It is one of the major reasons why people self-medicate. Certainly is not the only reason. My philosophy is: certain things are good for everyone if everyone has them. Some of these things: food, education, healthcare, place to sleep (securely), modest personal possessions, and so forth. Reasons are mostly…
If people could separate themselves from their emotions, if they were taught stoicism, Buddhism or how free will and the self is a (likely) an illusion, then maybe they'd be stronger.
I can't elaborate, but I know people worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that are young, beautiful and have everything, but can't handle life, and tried to kill themselves but why?
Because an obese corrupt doctor told them that he knew the mysteries of the brain, and that they need to take a lighter form of methamphetamine every day for the rest of their life to be normal.
As Dr. Carl Hart explained, adderall is basically meth- http://www.vice.com/read/a-neuroscientist-explains-how-he-fo...
That person is in college, and the social acceptance of taking adderall to succeed is scary. If you can handle a low dose, great, I'm all for practicality. But most can't and the idea that amphetamines can cure a lack of focus is pseudoscience.
So excuse my tone, but I don't believe in what you said. The problem is behavioral choices (health, what you read/watch/interact) and learning how to deal with one's own thoughts and impulses, not mythical theories on brain chemisty.
What you are saying is often the cause of the problem, not the solution.
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Seems to me it should be people who grew up with the internet. So late 90's/early 2000's onwards. As someone who was born in 1990 and had exposure to the world pre-internet it seems like there's a clear divide between my culture/outlook and those who have only ever known a world with internet.
What you are describing (late 90s, early 2000s onwards) is the definition of generation Z: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z Millennials are the group born in the 80s/early 90s and were introduced the internet at some point while they were growing up, rather than it having always existed as part of their life. Nobody is really sure what generation Z is like yet, but they are definitely different than millenn…
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Our super-Conservative government for the last decade (now replaced by a young, hip, Liberal one) was actually really big behind the 'housing-first' method of helping the homeless (you get an apartment, no questions asked, then we work on your drug problems, etc later), and put a lot of money towards it. At first, this seems very socially liberal and at odds with a Conservative party kind of thing until you look at t…
Well, that's great, then. It seems like a liberal calling card but appeals to everyone's desire to save money while providing actually useful social services. So what's the political argument against it?
The conservatives we have in the US are so extreme they make even the ones in Canada look very, very liberal. A proposal like that here would induce horrible rage and kicking and screaming about "the free market" and "entitlements". Someone would be called a communist. Maybe impeached. Conservatives run on platforms of removing programs that help the poor, not starting new ones.
There's a reason the blog poster addressed his open letter to the chief of police, and not to a local homeless charity with a check attached. He doesn't want to help solve the problem, he just wants to whine about it really loud to powerful people without doing any work or spending any money and hope it goes away.
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The issue my be complex but you don't see the same thing in most of Europe or Canada which suggests it's not immune to government action.
Just an anecdote, but when I studied in a mid-sized city in France a bit over a decade ago, one night after walking home from the bar, I commented to my host mom that I was surprised at the number of homeless people. She seemed confused, so I mentioned people sleeping in the doorways of businesses that were shuttered for the night. Her reply has always stuck with me. "Oh! No, they're not homeless, they're Roma."
[All of this is a simplification, and I'm omitting a lot here. The gist ought to be correct, and, I hope, fair to all.]
There are certain cultural barriers when it comes to the Roma. When you have an itinerant population like the Roma (and in Ireland and the UK, Travellers), you will naturally end up with with a conflict of some kind between the settled and travelling populations in a given area, unless both populations are familiar with one another, and even then the opportunities for discrimination are huge. The situation with Travellers in Ireland and the UK isn't as bad as the Roma situation, as the itinerant Roma population is self-isolating and can't speak the same language as the host settled population, whereas at least Travellers can speak the same language, so they're not as isolated from the settled population as the Roma are.
With Travellers, the core issue is that the trades that once allowed them to afford their lifestyle are no longer useful to society at large, so their opportunities for employment are few and far between, which unfortunately leads a greater number down the path of criminality [aside: the vast majority are decent people, but when you're deprived of opportunities, that's going to lead some people to crime]. Add to this that the modern state practically demands a settled lifestyle for things like taxation, education, healthcare, &c., which even further alienates the Traveller and settled populations. Now, you could suggest that they just settle, and some do, but people tend to be attached to their heritage, so for many that's not a runner.
With the Roma, all of that is even worse because they have the added language barrier and an even bigger cultural barrier. Moreover, you also have a trafficking problem surrounding some of the Roma where they're exploited as beggars, and sometimes worse.
So yes, the Roma situation is a completely separate situation from that of homelessness in general, and one nobody has any good answers for yet.
San Francisco, like many other towns, is a troubled place if you look closely. Homelessness is a complex and overwhelming problem with no easy solution. Addressing it in a practical, effective, and humane way will take concerted action by government and the residents of this city together. There's no other way.
As real as the author's discomfort and frustration may be, his words stink. Here is someone who neither recognizes the full potential of his undeniable privilege, nor sees its true limitations. He wants change, but having already paid for it, is entitled to it (he seems to say), and so the burden rests on others to fix the problem.
Justin Keller knows what a good society should (literally) look like, but he doesn't understand how to get there. I'm hoping he doesn't lack the empathy and humanity his words and tone suggest.
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I'm going to be pedantic, but only because I think that's how the letter guy is going to try and get out of this too. The letter did not say that "there shouldn't be homeless people living in the streets". Both it and GP said he shouldn't have to see homeless people. The letter writer certainly wouldn't care if the homeless people were still homeless, so long as they were bussed somewhere he didn't have to gaze upon…
> so long as they were bussed somewhere he didn't have to gaze upon their poor faces. Lucky him, San Francisco offers one way bus tickets to anywhere for homeless people: http://www.ibtimes.com/homeless-bus-ticket-programs-across-n...
A lot of SF's homeless are from elsewhere, people who came here on a hope, or just because of SF's reputation as a city that's friendly to weirdos. (That's certainly part of why I came.)
If they can't make it here, SF offers them a way to get home again, but only if there is actually someone there who can put them up, and only if they're in good enough condition to travel. Details are here:
That is distinctly different from places that dump their homeless residents here. E.g.:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-Nevada-reach-tenta...
This fucking sucks. I know Justin personally, and to see the vitriol being spewed forth at him makes my stomach churn. His blog post was clearly written out of frustration, and lacked nuance, but in no way does it justify the response it has received. None of these scathing articles or drive-by tweets are asking for clarification. Instead, his character is being assassinated as an extension of the growing fervor arou…
the 'mob' you're talking about is called 'civilization'. It's not 'growing fervor around [...] political correctness' that is driving the outrage; it's the deep-rooted, long-standing fervor about maintaining the minimum standard of being an empathetic, decent human being, which your friend has failed. It's possible to write a letter to the mayor demanding solutions. It's possible to roll up your sleeves and try to do…
Really? Because it doesn't feel very civilized to me. It's a public lynching. You can express your differing opinion about the problem and the potential solutions, but to spend the majority of an article publicly ridiculing someone for a poorly worded expression of frustration is completely disgusting.
> It's not 'growing fervor around [...] political correctness' that is driving the outrage; it's the deep-rooted, long-standing fervor about maintaining the minimum standard of being an empathetic, decent human being, which your friend has failed.
well it's at least as misplaced as Justin's article was. Justin, and people like him, are not the root of the problem. Attack the problem, attack the solution, but don't attack the people who point out the problems or propose the solutions. It may help you feel self-righteous, but it's not productive.
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The "homeless" must want and work (mentally and emotionally) for help in order for it to work. fullstop. In my experience, most do not want to put in the effort to kick the habits, contribute to society in a meaningful way, or tell you it is too late. The reality is a lot of them prefer the "lifestyle" and "freedom" to do whatever the hell they want whenever the hell they want to do it. They have a completely differe…
It's pretty clear that you have absolutely zero experience about mental health or human psychology. Amongst other things, most people will attempt to adapt to their situation and retain a sense of agency. That is one reason why you'll find that homeless people speak of the positive aspects of their lifestyle and act as though it's a choice. This is no different from a startup founder extolling the virtues of their 80…
In other cases, I deal with the long, slow, and painful descent age and terminal disease bring to people's mental faculties.
In yet other cases, I get to talk with regular 911 callers that we wake up with Narcan, drunks that are simply sleeping on the side of the road, drug seekers that have "fallen" or been "hit by a car" (with no injury to speak of)... and more.
So, generally speaking, I get to see people when they are being quite "real" or at least "true" to the event that has taken place. That doesn't make me an expert in human psychology, and I would not claim such. However, as a group, EMS personnel can cut through the bullshit a lot faster than most. Over the course of years, comparing what people say to what they do... one can not mistake the patterns. No "human psychology" textbook will teach you that.
The sad part about the blog post is that it does identify a big homelessness problem, but does so in a way that is callous and doesn't really help. I spend a couple of weeks in SF this month, and was shocked at the level of homelessness that we find even in very well off districts. This is not something that is common in the big cities of the world. The city is OK with tents everywhere, but that's not really that goo…
One of the (many) things that Keller — and many of the folks here who sound like newcomers to SF — don’t get is that the homeless population is not a new thing in San Francisco. It was just like this during the 1990’s, and some say it goes all the way back to when Reagan shut down California mental health services in the 70’s.
The problem with housing the homeless in SF is where to build housing. SF is built out; you have to tear something down to build anything. There are some housing projects, but they tend to house families with kids, and they don't want large numbers of single druggies dumped on them.
Any ideas?