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Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

latimes.com

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Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#311

Post by jimmygrapes »

mlinsey wrote: post #138
dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…

Mental health is a large part of the issue, but sometimes cause and effect can be murky. It's important to note that even the very large visible encampments in cities like SF and LA are the tip of the homelessness iceberg, there's a much larger group of people who are living on friends/relatives couches, in their cars, or in shelters. A lot of these people have some level of employment, but housing affordability (a r…

Having been in this hidden group of homeless myself, I will let you in one one little secret. The land-use restriction argument might apply if you consider all homeless people needing housing, but on an individual level there are vacancies in every region... but they are unavailable for other reasons.

Once you strip out the (very visible) addicts and mentally ill, the real reasons for homelessness are: credit score/report, 2-3x income to rent cost requirement, and to a much lesser extent, criminal background checks.

I understand the reasoning for all of these. It's valid. It's also the cause of most non-addict, non-mentally-ill homelessness.

tl:dr; The vacancies often exist, but the credit system prejudges and denies.

(yes, I know private landlords exist who can "work with you" - they aren't the ones with hundreds of units.)

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#312

Post by awsthro00945 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #307
awsthro00945 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno the last time you went and visited a homeless encampment in the US, but many of them do indeed have showers and internet, too (sometimes provided by the government, other times just because these tent cities are legitimate cities). I've seen a lot of tents with cooking areas too, and some even with portable generators, TVs, and fridges. So can we exclude them from the homeless statistics yet?

Not yet. I'd add two more criteria: 1. Can they safely store valuables? If you have an apartment, it's reasonably easy to keep your laptop around. I'd wager that in a tent it'll get stolen eventually. 2. Is this temporary? The German government is expecting refuges to regularly visit the job center and to apply to job openings or to attend language school to improve their employability. So if someone can shower, has…

>1. Can they safely store valuables?

The camps in state's major cities notoriously have armed guards to prevent people from looting or moving the tents, and given that these tents already have all kinds of other furniture like couches, chairs, cabinets, etc, I wouldn't at all be surprised if they have lockable cabinets or drawers. One of the camps nearby has actually formed a "governing board" where they assign people jobs in the camp such as security, gathering more materials and food, etc.

>So if someone can shower, has internet access, can keep a work laptop without it getting stolen, and has been homeless for AFAIK the vast majority of homeless people in my state's major cities have only been homeless since last year.

So I guess we can remove at least 10k people from the US's homeless statistics now?

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#313

Post by csa »

Forge36 wrote: post #43
dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…

Many jobs require an address. Without a mailing address getting the job becomes MUCH harder.

People keep saying this.

It’s trivially easy to get a mailing address for a relatively small amount of money (less than an hour of panhandling).

If someone is committed to getting a job, “mailing address” is not getting in the way.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#314

Post by slickrick216 »

KyleJune wrote: post #308
slickrick216 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have they’re called homeless shelters. Cities shouldn’t actively endorse camping by marking areas and if you think they should would you like to volunteer the streets outside and surrounding your house. Homeless people should be interviewed and those with mental illnesses treated by the state as they are objectively sick people in need of help. Homeless people under 18 should be taken into care. Homeless people…

I agreed with your first 2 paragraphs but for the last one, I think we should be treating addiction as a mental illness. Instead of just locking them up in jail or leaving them on the streets, we should be getting them help.

That’s fair I can see the argument but I think we all have the ability to be addicted to things regardless of your mental health.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#315

Post by balozi »

L.A., like most major US cities, does not harbor slums similar to those found abutted to some other major cities around the world. The growth of informal housing arrangements within public spaces, a la L.A. homeless encampments, maybe a reflection of this. Its possible that slums do indeed play a vital role in urban housing? Since slums have always been viewed a third-world thing, western policy makers may have neglect paying them due consideration.

Where Are The World’s Worst Slums? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q67gldZ1P_8

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#316

Post by matheusmoreira »

bingidingi wrote: post #255
legitster wrote: post #109

This is becoming such a frustrating issue. As an advocate of public spaces and parks, it's kind of heartbreaking that maybe 1/3 of public spaces in our town are no longer usable for all - they have more or less become private spaces for the homeless. I don't have much respect for communities that solve the issue by just "kicking them out" and passing the problem onto others, but it is almost becoming unacceptably com…

some small cities literally buy their homeless bus tickets to get rid of them, and their politicians point to the places they send them as liberalism run amok… how do you even undo such callousness

Happened in my city.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#317

Post by matheusmoreira »

travoc wrote: post #81
jeffbee wrote: post #35

Governments in California are immune from liability for failure to enact or enforce any law, so good luck.

“It is a desperate man who engages his own government in a legal dispute.” -Unknown

What other choice do they have?

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#318

Post by nanidin »

vondur wrote: post #49
dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…

Most of these people are mentally ill, in addition to most likely being addicted to drugs. They can probably never hold down a steady job.

I have thought about this a bit as one of the parks I walk through has a few homeless people and a lot of litter. And I don’t like litter.

Picking up litter in a park isn’t a steady job, but it’s something they can do because they’re already there, and paying them to do it seems better than handouts of equivalent value. It’s a win-win in terms of value exchange, and it doesn’t push the recipient into the mental role of panhandler or beggar or unworthy-person. They did something, they got something for it.

When I've thought through this, some of the scenarios and questions that come up are interesting and I'm not sure how things would play out. Would homeless people litter more, in order to be paid more? Would everyday people litter more because they know the homeless will get paid to pick it up? Is there any net gain for society? Would I be exposed to liability if I were the one paying these people? Should the public be the one paying?

In a way, this thought pattern is akin to finding a way to gig-economize homeless people. idk. Just things on my mind, about my community that I would like to improve.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#319

Post by awsthro00945 »

cloverich wrote: post #305
awsthro00945 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do yourself a favor and don't make assumptions about me. I've volunteered at homeless shelters before. At a previous company, I was in charge of working directly with a homeless shelter to organize volunteer events for my colleagues. I have firsthand experience at homeless shelters that have successfully become shelters where people really want to be there rather than on the street because of the services and environ…

it would be constructive to provide some examples of concrete things municipalities can do, and that we can learn about so we can hold them accountable.

I mentioned it in my earlier comment but in my experience it really comes down to continued funding and not "half assing" efforts. The successful homeless shelter I mentioned earlier is not a revolutionary shelter that is doing vastly different things, it's just a shelter that, due to outside donations and support, is able to actually follow through on things like providing security, nutritional food, community building, and opportunities to gain work experience.

In contrast, some of the other homeless "shelters" I've seen are just barely funded enough by the city to keep the roof from leaking and the lights on with minimal staffing. That just doesn't work.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#320

Post by imbnwa »

keewee7 wrote: post #284

Why do homeless people in the US concentrate in a few big cities with good weather? In Denmark there are fewer of them and they are more spread out and you can also find them in rural areas.

Those few big cities have lax homelessness enforcement. Chicago used to have a massive homeless problem up into the 90s (homeless died in the winter all the time), particularly underneath the freeways and Wacker Drive downtown, then they practically made it illegal and fenced up those spaces.
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