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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

#361

Post by pandaman »

TMWNN wrote: post #358
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.

As imbnwa said, it's lack of enforcement. Ignore those who say that it's good weather. San Diego has homeless but not nearly as many as San Francisco, despite San Diego having probably the best weather in the US. San Francisco, however, has many more services for the homeless than San Diego.

Or Austin, which has horrible weather but its mayor just allows "city camping".

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

#362

Post by zepto »

pseudalopex wrote: post #328
zepto wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you'll learn that while drugs are restricted at the shelter, it's a fantastic place to meet people who use drugs and find new sources of drugs Is this not also a problem at homeless encampments?

Making it illegal to be homeless means outside encampments too.

No it doesn’t. People already sell drugs outside of homeless encampments. Making it illegal to be homeless changes nothing.

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

#363

Post by GaryTang »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #317
travoc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What other choice do they have?

The only choice they have is to move. If your city no longer acknowledges you, the costs of moving are small in comparison

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

#364

Post by pas »

slg wrote: post #335
davidf18 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free market approach would work but the real-estate markets are not free markets: There is rent-seeking zoning density restrictions that make the land artificially scarce. Reverse the zoning density restrictions and this will be a return to eliminating the market failure in real-estate.

Allowing more denser zoning would help, but it doesn't fix the problem I mentioned. As I said, new construction is often replacing higher density affordable housing with lower density luxury housing. This is motivated by profit and not zoning.

Mandating density increase would solve this.

Of course the problem is that US cities are legally small, the metro areas are big sprawling low density money sinks, and there's very little zoning coordination between cities in a metro area.

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

#365

Post by pas »

emodendroket wrote: post #353
hintymad wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how Japan could manage their cities so well, even though they also have their own share of homeless people. As for the US, I think the US people brought the problem upon themselves, at least in some degree: it's increasingly rare to see serious discussions on pros and cons of different solutions. Instead, it's all about politics. The moment someone wants to discuss a solution, somewhere some activist or poli…

This seems like a misdiagnosis. To my mind, the obvious problem is the wailing and gnashing of teeth whenever someone suggests building an apartment complex, let alone a homeless shelter. Impossible to take a step to address the problem if every proposal is shut down by concerned homeowners making a scene at every town meeting.

This town meeting driven zoning is ridiculously unique to America. In most places there's a faceless bureaucracy that decides whether the to issue the permit or not. They mechanistically check the zoning and other regulations and that's it. The neighbors can go to court if they seriously think the bureaucracy missed something.

Public hearing only happens when it's a public project.

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

#366

Post by pas »

slickrick216 wrote: post #314
KyleJune wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The ability? Sure but people with enough real substance in their lives have a much much greater motivation to manage their drug consumption. When you don't have much to lose, it becomes easy to don't give a fuck about the eventual problems of comedown, showing up to work, etc. And this uncaring aimlessness, short-term thinking is itself a sign of mental health problems. (Depression.)

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

#367

Post by pseudalopex »

zepto wrote: post #362
pseudalopex wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making it illegal to be homeless means outside encampments too.

No it doesn’t. People already sell drugs outside of homeless encampments. Making it illegal to be homeless changes nothing.

Making it illegal to be homeless means making it illegal to be homeless. Not just in encampments.

They said homeless shelters have a lot of drug activity. You implied encampments do too. What was your point if it wasn't about encampments?

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

#368

Post by pas »

tdfx wrote: post #306
cduzz wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would ask you to think through the logistics of managing any of your proposed solutions when you don't have a safe place to sleep or store your stuff. Instructions like 1) leave your stuff some place out of your control 2) somehow get to a parking lot where people pick up day workers 3) hang out with day laborers hoping to get a job 4) get in a random truck on the promise that someone will pay you 5) get driven som…

I can only speak to the situations I've encountered, but: (1) There's churches nearby that offer lockers for the homeless (2) They don't need to go anywhere, these jobs drive around looking for them (3) See #2 (4) Illegal immigrants do this every day, and they often don't even speak the same language (5) Seems OK. (6) Seems OK. (7) Seems reasonable the business operator will want to continue the arrangement if they d…

Illegal immigrants have the mental resilience required to power through. They usually have a support network (family, relatives, maybe in the worst case some criminal organization that made a deal with them to exploit their labor).

Homeless folks on the other hand don't have this (and that's why they homeless, and usually they burned all their bridges before they ended up on the street because the aforementioned mental health problems).

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

#369

Post by pseudalopex »

coryrc wrote: post #346
pseudalopex wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many cities have inadequate shelters. And shelters have many restrictions encampments don't.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28067093

Beggars can't be choosers is an aphorism for a reason.

It's good when beggars' few belongings are stolen isn't an aphorism for a reason.

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

#370

Post by zepto »

pseudalopex wrote: post #367
zepto wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn’t. People already sell drugs outside of homeless encampments. Making it illegal to be homeless changes nothing.

Making it illegal to be homeless means making it illegal to be homeless. Not just in encampments. They said homeless shelters have a lot of drug activity. You implied encampments do too. What was your point if it wasn't about encampments?

Their point was about drug activity being a problem in shelters relative to encampments.

Your comments about making homelessness illegal seem like a non-sequitur.

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