How California Homelessness Became a Crisis
1–10 of 94 posts
Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis
#2When was "experiencing homelessness" term established as the norm? what's wrong with just "homeless"?
Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis
#3In nice weather homelessness is bearable. But californian cities must provide basic sanitation facilities. And maybe some UBI for food, $1000/month should do.
Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis
#4When was "experiencing homelessness" term established as the norm? what's wrong with just "homeless"?
Nothing is really “wrong” with it. However the change reframes homelessness as a temporary state a person experiences rather than a persistent identity of the individual.
Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis
#5When was "experiencing homelessness" term established as the norm? what's wrong with just "homeless"?
My guess is the phrasing is meant to de-emphasize the permanency of homelessness - a lot of working class people drift in and out of homelessness. In order to better the situation you need to have it properly understood and analyzed.
I think the term "unhoused" had a similar goal but avoided the immediacy of "homeless" and was thus ineffective.
Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis
#6When was "experiencing homelessness" term established as the norm? what's wrong with just "homeless"?
Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis
#7I was once homeless in California, strung out on drugs and alcohol, unable to quit or even think about getting treatment for that and my bipolar disorder. It is my opinion that we need to go back to locking people up and forcing them into treatment for their own good. It is inhumane to leave helpless people out on the street because of some abstract concept of personal rights. I understand the motivation of mental health advocates who argue that the government has no right to force people into treatment, but it really is counter-productive. I wish I had been locked up for my own good. I was rescued by the good people at the veterans administration.
Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis
#8When was "experiencing homelessness" term established as the norm? what's wrong with just "homeless"?
Because the lack of housing should not be an identity that we assign to the women, men and children who happen to be going through a rough time in life. They are—first and foremost—human beings. Losing sight of that can lead to dehumanization which can then exacerbate the issue.
Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis
#9I was once homeless in California, strung out on drugs and alcohol, unable to quit or even think about getting treatment for that and my bipolar disorder. It is my opinion that we need to go back to locking people up and forcing them into treatment for their own good. It is inhumane to leave helpless people out on the street because of some abstract concept of personal rights. I understand the motivation of mental he…
And what we have now is a perverse setup where you get locked up after you commit some crime, but get locked up in a prison where little help is provided.
Re: How California Homelessness Became a Crisis
#10In nice weather homelessness is bearable. But californian cities must provide basic sanitation facilities. And maybe some UBI for food, $1000/month should do.
No, California needs to treat it like the medical health crisis it is. If a 8 year old kid is on the streets, we don't focus on how to make it nicer to live on the street for them, we put them in long term care (foster care). It's immoral what California is doing for many of these people who either have debilitating mental illness or have fallen deep into drug use. It's time to reopen the asylums, run them properly, maybe rename them to something more politically correct.
That being said there are also people who are just down on their luck, but the solutions to their problems are very different then the long term homeless. Job programs, transition housing, actually building enough housing to meet demand, and UBI will help them.