Its not compassionate to let people live like animals. Its not compassionate to let people live in unsanitary conditions nor the people subjugated to their filth. Its honestly a heath disaster in the making for the homeless and everyone else. We eradicated disease with hygiene and vaccines.
I’m going to quote this, from MaineLonghorn’s link, because it makes sense to me:
It sounds so easy to simply provide housing and support to those in need and I’m sure it works for some.
My father recently provided a home to a women who had nowhere to live (rented half a house to her. A portion of her entitlement check was to be signed over for rent) The result was she spent her government money on drugs and destroyed the house all while in a rehab program. It was a 9 month eviction process and in the end my dad finally got his rental house back only have to spend $6000 just to have a professional company clean it up. The woman lived rent free all that time and had every support the state of NY could provide. He gave the housing, state gave money and rehab. For the record she did not suffer from mental illness.
Some people either don’t want to be helped or can’t be helped.
@Empireapple So what? There will ALWAYS be people who don’t want to be helped or can’t be helped.
What does that have to do with creating support programs for the VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE do want and who can be?
Are you not going to offer free/inexpensive vaccines because there will ALWAYS be some who refuse to vaccinate their children?
The plural of anecdote is not data.
I’m sorry about your father, Empireapple. But the program MaineLonghorn’s link described is not easy, and is not just a matter of providing housing. They provide supportive housing, with staffers on site 24/7. They don’t just hand homeless people the keys to an apartment.
I’ve heard that. 
I personally think the take away isn’t “do nothing,” it’s “note that we’ll never be able to help everyone.” I know we still try to do what we can focusing on those we think have the best odds of breaking the cycle. We support programs that work - at least for some, education, and health issues. We can’t do it all.
Yes, “supportive housing” is the key. 24/7 support is why my son can live “independently.” The staff makes sure he takes his meds twice a day and gives him rides to and from work. They’re also available just to talk, go on walks, etc. We are very thankful for them.
katliamom where does my post say we should do nothing?
How do you know the vast majority of people want to be helped? Can be helped? You really don’t.
You jump to a lot of conclusions and throw stones. I was sharing a story of how no good deed goes unpunished. (that is an expression in case you are going to take that to a new meaning)
Perhaps you should get personally involved with someone in need of a place to live, rehabilitation, or mental health support and report back to us letting us know how it goes. Then I will make sweeping generalizations and statements about your post.
In case you like data instead of anecdotes, here’s a link to studies of the effectiveness of Housing First programs: http://whatworksforhealth.wisc.edu/program.php?t1=109&t2=126&t3=89&id=349
I haven’t read any of these studies. There are a lot of them though.
Million-Dollar Murray
Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage.
By Malcolm Gladwell
February 5, 2006
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-murray
Here’s a more accessible link:
http://dpbh.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/A%20MillionDollarMurray.pdf
Did anyone else read “Glass Castle”? True story written by a daughter of homeless couple. Her parents didn’t want the responsibility of a stable lodging and became homeless.
We should house those who can take care of themselves and would like a stable lodging and leave others until we find solutions.
Leave them where?
Part of the issue is that those who do not want to follow the requirements of provided housing like no drugs, pets, shopping carts, curfews have no where to go except public streets or parks and they are making those areas unsafe and unusual for others.
The issue is can they be forced into housing, especially housing with the rules? Can they be arrested for littering, for begging outside businesses? Can they be rounded up for their own safety? We do that in my city when it is deadly cold outside, and they don’t like it at all. When good Samaritans hang mittens and scarves on the trees in the civic center park, is that against the law?
Providing housing for those who want help is the easy part, but the question is can housing be forced on people.
Good news out of Maine: https://www.sunjournal.com/2019/04/22/maine-gets-federal-support-to-address-homelessness-among-mainecare-members/?fbclid=IwAR36EBN7fLFZpe-ipNhtJ__PzjJb0kQ7YKujioC80BKsFRQRrToiu0H0WGU
(In an unrelated news story, but more good news, Maine is doing away with any religious or philosophical exemptions for vaccinations!)
@Empireapple – I currently work with a family living in a shelter. In fact, I’ve been helping them for well over a year. So I do have experience with people in need. Funny you assumed I don’t.
My sister just went thru a similar experience. She has an “apartment” above her garage that she allowed a father and 2 kids to rent at a low rate (she felt sorry for them). The dad was employed, but lowish income. Rent included utilities because there weren’t separate meters.
He paid rent one month and then stopped paying. Ran the heat and A/C max which drove up their utility bills. The eviction process took FOREVER. She had to go to court twice and then finally an eviction notice was made. 30 days after that, the police came and escorted him out of the property.
My sis had quite a mess to clean up, new flooring, paint, etc.
I don’t know what the answer is. Housing is needed, but private citizens can’t be left vulnerable like this. More public housing? Fine. Don’t know how long public housing puts up with people not paying anything.
Supportive housing takes out 30 percent of clients’ income (SSI, SSDI) automatically.
I just spent 6 months in an economically challenged county. A large % of the population is under poverty level and the majority of the families get public subsidies. The joke is that mostceveryone there “works” for the government.
Drugs, criminal proclivity, mental illness, homelessness, poverty, lack of employment opportunities are all big time factors there. Those items intermingle so it’s difficult separating from them from each other.
There used to be a large psychiatric hospital there. Now, there is a small unit that focuses in getting anyone admitted or committed out within 3 days. Its not place to stay. So there are many more homeless roaming the area. Many refuse to stay in the homeless shelters because of the rules and because they feel the accommodations are not to their liking. Few reported assaults of any police events from those shelters—I checked. Families and community refuse to give this population shelter because many of them have burned those bridges with abuse. One, a cousin, had her house go up in flames when her adult son fell asleep smoking (so is the story anyway) and he had left horrible messed for her to clean up each time she let him stay with her.
It’s jail and the streets for many of them. Really, they have to hide because the area does not permit setting up a tent or home in the open, unlike cities like SanFrancisco and Seattle. These vagabond endure a lot of abuse. More than the State Hospital residents in the past? I don’t know. But old timers who had family in there say, those who were kept in the SH were clean, decently fed and more were easier to have at home for visits. DH had family members who spent time in there, and he affirms that criminal records, filth, physical medical issues were not as pervasive as they are for these homeless now living worse than feral cats in the area.
I am not equating this group with those who are also homeless in that they have no place of their own to live but have a place to go with friends, family etc. Yes, I know a number of those too. Who often move on to some subsidized arrangement more private than a friend or family member’s sofa. I’ve subsidized some of my own kids that way. The ones I see driving around town or in the backwoods, look entirely different.
Some have been taken to other locales and walked a hundred miles or so back “home” which is what they consider their local homeless haunts here. They avoid the hospital, jail and shelters with equal verve.
I don’t know what the answer to this problem is. I’ve known the area for 50 years, and there was not this large number of homeless nomads, who live off of dumpster, trash leavings. Handouts, cat-food ( yes, a lot of people here leave out food and water for the large feral and stray cat population ), begging, theft, prostitution, drug sales keep them going. Drugs are a huge problem for much of the area population, and this group is right there in the midst of the traffic. Few attend the outreach programs that are in place. The police reports have a number of them featured each week.
There is a lot of public housing in this town, and upkeep and crime, an issue there. But this group is not welcome even in the Public Housing area because they’ve burned that bridge and can’t keep to the sanitation and laws required to stay in those units. A cousin who grew up here knows a lot of them, and says they are mostly mentally ill and unable to function to care for themselves in the most basic hygiene and behavior standards. Whether their mental state is due to drugs or illness, is often not discernible. Often both, and they refuse to sustain any treatment for either.
So what do you do with a growing population that does break the law, filth up the area, bother people on a regular basis? Who do not want any of the alternatives offered. Many value their freedom above all. It has been attempted to set up “camp” in an area away from town, providing rudimentary shelter, water, outhouses, food, but when a cluster of these folks are created anywhere, problems occur. That they are scattered throughout the area keeps the impact of their issues lower. Better some of the dumpster house some of them singularly, and other locales have them hiding out than a critical core when in fighting becomes an issue and trash accumulates. I have photos of some small encampments, and the county dump and the worst hoarder homes look like resorts next to what these areas have become. Needles and other paraphernalia all over the place along with excrement and other garbage. The county swoops in and cleans up these outposts several times a year.