Transient, Drug Addicted, Homeless

Parent Cafe
141

This is true, but there is overlap at the border of these two groups. You can’t cure someone of mental illness by putting them in an SRO, but at least they’d have a roof over their head and they might be more mentally stable. You can’t cure drug addiction by putting someone in an SRO, but when SROs existed, drunks and addicts lived in them, and that was better for pretty much everyone than drunks living on the streets.

And it seems to me that the process of becoming homeless because of money could lead someone to express mental illness or become addicted to drugs, when that person would have been mentally healthy enough to work, or not an addict, if they had a place to live. Being homeless has got to exacerbate any unstable tendencies someone has.

So if we solved the problem of the lack of housing, we’d still have mentally ill and addicted people living on the streets, but we’d have fewer of them. We’d still need to figure out how to support them and get them off the streets, but we would have made our problem smaller.

NIMBYs who don’t want any kind of homelessness solution (a shelter, a halfway house, a shelter for victims of domestic abusers, supported housing for the mentally disabled, a tiny house development for homeless working people) in their neighborhood are exacerbating the problem.

142

@royalcroftmom. Again, what’s your solution? And are you willing to pay higher taxes to support more police, more jails, more psychiatric hospitals, social workers, etc., to carry out the mass rounding up and dealing with the homeless in your city? If so great. At least you’re willing to pay and keep paying for that “solution.” Just don’t be shocked if your neighbors aren’t. But will ■■■■■ and moan about the homeless nobody is doing anything about.

143

@TatinG I agree that there are different solutions to homelessness due to high costs vs. homelessness due to illness/drugs etc.

I’ve also thought about employers and where they’re located, but the idea of tech companies being “encouraged to expand into areas where housing is lower cost” is also problematic. In order to attract the best workers, tech companies need to be located in desirable areas. Before Denver was hip, it wasn’t easy to recruit top East Coast/West Coast talent to a city where some thought people rode horses to school :wink: Now companies are finding this same talent doesn’t want to commute or live in the burbs… it wants to be in hip downtown Denver. So three major employers had to move at least part of their corporate headquarters from the cheaper suburbs into an already expensive city. To remain competitive.

144

Whatever happened to “not living beyond your means”? If you can’t afford to live in San Francisco, then you don’t live in San Francisco. If you have a great job but can’t afford a studio apartment within 200 miles of the office, then maybe the job isn’t as great as you think. Something has to give - you can’t just pitch a tent in the middle of the street and hang your clothes over the nearest municipal bike rack.

145

Excrement on the street is disgusting. It’s revolting. (Clean up after your dogs, people.) But I am probably more sympathetic than most about this disgusting issue, because I have spent months on the road on my bike, not having an house nearby. Finding a place to do one’s business, even when you absolutely want to be sanitary, is sometimes not easy. Spare a thought to the kid who is on the streets because she has been thrown out of her family’s house for being trans. She doesn’t want to poop on the street, but after three days homeless she’s filthy and nobody will let her into a business to use their bathroom. Public facilities around homeless people can be unavailable or hopelessly befouled by people whose mental illness includes feces-smearing, or whose drug addiction means they don’t care what they’re doing with their waste. She can’t wait to poop until she finds a stable living situation.

I don’t poop on the street, of course, but if I lived on the street in some cases I wouldn’t have a choice.

146

What ever happened to George Lucas’ plan, when his Marin County neighbors tried to block him from expanding his studio, to instead use the land to build affordable housing?? https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/04/15/george-lucas-planning-payback-with-massive-affordable-housing-project-on-his-marin-county-land/ Brilliant idea!

147

Who then is going to clean Google’s offices, serve hamburgers to Facebook’s employees, take care of the children whose parents work at Apple, teach in Bay Area schools, fight fires in the mountains, if all those people move to the Midwest? This kind of blind faith in the market doesn’t seem to be working, because the market is being prevented from building housing.

148

Apparently the plan is stalled due to … I’m shocked, shocked … neighborhood opposition…

149

Building massive housing projects in the middle of nowhere without any infrastructure to go with it (Roads? Transportation? Schools? Etc.) is not always a good idea.

150

@BunsenBurner I agree, but this isn’t in the middle of nowhere… it’s 40-45 minutes from San Francisco, Oakland & Napa. What’s really going on here is that the area is more & more attractive to commuters and remote-workers. Neighbors don’t want their property values to go down… gotta make your million-five profit when you sell your cheaply built 1200 sq ft. bungalow…

151

Again, the main thing I see is that certain people here think of the homeless as “them”, not “us”, Since these people are “them”, they do not deserve the support, aid, and treatment that people who belong to “us” deserve.

People belonging to “them” are poor because they’re lazy and parasitic, and not REALLY mentally ill, but just faking it, and choose to take drugs because they’re weak and, again, lazy. Therefore, if “they” don’t have money for food or shelter, they should be left to starve or freeze, if “they” use drugs, they should be thrown in jail, if “they” show signs of mental illness they should either be ignored, or thrown in jail if they disturb the peace of “us”,

On the other hand, people from “us” are poor because they are unlucky, suffer from REAL mental illness and are addicted because of One Bad Decision. So people who are “us” should get jobs with livable wages, financial support, affordable housing, and aid to help them get back onto their feet. They should get publicly supported medical treatment for their mental illness, and get publicly supported rehab treatment,m because “we” deserve it, but “they” don’t.

It’s a very simple way of thinking of life, and allows people to treat others as less than human, while, at the same time, hold on to the illusion that they are good, caring people. For others, it allows the illusion that they are People With a Clear Vision Of Reality, Who Have The Courage To Make The Tough Decisions, And The Willingness To Accept the Cost, Unlike the Weak But Well Meaning Bleeding Hearts. Of course, the decisions are never actually tough on them, and they never actually pay any of the cost, but it’s always easy to be stoic and brave in the face of other people’s pain, suffering, and loss.

The different iterations of “giving money to the poor only makes them dependent on handouts” are nothing more than pretending that one’s stinginess and selfishness are actually charity in disguise. If you don’t want to share with the poor, don’t, but don’t try and pretend that not helping others makes you a better or more moral person.

Re: RV people. I find it amusing that people think that this is a new phenomenon. Who do you think most of the “Flower Children” were? Who do you all think that 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s “Beach Bums” were? Drugs, partying, overflowing facilities, panhandling, prostitution, and petty crime, exactly the same thing. It’s just that the old locations are either much more popular with the public, and consequently more frequented by the public, or are now next to expensive beach front property with private security forces which illegally keep the public from using the beaches themselves. They also communicate more quickly because of internet and cellphones, so that info about available beaches spreads much faster than it could 40 years ago.

I really like Millennials, and have a lot of hope for the way they’ll run the world. However, I do wish that they would stop thinking that they have invented things that have been around for decades or centuries.

152

Population growth/density over the past few decades also makes the homeless much more apparent to the average person than it was a few decades ago, especially in certain west coast communities.

153

It might look like it is 45 minutes from SF, but the reality is quite different. Can Lucas Valley road handle hundreds of cars going in and out of the area? What about 101? Suburban sprawl is never a good thing without added infrastructure.

Land closer to SF and SV is insanely expensive. I have been traveling to that area several times a year for many years, and it is amazing that there are very few residential buildings that are taller than a few stories in Silicon Valley. Seattle BTW just upzoned a few areas especially next to the new light rail allowing taller residential buildings.

154

Actually, @MWolf I don’t see anyone engaging in the US vs. Them dichotomy except you, who has apparently accepted the situation as unsolvable at present and too complex for us dumb minions to understand. Dozens of cities have dealt with the homeless issue without giving over the city to them-no one is living in Trafalgar square (tho I am sure many want to) or outside the Louvre pavilion ( again prime location) or in the gorgeous parks and promenade of Vienna. All those cities have mentally ill and addicted people who would probably wish to live in those locations,if allowed to do so. The point is, they aren’t allowed to do so. Yes, I am sure they are offered social services (as they are here in most places), but regardless of whether they accept those services or not, the status quo of remaining in the park is not an option. Rather than a lack of compassion, those cities show a degree of community welfare for all citizens-tens of thousands are not to be denied access to a public space so that a few dozen can choose to camp out there. The greater good is a concept worth considering.

155

Regarding the disdain that certain posters expressed earlier to the “virtue signaling” comment made by another poster, I think the comment I quoted above drew first blood and was extremely offensive. And, right or wrong, when someone zings you the natural reaction is to zing back.

To basically claim a poster or posters have “little compassion” and “so little empathy” or “little humanity” and “find it so easy to dehumanize people…” and consider the poor “lazy and evil” when discussing a topic that, we can all agree, is becoming a growing problem is what I think shuts down productive dialogue and solutions that could possibly satisfy all sides.

I don’t have any answers but I do appreciate the posters who are brainstorming on possible solutions and what has worked in other communities. I think it will take a combination of approaches from many sides, so it would be great if communities could work together for the good of the whole and not throw around such hyperbole as was quoted above.

156

I’m very interested in this becoming a national conversation & finding solutions.

It seems to me the Federal Gov’t needs to be part of the solution. It’s a lot to ask of a municipality?

In addition to people living on the streets in high COL cities, poverty & decaying communities are widespread in the USA. I live in one!

It’s been really hard to see this city decay, neighborhood by neighborhood. We do have people living on the streets, but mostly we house the working poor for the surrounding affluent suburbs.

One thing that intrigues me about UBI (universal basic income) is getting the help directly to where it’s needed, say, a rural community in Kentucky. And eliminating the hoop jumping in order to access other safety net services. IDK…

I think I’d rather the taxpayers provide housing for people who cannot (or will not) manage to work, stay clean and stay sober. If not, the problem does not go away, it spills into communities.

157

We need better supports for the mentally ill, better and longer term services for recovering addicts, and certainly more help for our Veterans. We need more group homes, more affordable and comprehensive health care services (as a whole in general but for this topic, for medications for the mentally ill), and affordable housing. We also need better neurotropic medications with fewer side effects so people will continue taking them.

I totally agree this will require a federal solution…and it will be expensive.

158

I think each community needs to address what percent of their homeless come from those that are poverty-stricken, have a mental illness, or a substance abuse issue and the ones that I think someone mentioned earlier are doing it as a lifestyle choice and are blogging about it. For example, some areas might have a higher percentage of homeless due to poverty than other areas. Once you get a handle on what the needs are in a particular community then you can begin to brainstorm on how to satisfy the needs.

I think we could all agree on the ones who are doing it as a lifestyle choice and blogging about it are taking away valuable resources from those who could, and should, get need-based aid.

159

"I totally agree this will require a federal solution…and it will be expensive.

It definitely won’t be cheap but it’s not cheap now, both direct and hidden costs. And incarcerating and/or institutionalizing folks, as several have suggested in this thread, would cost more.

160

“the ones who are doing it as a lifestyle choice and blogging about it”

Is that truly significant in terms of numbers?