Homeless Problem in Houston (Allen, San Diego: real estate market, apartments, eviction)

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Dopo

I think this is America's achilles tendon = how we handle homelessness

Every community of 50-100k people should have a homeless center
where people can go and get food, shower, sleep ... and then they are placed in a program to get back up on their feet.

Instead, we treat homeless people like a pest.

There are such places. Many of them will not go.

[atadytic19]

Originally Posted by bu2

Yes those other cities are worse, but downtown is worse than it was 10 years ago. There were very few up San Jacinto/Caroline back then. Now there are tent cities up there starting just north of Toyota Center up towards the Courthouse.

Yes, but they move around so areas that they were not in before are occupied by them now, but on the flip side areas where they were heavy before are now less occupied.

The Wheeler station area was the worst, now it is a lot better. The Greyhound area is perpetually bad, but even that area seems less concentrated than before. Closer to Main Street Square was another heavily occupied area that seems not as bad now.

Just because they are on new streets doesn't necessarily mean the numbers increased because they might just be migrating.

Under 59 is perpetually bad, although they are shewed away for major events

[oil capital]

Originally Posted by bu2

Yes those other cities are worse, but downtown is worse than it was 10 years ago. There were very few up San Jacinto/Caroline back then. Now there are tent cities up there starting just north of Toyota Center up towards the Courthouse.

Where, exactly? I am in that area pretty frequently on bike, foot and in a car and have not seen anything I would call a tent city. There is often a group of homeless at Caroline and Prairie, but it's hardly a tent city, let alone plural tent cities.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by atadytic19

Yes, but they move around so areas that they were not in before are occupied by them now, but on the flip side areas where they were heavy before are now less occupied.

The Wheeler station area was the worst, now it is a lot better. The Greyhound area is perpetually bad, but even that area seems less concentrated than before. Closer to Main Street Square was another heavily occupied area that seems not as bad now.

Just because they are on new streets doesn't necessarily mean the numbers increased because they might just be migrating.

Under 59 is perpetually bad, although they are shewed away for major events

Last time I was in that area was during the final 4, so maybe they moved people away from Root Square Park and 59 so they weren't in sight of Toyota Center. It was far worse than I ever remember seeing in the main part of downtown.

[atadytic19]

Originally Posted by bu2

Last time I was in that area was during the final 4, so maybe they moved people away from Root Square Park and 59 so they weren't in sight of Toyota Center. It was far worse than I ever remember seeing in the main part of downtown.

They keep moving. Downtown/Midtown has always been bad. But like I said before, the tents are something that are more noticable now.

Remember when Market square was a homeless camp without the tents? Jones Plaza was too. The whole stretch of Main Street from Congress to Dallas used to be bad.

As areas get upgraded they get shuttled around. But the use of tents stands out more than when they used to sleep out in the open air.

There is also a large contingent of addicts and dealers that mix in with the homeless crowd even though they are not technically unhoused.

[H'ton]

Originally Posted by texas7

That’s because Mayor Turner has “cleaned up” the downtown area to attract money making events. Many of of those dismantled tent cities are now living under bridges, and what little wooded areas they can find behind strip centers, etc. in the suburbs that many of them were driven to. I worked downtown for decades and there are still more on the downtown streets than in the 90’s. They are now in suburbs like Clear Lake urinating, defecating and generally leaving trash, drug paraphernalia in parking lots and playgrounds. Many are violent. Businesses are suffering as people no longer want to patronize those areas. As a native Houston, the changes in recent years are staggering. The city, in an effort to look cleaner and less an eyesore, is basically pushing them out as far as they reasonably can and making it another area’s problem. A friend who works with homeless in SugarLand recently was trying to assist an older gentleman who was new to the area. He told her he stayed at a shelter in Houston that he found to be dangerous. They drove him to SugarLand and dropped him off and said he would be fine because there is money there.

The suburbs are so fed up, they have little compassion for it any more. As an additional issue, The working poor who live in their cars are now having police and sheriff agencies called on them when they try and park on busier parking lots fir safety because residents don’t want to see that vagrancy in their communities with no assistance from the city. The working poor is a different breed of homeless. They aren’t drinking and drugging it up but just trying to get by.

If you think Houston "has cleaned up the homeless problem and pushed them to the suburbs", you are mistaken..they are EVERYWHERE.


This is an American problem..every where around the US (cities and small towns) have these issues.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by H'ton

If you think Houston "has cleaned up the homeless problem and pushed them to the suburbs", you are mistaken..they are EVERYWHERE.


This is an American problem..every where around the US (cities and small towns) have these issues.

Suburbanites have been complaining that "Houston pushes its homeless out to our neighborhood, it's unfair!" for DECADES. Probably because they can't fathom that their own areas generate homelessness too. People who claim this are just full of it.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

Suburbanites have been complaining that "Houston pushes its homeless out to our neighborhood, it's unfair!" for DECADES. Probably because they can't fathom that their own areas generate homelessness too. People who claim this are just full of it.

And the entire time, suburban churches were coming into Houston to feed the homeless, leaving trash and human waste everywhere. When we lived in Midtown around 2000, we had to pretty much threaten retribution to prevent churches from feeding the homeless in Baldwin Park, rather than one of the open blocks Downtown, where the homeless actually were, so the homeless wouldn't move into a park where our kids played.

[atadytic19]

Originally Posted by WRM20

When we lived in Midtown around 2000, we had to pretty much threaten retribution to prevent churches from feeding the homeless in Baldwin Park...

Baldwin Park is another Houston gem with an interesting history that had become basically a homeless camp before it was given new life

Julia Elizabeth Baldwin Brown was the wife of William Marsh Rice, founder of Rice U.

People familiar with Rice's story might know that his death and the subsequent litigation surrounding his will was quite the scandal. Lawyers for both Baldwin and Rice seemed to have drawn up wills that were suspicious.

After Elizabeth died, the 1900 Hurricane hit which damaged some of Rice's businesses. Rice was in the process of rebuilding when his attorneys plotted to kill him so they could get to that money he was using to rebuild.

Anyway, the plot came to light and Baldwin and Rice's estates went on to fund their respective projects. funds from the estate of Elizabeth Baldwin was used to purchase the land that became Baldwin Park, and the fountain (or what's left of it) was dedicated to Charlotte Baldwin Allen, the wife of Houston Founder Augustus Allen.

I am really happy that Baldwin Park is much healthier now than it was 20 years ago. The contributions of women from that period in history is largely glossed over. Both Augustus Allen and William Rice had abandoned Houston in their later years.

Elizabeth's will may have saved the fledgling Rice Institute as William had plans to divert money to an orphanage in New Jersey.

After John Allen died, Augustus moved to Mexico and left the management of his interests in Houston to Charlotte. She is even credited with the idea to name the city Houston. Sad that the only monuments to her is a hotel downtown and a busted fountain.

[oil capital]

Originally Posted by bu2

Yes those other cities are worse, but downtown is worse than it was 10 years ago. There were very few up San Jacinto/Caroline back then. Now there are tent cities up there starting just north of Toyota Center up towards the Courthouse.

Originally Posted by oil capital

Where, exactly? I am in that area pretty frequently on bike, foot and in a car and have not seen anything I would call a tent city. There is often a group of homeless at Caroline and Prairie, but it's hardly a tent city, let alone plural tent cities.

Reposting this to try again to get an answer. Actually, I know the answer, I just wanted to point out that bu2 is perhaps less than reliable.