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Where do you find a varied demographic, friendly, dynamic, safe, and affordable community (on/near ocean)... don't think this Nirvana exists anywhere, least in the US.
For years we keep thinking about leaving, but considering there are issues everywhere else, maybe we are on the green grass of the neighborhood. Steve and Barb, you nail RI very well. If we do leave, it will be for dry friendly climates for arthritic issues.
BTW, I see some picking on East Providence. Rumford is right near the beloved Ea$t Side and is one of the nicer city neighborhoods in the state. Great neighborhoods are everywhere in Rhode Island
Providence is generally improving not getting worse, but the metro as a whole-no. Very few cities in SE New England would please OP other than Boston/Cambridge and maybe Stamford.
Providence is one of the best cities in NE, it gets much much worse.
Providence is generally improving not getting worse, but the metro as a whole-no.
Unfortunately RI state politicians care very little for any towns outside Providence. All attention seems focused on Providence to the detriment of every where else. State government's neglect of the area outside Providence just makes it even worse with little to no investment.
Location: Earth, a nice neighborhood in the Milky Way
3,793 posts, read 2,694,775 times
Reputation: 1609
Quote:
Originally Posted by MMS02760
Unfortunately RI state politicians care very little for any towns outside Providence. All attention seems focused on Providence to the detriment of every where else. State government's neglect of the area outside Providence just makes it even worse with little to no investment.
You couldn't be more wrong here. Suburban legislators care little for Providence.
I was discussing the change in the west coast homeless scene with someone from Portland the other night. All the major west coast cities have had large homeless populations for decades but now it is off the charts. Presently the homeless population per capita in Oregon is roughly three times what it is in Rhode Island. The per capita rate for SF must be even worse if recent NY Times articles about the problem reflect reality on the streets. And we think we have it bad here.
The economy is supposedly roaring nation wide, and yet homelessness is as bad as it has been since ____________...
The homeless problem is really bad because of our immigration policies.
The economy was terrible for most of Obama's 8 years in office, yet our immigration policy never changed to reflect that. We were still allowing a million+ new immigrants into the U.S. every year despite the fact that we weren't creating enough jobs to employ them or the millions of US citizens struggling to find work.
Homelessness is primarily mental health issues, alcohol and drugs. Our state is behind 8 ball because of decades mismanagement, investment in any infrastructure is hard.
Homelessness is primarily mental health issues, alcohol and drugs. Our state is behind 8 ball because of decades mismanagement, investment in any infrastructure is hard.
Yes. Mental health/substance abuse issues account for a lot of the homelessness problem. 60% of the chronically homeless experience mental illness. 80% have alcohol/drug problems. Peripheral problems can also be tied back to those root problems as well. For example, children who grew up in foster care are far more likely to end up homeless than children who have grown up in a traditional setting. Children in foster care are also far more likely to have experienced trauma which can lead to chronic mental illness vs. other children. Of course, far more children in "traditional families" have safety nets/supports in the form of a family which will reduce homelessness during hard times as well.
There are a number of reasons for the recent rise in homelessness (it's a nationwide phenomenon). A big one is the shift of from institutional-based mental health treatment to community-based treatment. Over the past few decades, most states have shifted to treating individuals with mental illness in the community rather than placing them in institutions. Obviously this means people who were formerly in locked facilities are now in the community. While housing programs for the mentally ill are growing, there are still nowhere near enough to support the vast number of individuals in need. A lot of the people who have fallen through the cracks end up on the street. Or in jail (2 million people with serious mental illness are jailed annually).
Long story short, states decided that mental institutions were wrong (something I do agree with), but they did away with them before having appropriate supports in place for all of the people who would be displaced. They're trying hard to pick up the slack, but they're not there yet.
Worth noting, a lot of the mentally ill homeless population is defined as "difficult to engage." They either don't want supports/services, or they have other conditions (medical, substance abuse, etc.) that make it difficult to place them into a support program. It's not as if people are just begging to come off the street.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 36,957,550 times
Reputation: 40635
Quote:
Originally Posted by lrfox
Long story short, states decided that mental institutions were wrong (something I do agree with), but they did away with them before having appropriate supports in place for all of the people who would be displaced. They're trying hard to pick up the slack, but they're not there yet.
.
Much of this is thanks to Reagan and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, where they cut funding for mental health hospitals (which yes, had many problems) with the notions that states would pick up the slack... but of course they didn't have the money or wherewithal to do so. We see during Reagan's two terms the real large beginning of the rise of the homeless problem in the U.S.
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