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I agree. If you are homeless and the conditions are so bad you don't want to go there, then change your life to make sure you never have to depend upon the government.
Another problem within itself. Truth be told, the shelters exhibit the same issues as your typical slumlord. Add to it that a lot of shelter residents have mental issues, and it culminates to a bad situation.
How would you go about cleaning up the shelters? Any ideas?
It is very hard to reform the shelter system. Shelters are run by non-profits with nice sounding names (such as "Women in Need") and nice sounding social causes to the general public who get billions of dollars per year from the city. The moment any politician even touches it, they come out using protest/special interest groups about how a politician X is against helping homeless people. It is all a giant hustle, where these non-profits have absolutely no accountability about the service they are providing, shielded by the bleeding heart public who don't know any better.
The homeless themselves are the ones creating the danger to themselves and others. If they have a criminal history, throw them in jail. If they have a mental history throw them in a mental institution (and yes these need to be brought back big time). If you take care of those two subgroups, then the shelters will become safer literally overnight as those two groups are the ones contributing most of the problems.
Nothing wrong with any of what you said here. But as far as bringing mental institutions back, that's not a city issue, that's a state issue.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
Good number of these homeless who aren't mentally ill are junkies. Thus always one fix away from an OD or something else that will carry them off.
Lex and 86th area is lousy with them; hunched over totally out of their minds, passed out on street, dancing and screaming in middle of East 86th... This and of course passed out in any doorway or bank atm lobby they can find.
Since Citizens Bank took over HSBC branches ones I've passed on UES have become new squat for druggie homeless. They used to squat at TD Bank branches, especially one at 86th and Lex (now closed), but TD finally started putting security in those spots. Walk past Citizens on 86th by Shake Shake and there's three, four, five or more strung out in there.
It is very hard to reform the shelter system. Shelters are run by non-profits with nice sounding names (such as "Women in Need") and nice sounding social causes to the general public who get billions of dollars per year from the city. The moment any politician even touches it, they come out using protest/special interest groups about how a politician X is against helping homeless people. It is all a giant hustle, where these non-profits have absolutely no accountability about the service they are providing, shielded by the bleeding heart public who don't know any better.
Can you provide an example to the bolded?
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
The homeless themselves are the ones creating the danger to themselves and others. If they have a criminal history, throw them in jail. If they have a mental history throw them in a mental institution (and yes these need to be brought back big time). If you take care of those two subgroups, then the shelters will become safer literally overnight as those two groups are the ones contributing most of the problems.
That is exactly true. The same problem as with NYCHA. What taxpayers offer is modest but decent - then residents themselves turn it into a nightmare of danger and dirt. They are the type of residents that would turn Buckingham Palace into a nightmare in a few months, if you tried to house them there.
I am personally familiar with another type of a modest accommodation that usually receives pretty minimal upkeep, and is very cheap: backpacker hostels. Many of them are bare-essentials places, but are just fine in terms of safety and basic housing for travelers, because backpackers staying there must adhere to house rules, and are generally not criminal, crazy, or using drugs on the premises.
Conditions in homeless shelters and NYCHA are not scary due to social neglect, ie, lack of taxpayer funding (which is sufficient), but are scary solely due to behavior of people who live there.
Btw, if you removed criminals, mentally ill, and addicts from shelters to other institutions, I think you would end up with empty shelters. Who else is long-term homeless except these three categories?
I don't think that's entirely true. I've read countless articles in which people were quoted stating that they'd rather go to jail than stay in a shelter due to the conditions.
I forgot which publication it was, but years ago they ran an article detailing the conditions of a family shelter in Fort Greene. Truly horrific to read.
The shelter conditions that the homeless most intensely protest are the curfew, and the requirement to not bring drugs into the shelter. Those homeless who cannot be without drugs for 8 hours will avoid shelter due to no-drugs "conditions".
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