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Those other countries also probably don't have legal systems that emphasize the right of self-determination to the extent ours does.
We have resources for people who have the wherewithal to seek and make use of those resources. Most of those people are already off the streets. Most of the ones left over are those who are either too self-medicated or too mentally ill -- and they're often one in the same -- to seek the help they need, and our legal system makes it very difficult to force them into it.
The blessing and the curse of LA and San Francisco specifically is that the climate -- both weather and political -- makes them attractive places to be homeless year-round. Honolulu is another city with a serious homeless problem for much the same reasons.
The fact that they prefer that to shelters should tell you how awful the shelters can be. Plus there's still a sense of personal space and unwritten rules and customs in these homeless encampments. Put a bunch of them elbow-to-elbow in a room full of cots in an environment they have no control over and all bets are off.
Why can’t they at least provide toilets and showers for them, and clean them regularly? And dedicate some land where they can have their tents if that’s what they want, like a campsite? The reason they don’t want to be in a shelter is because a shelter has rules. They can’t beg for money, shoot up, drink alcohol, keep their pets, or whatever else they want to do. At least in a dedicated space, they could have basic hygiene.
Why can’t they at least provide toilets and showers for them, and clean them regularly? And dedicate some land where they can have their tents if that’s what they want, like a campsite? The reason they don’t want to be in a shelter is because a shelter has rules. They can’t beg for money, shoot up, drink alcohol, keep their pets, or whatever else they want to do. At least in a dedicated space, they could have basic hygiene.
That really does seem to be a good solution. It would at least keep the human waste off the street and offer some form of hygiene.
They'd need hazmat suits to clean those showers daily. Maybe free tetnus shots or a few other basic boosters for disease.
Those other countries also probably don't have legal systems that emphasize the right of self-determination to the extent ours does.
We have resources for people who have the wherewithal to seek and make use of those resources. Most of those people are already off the streets. Most of the ones left over are those who are either too self-medicated or too mentally ill -- and they're often one in the same -- to seek the help they need, and our legal system makes it very difficult to force them into it.
The blessing and the curse of LA and San Francisco specifically is that the climate -- both weather and political -- makes them attractive places to be homeless year-round. Honolulu is another city with a serious homeless problem for much the same reasons.
Other countries have simlar problems but manage to put more resources in place, and to offer housing to the vast majority of homesless, whilst those who are mentally ill are often encouraged in to supported housing schemes.
The truth being that the homeless problems are more to do with economic problems than alcohol, drugs and mental illness. Indeed many people who are homeless are decent people who have fallen on hard times and this is reflected in recent media articles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Los Angeles Times
To United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, who toured Los Angeles as part of a fact-finding tour on poverty last year, one thing stands out about Southern California's homelessness problem. The region, he stated multiple times, has the resources to solve the issue, but chooses not to.
Americans "don't want to put the money into it," Alston said in December. They "want to see homeless people as losers, a low form of life."
In a preliminary report, the Australian law professor notes one factor that may account for Americans' babbling fear of their unwashed neighbors, unequal distribution of wealth, income and opportunity that threatens to push even the middle class out of their homes and onto the street.
"Only a tiny percentage of the [U.S.] population is immune from the possibility that they could fall into poverty as a result of bad breaks beyond their own control," Alston writes.
"The American Dream is rapidly becoming the American Illusion as the U.S. now has the lowest rate of social mobility of any of the rich countries."
He bases his assertions on data from the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the World Income Inequality Database.
Many people think of homelessness as a problem of substance abusers and mentally ill people, of chronic skid row street-dwellers pushing shopping carts. But increasingly, the crisis in Los Angeles today is about a less visible (but more numerous) group of “economically homeless” people. These are people who have been driven onto the streets or into shelters by hard times, bad luck and California’s irresponsible failure to address its own housing needs.
Consider Nadia, whose story has become typical. When she decided she had to end her abusive marriage, she knew it would be hard to find an affordable place to live with her three young children. With her husband, she had paid $2,000 a month for a three-bedroom condo in the San Fernando Valley, but prices were rising rapidly, and now two-bedroom apartments in the area were going for $2,400 — an impossible rent for a single parent who worked part time at Magic Mountain.
For months she hunted while staying with family and friends. She qualified for a unit in a low-income housing project, but the waiting list was two years long. She obtained a federal Section 8 voucher to subsidize the rent in a market-rate apartment, but landlord after landlord refused to accept Section 8, or charged a rent that was too high to meet the federal government’s unrealistically low “fair-market rent” limit.
Nadia and her rambunctious young kids eventually wore out their welcome at the houses where they were staying. They found themselves left with little choice, with neither a place of their own nor a friend to fall back on. Last summer, they took refuge at San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission’s shelter for homeless families.
Why can’t they at least provide toilets and showers for them, and clean them regularly? And dedicate some land where they can have their tents if that’s what they want, like a campsite? The reason they don’t want to be in a shelter is because a shelter has rules. They can’t beg for money, shoot up, drink alcohol, keep their pets, or whatever else they want to do. At least in a dedicated space, they could have basic hygiene.
Those are all the reasons many don't want to find permanent or transitional housing. For most shelters, they only need to refrain from doing these things long enough to ramble in at night, find a cot, get some sleep, eat breakfast, and ramble out. The reasons why many don't want to do that is because shelters are rife with theft, physical assault, and sexual assault.
That really does seem to be a good solution. It would at least keep the human waste off the street and offer some form of hygiene.
They'd need hazmat suits to clean those showers daily. Maybe free tetnus shots or a few other basic boosters for disease.
They could pay the residents to clean the spaces. I’m sure there would be some willing and able to do it. And yes, have medical workers go their regularly to keep them vaccinated. No judgment, just help.
They could pay the residents to clean the spaces. I’m sure there would be some willing and able to do it. And yes, have medical workers go their regularly to keep them vaccinated. No judgment, just help.
Too much common sense. CA would rather have a billion dollar bullet train.
Those are all the reasons many don't want to find permanent or transitional housing. For most shelters, they only need to refrain from doing these things long enough to ramble in at night, find a cot, get some sleep, eat breakfast, and ramble out. The reasons why many don't want to do that is because shelters are rife with theft, physical assault, and sexual assault.
Really? What are the conservatives doing to get these people off the streets and help them become productive members of society?
LA is a liberal city run by liberals who can't (or won't} solve their own problems and you want the conservatives to come in and wave a magic wand to make it all go away. It wouldn't matter what any conservative proposed. It could be the best idea in the world and the liberals wouldn't like it.
Further, you can't help someone that doesn't want to be helped. Maybe the Hollywood elitists can pitch in and buy everyone a nice condo in Malibu and a new BMW.
Other countries have simlar problems but manage to put more resources in place, and to offer housing to the vast majority of homesless, whilst those who are mentally ill are often encouraged in to supported housing schemes.
You know, I'm getting a little sick of being told by people who know nothing about our society except the glimpses they see of it from the outside that we WANT people to be homeless because we think they're losers. You and everyone else who repeats that slander can fk right off. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on anti-poverty programs every year. There are whole armies of people doing everything they can to help. But for better or worse we DO have a legal system that makes it next to impossible to help those who, for reasons of incapacity or just plain stubbornness, refuse to be helped.
Quote:
Originally Posted by katygirl68
And the Skid Row is not?
Not as readily as the shelters. Like I said, at least in the homeless encampments there is a sense of personal space, unwritten rules and customs, enforcement mechanisms for those rules and customs, etc., where they at least have some control over their fate. All that structure goes out the window the minute you pack them in shoulder to shoulder, elbow-to-elbow with complete strangers in an environment they have no personal stake in or control over.
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