The Bay Area Soiled/Homeless/Infested/Trashed Containment Thread (Sacramento: vacation home, refrigerators)
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There was a story two years ago in Chico. A liberal non-profit agency rented a house for homeless veterans. They all lived there happily, 7 or 8 of them, until one went to sleep with a cigarette and the whole house burned down. No one died, the agency was frantic to find them another house. Homeless are their own worst enemies.
As a self storage manager I've met hundreds and hundreds of homeless while on the job, every single day, for 15 years in Orange County.
Maybe 10 % became homeless after a job loss, bankruptcy, or medical disaster. Within 6-7 months they found a new place and rebuilt their lives.
The other 90 % was homeless due to drug addiction or aversion to work. That 90 % was usually stronger, healthier, younger than me. The only difference was that I had a strong work ethic, but they had nothing like that.
During my 15 years there I have not met a single homeless who was mentally ill, but then again, I don't have any medical training to recognize that unless they were obviously crazy.
1. Falling asleep while smoking is and has been a common cause of fire since humans started smoking. Humans are their own worst enemy.
2. Unless you can provide some competent survey of the homeless you met as a self storage manager, you have no idea how many became homeless for any reason you could list.
3. You also have no idea how many were homeless due to aversion to work or drug addiction. For example: continuous research has demonstrated that a significant percentage of drug / alcohol dependency among the homeless occurs as a result of homelessness, not a pre existing cause.
4. I can post an exhaustive list of disabilities and misfortunes that are not apparent to casual visual observation. Loss of / or congenital absence of a limb or multiple limbs, blindness, cerebral palsy, Down-syndrome, to name some visually apparent examples, are not a majority of severe disabilities and do not necessarily result in unemployability. Yet uncontrollable epilepsy, many forms of psychosis, and some severe mental and personality disorders are all examples of often unemployable disabilities that are not visually apparent all the time.
5. If you met as many homeless as you say over those years, you absolutely, most definitely DID meet more than a few who were mentally ill. Some quite severely so. Again, these conditions are not always obvious to casual observation.
Another example? A frequent problem resulting in homelessness is Borderline Personality Disorder - a brutal condition for all concerned, the afflicted and everyone associated with them.
Persons with BPD can appear, and function, quite normally a fair amount of the time ... with excellence even ... and be appealing in manner encouraging social interaction and friendship. Yet when triggered by often indiscernible causes, they become heinous monsters, viciously accusing many persons around them of all kinds of plots and intentions ... screaming fits ... destructive responses ... unbearable interactions.
While mostly BPD do not physically attack others (sometimes they do) they engage in dangerously self-destructive behaviors: sexual in nature, gambling, substance abuse, risk taking physical exploits, gross financial irresponsibility, and suicide attempts. BPD has the highest rate of attempted and completed suicides of any mental disorder/illness.
And yet ... most reading this have never even heard of Borderline Personality Disorder. Is it obscure in occurrence? Just something bleeding heart liberal social workers made up to excuse bad choice behaviors?
Look it up. You’ll be astounded. It is well known in psychology/psychiatry and was long considered to be untreatable. Its origins are NOT choice and character flaws.
Just an example provided to educate you and readers that homelessness is not the simple failure mythology promotes.
I am not a bleeding heart. Not even a liberal. I belong to no party or religion and have no guiding ideology. I am not excusing or apologizing for the homeless ... I am here to explain it. And to make the case that persistent, irresponsible, anecdotal, unsubstantiated attacks on the homeless feed the disaster ...
"In fact, research concludes that violent crime by homeless against the general public is vastly less common than the homeless are victims of violent crime against them perpetrated by housed members in our society."
In our town of Paradise the crimes committed by the homeless is near zero because there are no services available to attract them.
Chico is different. Chico is a liberal college town where the greatest concern appears to be taking care / helping the homeless. There are numerous services available. So what happens is that while the homeless is maybe 1 % of the total population, the crimes committed by the homeless are around 25-30% of the total. I do know this from watching the daily news on television and reading the local papers online or in print.
There is no way in the world that you can estimate that 25-30% of all crime is committed by the homeless by 'watching the news'.
Quote:
From the article posted below, it appears that the homeless population is fairly mobile, i.e. moving from Paradise and Magalia after the fire to Chico or Oroville. But I can't find anything about these 'numerous services' that supposedly lure the homeless to Chico, nor can I find anything about a disproportionate number of crimes being committed by the homeless
The Continuum of Care count included people sheltered with FEMA support (993 people), in emergency shelters and in transitional housing (420 people), as well as those living with no shelter (891 people).
Around one in four — 23 percent — of those who were unsheltered and agreed to share why said they were Camp Fire survivors and that it was their first time experiencing homelessness. Fifteen percent said they were Camp Fire survivors and had already been experiencing homelessness before.
Of the people that were unsheltered, 43 percent responded that they most recently slept in Chico and 35 percent in Oroville, with the rest scattered in Gridley, Magalia, Paradise and Biggs. That represents a slight dip in Chico, and a slight increase in Oroville. The reason for that trend is unclear, said Griggs, but it was one of her biggest takeaways from the report. The trend could end up stretching resources in Oroville, a smaller city. https://www.chicoer.com/2019/06/18/b...rom-camp-fire/
Mutt, with all respect, you remind me of the people who lose a kid to a pitbull attack but go on and get another pit later. Nothing will change their mind. Have it your way. We can debate the issue until pigs fly, but I will stick to my opinion and so will you.
Have a nice day on your boat before they take that little gas motor off its back because it is bad for the environment. The state is lusting for my leaf blower and you could be the next target.
Please keep apologizing for the State and for the homeless. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that they are not after us.
Last edited by mgforshort; 02-02-2020 at 10:52 AM..
Mutt, with all respect, you remind me of the people who lose a kid to a pitbull attack but go on and get another pit later. Nothing will change their mind. Have it your way. We can debate the issue until pigs fly, but I will stick to my opinion and so will you. Have a nice day on your boat before they take that little gas motor off its back because it is bad for the environment. The state is lusting for my leaf blower and you could be the next target.
Lol. I don’t has a gas motor on my boat. I converted to an electric aux drive long ago.
And when was the last time anyone changed YOUR mind in a forum discussion? Hmm? I’m not concerned with changing your mind. At all. I am here, as I said, to educate general readership by contributing facts in rebuttal to mythologies. Posters, such as you, provide the venue. So I am pleased for the opportunity to engage.
As to your analogy of pit bulls: wtf? Entirely non sequitur. I haven’t suffered any kind of loss from or related to homelessness.
As to your “opinion”: um yes ... that’s absolutely an on-target comment: you are dealing in your personal, unsupported opinion ... while I deal in supportable, verifiable, deeply researched facts.
Mutt, with all respect, you remind me of the people who lose a kid to a pitbull attack but go on and get another pit later. Nothing will change their mind. Have it your way. We can debate the issue until pigs fly, but I will stick to my opinion and so will you.
Have a nice day on your boat before they take that little gas motor off its back because it is bad for the environment. The state is lusting for my leaf blower and you could be the next target.
Please keep apologizing for the State and for the homeless. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that they are not after us.
I see you just edited to add that you feel I am “apologizing” for the state and the homeless. Exactly nothing I posted was an apology for either. I haven’t mentioned the state or its failures to deal with homelessness. And I offered no apology for the homeless. What I posted was quite clear: an explanation of how casual, personal, anecdotal survey can not discern the nature of underlying causes or realities of homelessness.
Provide facts and data. Provide knowledgable erudition of the topic. Otherwise all you do is feed the mythologies that interfere with solutions.
I see you just edited to add that you feel I am “apologizing” for the state and the homeless. Exactly nothing I posted was an apology for either. I haven’t mentioned the state or its failures to deal with homelessness. And I offered no apology for the homeless. What I posted was quite clear: an explanation of how casual, personal, anecdotal survey can not discern the nature of underlying causes or realities of homelessness.
Provide facts and data. Provide knowledgable erudition of the topic. Otherwise all you do is feed the mythologies that interfere with solutions.
One person’s opinion and observations does not interfere with solutions. Just like loud mouth know it alls don’t create solutions. All you’re doing is putting people down to make yourself feel smug while politicians are bringing down Ca further and further.
One person’s opinion and observations does not interfere with solutions. Just like loud mouth know it alls don’t create solutions. All you’re doing is putting people down to make yourself feel smug while politicians are bringing down Ca further and further.
A single opinion is meaningless in a sea of facts. But many individual unsupportable opinions repeated incessantly in a venue mostly void of facts DO interfere with solutions by obfuscating reality and creating hate and antagonism where informed public support is required to enact curative actions.
I didn’t “put people down”. I challenged myths with facts.
And I haven’t discussed politicians in this exchange.
A single opinion is meaningless in a sea of facts. But many individual unsupportable opinions repeated incessantly in a venue mostly void of facts DO interfere with solutions by obfuscating reality and creating hate and antagonism where informed public support is required to enact curative actions.
I didn’t “put people down”. I challenged myths with facts.
And I haven’t discussed politicians in this exchange.
Lots of people are mad at the way Ca is being run and it doesn’t make any difference at all. When a state has a super majority in govt people have no say one way or the other. You might get all pissy hearing bashing on your adopted state but the constitution says we have freedom of speech.
You do put people down in practically every post to make your liberal opinions seem right to other people. How’s that going for you? All it does is feed your narcissistic insecure ego.
Lots of people are mad at the way Ca is being run and it doesn’t make any difference at all. When a state has a super majority in govt people have no say one way or the other. You might get all pissy hearing bashing on your adopted state but the constitution says we have freedom of speech.
You do put people down in practically every post to make your liberal opinions seem right to other people. How’s that going for you? All it does is feed your narcissistic insecure ego.
Finper, again: I haven’t been discussing government and politics in this exchange you have stepped in on here. Bashing / defending the state hasn’t been any part of the discussion until you just brought it up. If you want to raise the issues of government mismanagement of San Francisco’s homeless situation, go right ahead. But as of this point you are accusing me of things I haven't discussed.
As for your personal attack, again, I haven’t put anyone down here. Speaking of insecure ego, perhaps you need to assess your own position ... and TOS.
Have a nice day
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